Valerie Harper, Who Won Fame and Emmys as ‘Rhoda,’ Dies at 80

From an early age she aspired to be a ballet dancer, and, though never the sveltest girl en point, at 16 she landed a job in the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall.

“I always felt like a klutz next to those other skinny girls, as we twirled our adorable little parasols,” she said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 1974.

From there she moved to the theater. She earned chorus-line jobs in the pre-Broadway run of “Li’l Abner,” directed by Michael Kidd, and three Broadway shows, including “Wildcat,” starring Lucille Ball, and “Subways Are for Sleeping,” both also directed by Mr. Kidd.

She also studied acting — John Cassavetes was one of her teachers — and supported herself with odd jobs, including as a hatcheck girl at Lutèce. In 1964, she met and married Richard Schaal, an actor with the Chicago-based Second City troupe, and joined the company herself, learning improvisation techniques from its founder, Paul Sills, and his mother, the acting coach Viola Spolin.

In 1970, Ms. Harper was part of the Second City ensemble that appeared on Broadway in “Paul Sills’ Story Theater,” a comic adaptation of Grimm’s fairy tales laced with improv. The show ran for more than eight months, mostly while Ms. Harper was also taping the first season of “Mary Tyler Moore.” An article about her in The Times began: “The sexiest chick on Broadway has a regular job moonlighting as an overweight spinster on television.”

Ms. Harper’s marriage to Mr. Schaal ended in divorce in 1978. Survivors include her husband, whom she married in 1987, and their daughter.

Ms. Moore died in 2017 at 80.

After “Rhoda,” Ms. Harper continued to act on television and in the movies. She starred in her own series, “Valerie,” in 1986 and 1987, as the working mother of three sons with an often absent husband. (He was an airline pilot.) After a salary dispute, however, the producers killed off her character in a car accident, replaced her with Sandy Duncan and renamed the series, first “Valerie’s Family” and later “The Hogan Family.” It remained on the air until 1991.