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by Harper, Valerie

  I was saddened by the way the cancellation came about, but I wasn’t surprised. After all, that’s show business. I was starting to feel that the show had run its course. The Mary Tyler Moore Show had already ended. It felt like a groundbreaking era of television was coming to a natural end. My biggest regret was that we hadn’t been given an opportunity to write a final episode for Rhoda. The Mary Tyler Moore Show had wrapped up with a perfect, bitter-sweet, and amusing finale on which I was thrilled to be able to appear. I wish that Rhoda had been given the same opportunity.

  The minute I fully grasped that the show was over, I decided to throw a party. And I mean a party—a big, extravagant blast. As usual, Mimi jumped in to set things up. I rented the large party room in Chasen’s, a historic and glamorous restaurant in Beverly Hills. Mimi and I put our heads together to put on a fabulous do. I wanted to spare no expense when it came to thanking all the people who had contributed to five wonderful years of Rhoda, and I invited everyone who had worked on the show: actors, writers, directors, guest stars, crew, staff, camera operators, prop people, secretaries, everyone.

  It was a wonderful party. We had tons of hors d’oeuvres, a fantastic menu, and unlimited champagne. I knew the entire company needed to be together, especially because we were canceled while on hiatus. We needed time to unwind and say good-bye, hug one another, and exchange phone numbers (whether or not we would end up using them).

  There was an unquestionable sense of liberation, albeit tinged with sadness, that evening. We all knew that we had contributed to something wonderful, something that would endure. We had done things on television that had never been accomplished. We’d broken records and broken barriers, shifting cultural expectations of what can be shown on TV. It had been a tremendous journey.

  I was both nostalgic and relieved that Rhoda was over. There are times in this business when you ask yourself in the middle of a dreadful show, “Who do I have to sleep with to get out of this turkey?” There are other times when you wake up in the morning and pray for the show you’re in never to end. With Rhoda, I was fortunate enough not to experience either of these extremes.

  I never grew tired of being Rhoda; I never felt saddled with her. But I wasn’t devastated to let her go. When the shock of cancellation subsided, I realized that I was ready to move on. The run had come to a nearly perfect conclusion.

  After all, nine years had passed since I’d stepped into the role of Rhoda Morgenstern—four years on Mary Tyler Moore and five years on Rhoda. It seemed like an impossible stretch of luck. I never imagined that I’d work with such steadiness, that I’d have nine uninterrupted years of continuous employment in a role I loved, a role brilliantly written and conceived by some of the most talented minds in the business.

  I knew that it would be impossible to say good-bye to Rhoda entirely. And I didn’t want to. Happily, she would live forever in the TV universe—Valerie as Rhoda. To this day, many people are surprised to discover that I’m not Jewish. Fans, usually older women, often came up to me on the street and said while pinching my cheeks, “Sweetheart, darling, I read that you aren’t Jewish. Say it isn’t so.”

  I had a stock answer for this. “Listen,” I replied, “in my heart, I’m Jewish. And if you go back far enough, we’re all Jewish. The Jews are an ancient people. I don’t see Babylonians, I don’t see Sumerians or Phoenicians, but I see Jews are here. And by the way, Rhoda is Jewish.”

  This usually got a laugh. “I thought for sure you, Valerie, were Jewish,” my fans would reply. “You have the neshama,” which is to say the spirit or the soul of the religion. For me, this was always one of the highest compliments I received.

  Of course, Rhoda wasn’t written for a Jewish audience but for anyone who liked to laugh. She was written for anyone who used humor to hide struggle, sadness, and fear. Anyone who wanted someone to commiserate with over body-image issues and boy trouble could turn to Rhoda. Anyone who dreamed big and fell flat had a friend in Rhoda. And then anyone who kept going had her as an ally.

  Over the years, whenever I meet fans of Rhoda, I’m always treated as a long-lost friend. On the street, in shops, in airports, even on the telephone—everywhere—I’m thanked warmly for the laughs, the encouragement, the comfort when things seemed bleak, and the loving connection that Rhoda provided. Even though we filmed our last episode in 1978, Rhoda lives on in reruns and in so many people’s hearts.

  chapter

  EIGHT

  During the nine years I spent as Rhoda Morgenstern, social and political activism remained a vital part of my life—a passion as important to me as acting. One of the greatest benefits of being a celebrity was that I now had a platform to bring attention to the issues most important to me. The more famous I became, the more responsible I felt.

  Often people assume that being a celebrity means that your rights as an ordinary citizen get revoked. I have always thought the opposite—being famous means you can and should do more to bring about the change you believe in. Now that I was in the public eye, I redoubled my efforts to support the ongoing struggle for social justice around the country and the world.

  It was well known in Hollywood that I was an activist, and as my so-called celebrity status grew, I was inundated with requests to lend my name to many worthy causes. There are so many fights worth fighting, and I simply could not participate in all of them. In deciding how best to devote my energy, I took the advice of actor-activist Alan Alda, who said: “Try to lend your name only to those organizations you are directly, actively working with.” Since I was someone who wanted to say yes to every request that came my way, the Alan Alda rule helped me prioritize my efforts. (Alan is like a brother to Rhoda. Literally. His father, Broadway star Robert Alda, played Joe’s dad on the show!)

  By the early 1970s I was beginning to understand that the fight for civil rights, both nationally and globally, was absolutely analogous to the struggle for women’s rights. African-Americans, as well as other minorities and women (a majority), are subjugated by a ruling class that unfairly dictates the limits of their freedom. This was, and continues to be, unacceptable to me.

  During the late sixties, I began reading a great deal about the burgeoning feminist movement. When I moved to Los Angeles, my interest only grew. In our affluent and free country, women were still being treated as second-class citizens. Too often people mistook comfort and stability for equality. Sure, some women seemed happy, stuck at home in the kitchen. But was this prescribed role supposed to be the only one all of us wanted? Come on.

  Gloria Steinem’s belief that the worst thing done to women is the trivialization of our lives resonated deeply with me. I remembered my mother’s frustrations at not being allowed to become a doctor, as well as her forsaking her career as a nurse in order to raise her family—her love for us notwithstanding. Actively fighting for women’s rights was something I wanted to do. It was what Rhoda Morgenstern would have done.

  Around 1972, I was asked to work on the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Because I was on television in a groundbreaking series featuring women—The Mary Tyler Moore Show—I was a natural for appearances to raise both money and awareness about the importance of this change to our Constitution. I already supported the ERA, but in order to serve as a spokesperson, I needed to learn everything about it. Before speaking in public and to the media, I had to learn to communicate the facts clearly and accurately.

  My volunteer tutor, a young, pretty lawyer with dark brown eyes, arrived at my door in Westwood in a smart red suit with a big smile. “Hi, I’m Gloria Allred,” she said. “I’m here to teach you the legalities of the ERA.” This she did, brilliantly. “Gender is not a valid, legal classification of persons,” Gloria explained.

  The Equal Rights Amendment had been drafted by Alice Paul in 1923 and introduced before every congressional session from 1923 to 1970. Yet it did not reach the floor of the House or the Senate for a vote until 1972, when it was passed out of Congress and turned over to the individual s
tates for ratification. Gloria explained that passing the amendment would prohibit any state from discriminating against any person on account of gender. Its purpose was to write women into the Constitution as full citizens. Sounds basic, right? Well, to this day, the only specific, written guarantee for us is the right to vote. That is simply not enough.

  The ERA is a scant twenty-three words: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” As of today, thirty-five states (of the required thirty-eight) have ratified the amendment, and the struggle continues in each session of Congress.

  During my yearly hiatus from Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda, under the inspired leadership of Sandy Mullins, executive director of the Committee to Ratify ERA, I would travel to various states to work toward passage of the amendment. Sandy had assembled and trained a group of Hollywood actors—myself, Jean Stapleton, Barbara Feldon, Carol Burnett, Anne-Marie Johnson, Ed Asner, Joan Hackett, Cindy Williams, Polly Bergen, Alan Alda, Linda Lavin, Maureen McGovern, and many more—to fight the good fight. We lobbied, rallied, marched, petitioned, picketed, and campaigned intensely to get those final three states to ratify. Once an actress, Timothy Blake, in utter exasperation at our failure to convince certain male legislators to vote our way, said, “Well, Val, we’ve done everything legally possible. I guess it’s time to put on trashy lingerie and head out in cabs.” We laughed at the time, but we were so disheartened that we would not succeed after all our work. The struggle for women’s rights is the longest nonviolent revolution in the history of the world, and I will be in it until the end.

  One of the most memorable events I attended during that period was a giant Mother’s Day march in Chicago, where we all wore white with green sashes, the colors of the suffragettes. There were a lot of show business stars at the front of the march, but it was my enormous honor to walk alongside the titans of the women’s movement, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem.

  Gloria was very witty and very beautiful. She communicated effortlessly in a mellifluous, measured voice that underlined her intellect and gave her an air of cultured sophistication. Gloria did me the honor of asking me to pose for the cover of Ms. magazine, my favorite publication. The subject of the article was women and money, and the cover featured me, supposedly nude, standing behind a giant dollar bill. (In truth, I was wearing a strapless bodysuit.)

  Of these three feminist leaders, I spent the most time with Bella Abzug. She and her husband, Marty, with whom she was completely in love, used to come to the Westwood house for dinner with me and Dick. Although I’d avoided supporting candidates in elections, choosing to work on issues, I gladly stumped for Bella on her home turf in Brooklyn. I was always delighted to lend my support to Battling Bella.

  She was truly courageous. A principled member of Congress, she was unafraid to stand up for her constituents, no matter how disparaging her opponents were. Men would say the crudest things about her fight and the rudest things about her person. But nothing deterred Bella. There she’d be, wearing her trademark hat, inspiring us as she got up on the floor of the House and laid it down before Congress.

  Bella was a real New York girl—outspoken, tough, and wonderfully funny. She had a deep, hearty laugh that she never held back. (Rhoda could have easily had an Aunt Bella.) Her almond-shaped eyes were mischievous and wise. And her vision was profound, probing beneath the surface to understand the human condition, which she sought to transform. Bella must have been a real beauty when she was younger. By the time I met her, she was an extremely popular, powerful force, a compact tank of a woman with a deep, authoritative voice.

  Bella, Gloria, and Betty were not the only remarkable leaders with whom I had the honor of meeting and working in the 1970s. Ever since I stood in front of supermarkets boycotting grapes in the 1960s, I had been a huge admirer of César Chávez and the farmworkers’ struggle. While I was on Rhoda, Mimi arranged a luncheon in my dressing room so I could meet César, the founder of the United Farm Workers of America, in order to help him work on the passage of Proposition 14 in the next California election. The proposed law provided that a portion of fines collected from supermarket health code violations would help pay the health-care costs for farmworkers harmed doing the brutal job of harvesting. A lot of the cast, crew, and staff on Rhoda were eager to meet the famous, respected labor leader, whom I considered the sole survivor of the magnificent triumvirate of social justice heroes of the 1960s, the others being Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Although we ultimately lost Proposition 14, a devoted cadre of celebrities remained committed to supporting César’s efforts. Martin Sheen, Ed Begley, Jr., Jane Fonda, Dennis Weaver, myself, and others continued fund-raising, attending conferences, actions, and marches all over Southern California.

  César was a brilliant man with a simple, quiet power. He was soft-spoken, kind, and compelling. His studious presence and focused singularity of purpose assured you: “This is a great man!” César and Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the UFW who was honored in 2012 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, were tireless fighters, determined to improve the poverty-stricken lives of farmworkers and the safety of everyone’s food supply. Time spent with them was filled with mariachi music, laughter, and vegan burritos.

  Dick and I hosted a number of events and meetings on César’s behalf, including one lovely dinner party that Diana Ross attended in order to meet César. César came with a number of security guards, handsome, somber young Mexican-American men with terrific mustaches and beautifully embroidered white shirts. Several searched the house, while one stood guard at the door, one in the back, and one on the roof as we dined.

  The primary purpose of this dinner was to introduce César to a man who had recently become an influential figure in my life—Werner Erhard, the founder of est. Werner had immersed himself in the study of hunger and César was pleased to meet to discuss issues of food and poverty. In 1975, at the suggestion of my friend, the actor Anthony Zerbe, Dick and I had signed up for the two-weekend session of Erhard Seminars Training (est). The training was at the forefront of the Human Potential Movement that swept across the country in the 1970s. Est married spirituality to psychology and self-empowerment to deep and often painful personal examination. Facing yourself is tough love at its best.

  The purpose of est was to help people shift their contextual state of mind from attempting to feel satisfaction in their lives to actually being able to experience that satisfaction. Werner’s seminars strove to free people from their pasts and allow them to live fully in the present from moment to moment (just like excellent actors try to do in their work).

  Est was a wonderfully empowering experience for me. It took a lot of the struggle and conflict out of my day-to-day decision-making and helped me to imbue my life with more focus and intention. I learned that there was a difference between committing to try to live a certain way and actually living the way you intend. Werner spoke of how unsuccessfully a lot of us live our lives. “Imagine if your life is a car. What would happen if you got in, started the motor, and then took off, steering the car with your hands on the rearview mirror? You’d wind up in a ditch or worse.” Werner explained that the training helped you to get your hands off the rearview mirror and onto the steering wheel of your life. Sounds simple, right? It worked for me.

  The two weekends of est training were tough and at times emotionally eviscerating. But I noticed a marked change in myself. I was happier, more alive, and everything seemed lighter. Most of all, I stopped feeling desperate and uptight about things in my life that I couldn’t control.

  Based on the premise that the world could really use some transformation, the training was geared to transforming individuals who will then transform the planet. In 1977, Werner, John Denver, and Professor Bob Fuller of Oberlin College founded a separate organization called the Hunger Project, which put forth a powerful and effective approach to ending world hunger. Much of the thinking behind the
Hunger Project was from the work of Buckminster Fuller. (Bucky himself participated in many of the huge Hunger Project events across the country.) I was asked to be on the advisory board and eagerly agreed.

  Werner invited us to envision ourselves as part of the end of worldwide hunger. Given the enormity of the problem, other organizations were doing Herculean work that focused on alleviating hunger. The Hunger Project’s goal was not the alleviation of hunger but the end of the persistence of hunger on the planet. A mighty endeavor!

  The first step was to shift people’s mind-set about hunger. We invited people to visualize a world without hunger and to ask themselves if they’d be willing for world hunger to end forever. “But it can’t!” they’d say. And that’s the same kind of resignation we would later encounter in the developing world, where the hungry people themselves thought they were powerless.

  And then we would ask people, “But would you personally be willing for it to end?”

  Those who answered yes started on a process, however subtle, of becoming part of the solution instead of part of the problem. The notion that hunger could only be alleviated, not eradicated, was so firmly entrenched in the cultural consciousness that changing people’s way of thinking was like swimming upstream against a strong current. Despite the opposition, we opened up a global conversation that hunger exists, it doesn’t need to, and each of us can make the difference.

  Werner held four-hour symposiums in cities around the country to provide people with the facts about hunger-related deaths. As a celebrity, I was in a position to assist in disseminating this vital information. I traveled to East Africa on a Hunger Project fact-finding mission, visiting various countries that included Kenya, Uganda, and Somalia. When I was in Nairobi, I stepped out of the hotel elevator and a Kenyan couple stopped, stared, and the woman shouted gleefully in her African accent, “Rhoda!” Hard to believe the reach of American television! I expected the trip to be daunting, filled with refugee camps and untold thousands of displaced, suffering, hungry people. But when I arrived, I was overwhelmed by the beauty, resourcefulness, and courage I encountered. The hunger camps were lined with small domed huts, formed from thorny branches that stretched across the barren landscape as far as the eye could see. They looked like a mass of desert igloos.