By Seth Rudetsky
01 Jun 2010
Valerie got married to a man who performed with Chicago's Second City and through him, she got involved. She started doing comedy all over the country and eventually wound up living in Los Angeles. She did a little showcase where she played two different characters (one of them was Eva Braun…who would not be fond of Rhoda), and a casting director saw her, tracked her down and got her the audition for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Valerie said in those days they took a long time to cast a TV show. It wound up taking six months! They changed various concepts along the way. For instance, Ted Baxter was supposed to be Mary's love interest at first, but then Ted Knight was such a brilliant buffoon, they adjusted the character to suit him. Valerie thinks what got her the job was her Second City training. She auditioned with the first Rhoda scene in the first episode where she breaks into the apartment where Mary is standing. Instead of skipping over the action of the scene and doing her fist line, she employed all of her improv mime training. She demonstrated to us how she fully mimed knocking on the window (while making a sound with her mouth), opening it up, climbing through and, after Mary introduces herself, she says, "I'm Rhoda Morgenstern. Get out of my apartment." It was amazing hearing her say it in her Rhoda voice. I asked what things she added to her role, and she told us that she asked the writers if she could call Mary "Kid" because it implied that Rhoda was from the big city and had more experience than Mary, and then that became the nickname Rhoda always called her. At the end of the first season, Valerie won her first Emmy, and it was presented to her by…Lucille Ball! If you get the DVD of that season, you can watch Valerie come onstage and say to Lucy, "Do you remember? I danced in the chorus of Wildcat!" Speaking of which, she did a musical tribute when Lucy was honored by the Kennedy Center. It's her, Pam Dawber and Bea Arthur. Watch it here, and notice how every time there's a unison section, Bea suddenly slips down an entire octave. When Valerie was offered her own spin-off, her character left Minneapolis and moved to New York. One day, near the end of her run on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," she told Mary she was nervous that her new show would flop and Mary said, "So, you'll leave New York again and move back to Minneapolis." How nice is that? Luckily, "Rhoda" was a hit and earned Valerie her fourth Emmy Award! She's the Audra McDonald of television. I asked Valerie how she was able to be in such a good mood even though her Broadway show Looped closed way too early. I know that it's going to Toronto and then on tour, but wasn't she traumatized? She informed me that a Tony nomination eases trauma. Brava!
Valerie Harper and Seth Rudetsky photo by Robb Johnston
On Memorial Day James, Juli, Maggie (doggie) and I rented a zipcar and went out to New Jersey to visit Chris Sieber, who has a beautiful house on a lake. To get there, you literally have to take a rowboat because it's on an island, which he owns. James asked Chris how he found it in the first place…Did he always want to own an island? Chris answered, "Um…doesn't everybody?" True 'dat! We had a great time, but poor Maggie ran around too much and I had to lift her up to get her on the bed last night. I bought her doggie steps that are supposed to help dogs who don't jump as well as they used to, but when I showed them to her she essentially glared and gave me the finger. This week I'm interviewing Katie Finneran at my Sirius/XM Live On Broadway show and getting ready to take my show to DC next Monday (details at www.SethRudetsky.com). Come to the Washington JCC to see me…you don't have to be Jewish to like it. Ask Valerie! *
Seth Rudetsky has played piano in the pits of many Broadway shows including Ragtime, Grease and The Phantom of the Opera. He was the artistic producer/conductor for the first five Actors Fund concerts including Dreamgirls and Hair, which were both recorded. As a performer, he appeared on Broadway in The Ritz and on TV in "All My Children," "Law and Order C.I." and on MTV's "Made" and "Legally Blonde: The Search for the Next Elle Woods." He has written the books "The Q Guide to Broadway" and "Broadway Nights," which was recorded as an audio book on Audible.com. He is currently the afternoon Broadway host on Sirius/XM radio and tours the country doing his comedy show, "Deconstructing Broadway." He can be contacted at his website SethRudetsky.com, where he has posted many video deconstructions.
