Posted on 03/06/2013 7:20:39 AM PST by ConservativeStatement
LOS ANGELES, March 6 (UPI) -- U.S. television icon Valerie Harper told People magazine she has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and likely has no more than three months to live.
Harper, 73, is best known for her portrayal of Rhoda Morgenstern on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spin-off, "Rhoda." She also headlined the sitcom "Valerie."
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
I went to the source article. Ms. Harper does not elaborate the type of cancer she has. I wanted to learn the type, as the horror of brain cancer affected my family. My mom died of a glioblastoma multiforme 30 plus years ago. Her illness was horrific. Whatever Harper’s politics, beliefs, or business shortcomings, only prayer and sympathy can be extended when faced w/this hideous form of cancer. It’s an awful way to die.
I am with you there. I had an uncle die of something similar. Praying the Good Lord will spare her suffering.
When I was in HS I was in Drama Club: school musicals. We had a teacher who used Julie Kavner as a “career” actress, as she was a “character” performer. Different “look,” voice, etc. This many years later, Kavner is taking it to the bank still for her voice/timing on The Simpsons.
Well done!
Maybe Nancy Pelosi will be next. Doh I shouldn’t say that, oh wait, yes I should. It won’t happen though. Luck like that just doesn’t exist. Plus liquor stores would sell out their champagne supply for the next year and there be none left for New years.
<wow. I can’t even remember the word “gay” having been appropriated by homosexuals as early as the early 70.
There is a scene in a movie, I forget if it is ‘Philadelphia Story’ or ‘Bringing up Baby,’ with Cary Grant answering the front door in a frilly ladies’ bathroom. The person at the door comments and Grant says, “I went gay all of a sudden.” If it was in ‘Bringing up Baby’ that would be 1938.
Perhaps it wasn’t in common use, but put a man in a frilly bathrobe and I think most people would get what he meant, whether ‘gay’ was in common use or not. I remember seeing that scene and being quite surprised that gayness would even be referred to back then.
I never use that word to describe homosexuals. My sister is named Gay, and was born in 1949 when it meant happy, which it still does of course. When someone at our house says anything about someone being “gay”, my husband always responds with, “What’s wrong with being gay? I’m gay. I’m one of the happiest people you will ever meet!” We’re on a personal crusade to have that word stop being used as a term for sexual perversion.
I would love to see people who die in 2013...RINOS and Marxists (but I'd have to wait til 2014)
We can only hope...She would be at a table with Hugo and other people like Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot and Harry Reid (Yes, he is dead... he doesn't know it yet)
Yes, she was pretty. I remember an episode of “Rhoda” where Rhoda’s younger sister wants to get plastic surgery and tells Rhoda, “I’m not like you. You have a pretty face.” And Rhoda responds, “Well, not many of the boys in high school were face men.”
Very sad she has to go through this. I wonder what it’s like to know that you’ve only got three months left? Prayers for her and her family.
Sorry to hear that about your mom. My father died of glioblastoma multiforme about 2 years ago and you are right, it is an absolutely evil cancer (i.e. no hope, no cure. Even radiation is worthless).
Even though she is a lib, I feel bad for her and her family. They will go through hell. I would only wish this cancer on the very worst of my enemies.
I think it's preferable to dying suddenly, like in a car accident..no time for any goodbyes, closure..
There were unquestionably subtle homo references and allusions back then, especially in the pre-code (pre-1934) films, before the Hays code. However, I don’t think that was the case with the example you cited, as “gay” would have been meant in the wacky/balmy sense... a guy in a woman’s bathrobe being akin more to waking up after a night’s wild-party, drunken silliness like someone wearing a lampshade for a hat.
A woman’s bathrobe as a humor device (like the time in the “Blondie” comic-strip in which the doorbell rings and Dagwood jumps from the bathtub and into Blondie’s bathrobe to answer the door... prompting the salesman to say “what a homely dame”) pops up every now and then, and generally wasn’t a ‘gay’ gag.
Hey she’s not dead yet.
Prayers for her health.
In the context of the scene, it would seem that when the Cary Grant character said, "Because I just went gay all of a sudden!" it would seem not to mean “gay” as in “happy or carefree” but in the other sense as it was in answer to why he was wearing a frilly woman’s robe, but it could be taken that way as well. But then it would have made more sense to say “I was just feeling gay all of a sudden”.
Bringing Up Baby - "Gay All of a Sudden"
The word gay was long meant to mean "joyful", "carefree" or "bright and showy" but it did have a more negative usage going back to the late 1600’s to mean uninhibited or without moral constraints, loose or promiscuous and could apply to either men or women, presumably straight. The use of the word gay to mean homosexual, goes back to the late 19th century or at least the 1920’s but wasn’t in much regular usage in that way and was more often still associated with the earlier meanings of being happy and carefree until the 1960’s.
I grew up in the 1960-70’s and even as a kid, I knew that in a certain contexts, “gay” meant homosexual or as my father used to refer to them; “light in the loafers”, “poofers” or “Nancy Boys”, even if back then I didn’t completely understand all of what that meant, I did understand it to mean a man who was effeminate and preferred the company of other men. I also knew that when the Flintstone’s theme song said “We’ll have a gay old time” they didn’t mean that Fred was hooking up with Barney and Wilma with Betty.
Interesting that there’s such a long history of the word. I really don’t think I ever heard it used ‘that way’ until late 70s as the homosexual lobby was gathering steam. (around the same time abortions became ‘choices’)
Yea, I know what you mean. That was around the same time that “patriotic” came to mean “war monger”, “capitalist” came to mean “evil oppressor of the working classes”, “wealthy” or “successful business person” came to mean someone who “doesn’t pay their fair share” and “white” or “Caucasian” came to mean “racist”.
I think gay to mean homosexual probably really didn’t come into popular or widespread usage until the late 70’s, the disco era, but had been used prior to that, particularly in some circles more as a code word as it was considered less pejorative than other terms.
*My* social circles never bothered themselves much with concern about pejoratives.
She dies not have GBM, which took the life of my brother last week.
She has, “leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare disorder in which cancer cells metastasize into the fluid-filled membrane enveloping the brain.”
First...my sympathies to you and your family on the loss of your brother. May he rest in eternal peace....GBM is awful.
And thank you for clarifying Harper’s condition.
G-d bless!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.