I, Rhoda

I love celebrity biographies and autobiographies because I love getting the inside scoop and dirt of what really goes on in the entertainment world. Although I have ,of course, seen Valerie Harper on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda, I chose this book because I primarily wanted the details of

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when she was fired from her sitcom Valerie (that show is more of my time than MTM.) I was disappointed that this period of her life was glossed over and not much detail was given at all. That was actually a running theme with this book. Valerie told her story as mostly a timeline of her life, without going into too much detail on any event. She did drop plenty of names, which is GREAT with me, but she didn’t really have much to say about any of those names except that they were great, amazing, beautiful, etc.

That was another thing that bothered me. She talks about her work with the feminist movement and the ERA but at the same time she is very focused on her own appearance and the appearance of other women. Usually positive in the case of other women and negative about herself. That seemed contradictory to me.

One last criticism. Valerie narrated the audio book herself and I thought she spoke too slowly and overemphasized too many of the words. I did enjoy the various accents that she used when imitating people though.

Even though I had some issues with this book, I still enjoyed it for the most part and I’m glad I read it. I had no idea that Valerie started as a dancer or that she had an active career after Valerie that included being nominated for a Tony Award. There is no mention of her recent brain cancer diagnosis but I was surprised that she survived a bout with lung cancer a few years ago. Valerie Harper seems like a positive person and I wish her all the best in her remaining days, weeks or hopefully, years.

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