Valerie Harper Wraps Up "Looped"

What's the opposite of Rhoda Morgenstern? Answer: Tallulah Bankhead. Valerie Harper is playing Tallulah Bankhead in "Looped" on Broadway, and, as noted by The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck "effectively bury[s] her own persona," garnering "big laughs with her razor-sharp delivery of the endlessly profane dialogue."

Although she appeared on the Broadway stage as a dancer at the beginning of her career, it wasn't until of late that Harper's had major roles on Broadway, as she attests in her Archive of American Television interview:

"If God said you've got to choose one thing now, I think I would probably say: theater. Because it was my first love and — you’ll find this hard to believe — when I was five and six years old, I dreamed of being on Broadway. And it wasn’t until I was quite old, that I actually was on Broadway. And it was like going back to a part of my life that I’d almost forgotten about."

Valerie Harper discusses her career in the theater and her greatest fame on TV (an Emmy-winner as a supporting player and then lead as "Rhoda Morgenstern" on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda) in her Archive of American Television interview. She wraps up "Looped" this weekend at the Lyceum Theatre.