As if we're not heartbroken enough about Valerie Harper's terminal diagnosis, she reminds us on "The Doctors" (airing Monday) why we love her so much, with this gay memory opposite Cloris Leachman on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
The Advocate reposted its 2006 interview with the LGBT ally in which she discusses the same episode HERE. Ben was played by Robert Moore, who later directed Harper in "Rhoda" and in Neil Simon's "Chapter Two" before dying of AIDS in 1984:
There’s an episode in season 3 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show where Rhoda dates Phyllis’s brother and Phyllis is horrified to think that he might fall for Rhoda. Then Rhoda breaks the news to Phyllis about her brother.
That he’s gay! Yes, I loved doing that episode. When I tell Phyllis, she says, “Oh, what a relief!” Do you know, when I said that line “He’s gay,” we got the biggest laugh ever on the show? I mean, this was the ’70s, long before Will & Grace or Ellen; there really weren’t gay characters on television back then. The audience laughed and cheered for over a minute. They had to take most of the audience response out for the broadcast cut. It was amazing. That was an extremely well-written episode — we were blessed with brilliant writing on that show.
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