Valerie Harper has terminal brain cancer

TORONTO – Television icon Valerie Harper has terminal brain cancer.

The 73-year-old actress best known for playing Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda revealed her medical condition in an exclusive interview in the new issue of PEOPLE.

“I don’t think of dying,” she told the magazine. “I think of being here now.”

Harper said she was diagnosed with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis on Jan. 15. It is a rare condition where cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane around the brain.

Doctors have given the star about three months to live. On Wednesday’s Today Show, Harper said she is undergoing chemotherapy in hopes of prolonging her life.

Harper, whose mother Iva McConnell was a Canadian nurse, battled lung cancer in 2009.