Valerie Harper is not in a coma, despite a report claiming otherwise.
The actress, who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer more than two years ago, took to Facebook to explain what really happened when she fell ill at Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine this week.
“My dear friends and fans! As always, thank you for your amazing support,” Valerie wrote on her Facebook page on Friday night. “I am happy to report I am not, nor have I been, in a coma. As anyone who has taken strong medication knows, it doesn’t always agree with you, even with me as this experience proves.”
The 75-year-old said she’s “confronting these hurdles” with her “usual enthusiasm and love of life,” and even managed to see the good in being airlifted to the hospital.
“I must confess that the highlight of this ordeal came when I was escorted by two handsome young men and a pilot, in a medivac helicopter, as the full moon lit the sky,” she wrote. “Talk about movie magic!!!”
Valerie had been performing in the Ogunquit production of “Nice Work If You Can Get It” as Millicent Winter, along with Sally Struthers as Duchess Estonia Dulworth.
According to NECN’s Danielle Waugh in Maine, on Friday, the Ogunquit Playhouse said the actress wants to return to the stage –and she may make it back before the show ends on August 15.
Valerie was initially given three to six months to live back in January 2013, when doctors first issued a terminal diagnosis.
— Erin O’Sullivan
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