Cancer-stricken Valerie Harper not saying good-bye

The Associated Press, Sunday, March 10, 2013, 4:44pm (PDT)

NEW YORK (AP) — She has incurable cancer, but Valerie Harper says she's not ready to say good-bye and that she's keeping herself open to a miracle.

In her first TV interview since disclosing her diagnosis last week, the 1970s sitcom star tells the "Today" show's Savannah Guthrie that "'incurable' is a tough word."

But Harper pledges: "I'm not dying until I do."

She was recently diagnosed with a rare brain cancer. She has been told she has as little as three months to live.

Harper, now 73, won fame playing Rhoda Morgenstern on TV's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spinoff, "Rhoda." The interview is scheduled to air on NBC's "Today" on Monday.

Harper says going public with her illness "feels awful damn good."