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Valerie Harper hospitalized after falling ill backstage at a Maine playhouse

Valerie Harper was hospitalized Wednesday night in Maine, where she's been performing in "Nice Work If You Can Get It."

Valerie Harper was hospitalized Wednesday night in Maine, where she’s been performing in “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
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Valerie Harper is reportedly out of a Maine hospital after being rushed there Wednesday night before she was to have gone on stage in a production of the musical comedy “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”

According to the Ogunquit Playhouse, where the 75-year-old actress has been guest starring in the show with lead Sally Struthers, an ambulance was called for Harper after she said she wasn’t feeling well.

Fire department officials told “Entertainment Tonight” on Thursday that they’d gotten a call around 9 p.m. the night before regarding a 75-year-old woman unconscious backstage at the theater. “ET” said executive artistic director Bradford Kenney told the audience that the ambulance was there for Harper, who was ill and would not be performing that night.

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“She wants all of you to know after some fluids and rest she hopes to be right back here on stage later this week,” he said, according to “ET.” Harper’s character does not appear in the show until the second act.

The actress best known for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Rhoda” has been in the health spotlight since March 2013, when she revealed she was battling a rare cancer of the lining of her brain and that January had been given three to six months to live.

In August 2013, however, she said her leptomeningeal carcinomatosis was close to remission, then she did “Dancing With the Stars,” and in April 2014 she declared herself not “cancer-free” but “cautiously optimistic” about the future.

Ogunquit’s Kenney said in a statement on the theater website Thursday that Harper has been hospitalized “as a precaution,” was “resting comfortably” and would remain in the hospital for observation. However, Deadline reported Thursday that the hospital said she’d been discharged.

No details about her illness have been released.

Harper’s husband and manager, Tony Cacciotti, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.

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