10
AUGUST 31, 2019
Obituaries
By Ralph Blumenthal
NEW YORK TIMES
James R. Leavelle, the big
man in the white Stetson who
epitomized the horrors of the
assassination of President John
F. Kennedy in one of the most
famous photographs of all time
— the killing of Lee Harvey Os-
wald by Jack Ruby — died
Thursday at a hospital in Den-
ver. He was 99.
His death was confirmed by
his daughter, Karla Leavelle.
Mr. Leavelle, a veteran Dal-
las homicide detective who had
survived the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor in 1941, was
handcuffed to Oswald and was
leading him through a police
station basement on Nov. 24,
1963, when Ruby, a nightclub
owner, stepped out of the
crowd and pumped a fatal bul-
let into the prisoner. The shoot-
ing, with Oswald’s pained gri-
mace and Mr. Leavelle’s strick-
en glower, was chillingly
captured by Robert H. Jackson
of The Dallas Times Herald in
an iconic photograph that won
the Pulitzer Prize the following
year.
Moments earlier, he and Os-
wald had had an eerie ex-
change, Mr. Leavelle often later
recounted. “Lee,” he recalled
saying,“ifanybodyshootsat
you, I hope they are as good a
shot as you.”
To which, he said, Oswald
replied: “You’re being melodra-
matic.”
At the time, two days after
Kennedy had been gunned
down in a motorcade through
downtown Dallas, Oswald was
a suspect in the killing of a Dal-
las police officer, J.D. Tippit,
and had yet to be conclusively
tied to the assassination. But
after Mr. Leavelle asked him
whether he had shot the police
officer, Oswald aroused the de-
tective’s suspicions by insist-
ing, “I didn’t shoot anybody,” as
if, Mr. Leavelle later recounted,
there had been another shoot-
ing as well.
In the decades that fol-
lowed, Mr. Leavelle was in con-
stant demand as a speaker, in-
variably asked to recall the
fateful moment. “I saw him, he
was standing in the middle of
the driveway,” he said of Ruby
in an interview with The New
York Times in 2006.
“He had a pistol by his side,
I saw out of the corner of my
eye,” Mr. Leavelle continued. “I
jerked back on Oswald to get
him behind me. I had my hand
through his belt. All I succeed-
ed in doing, I turned him so in-
stead of dead center the bullet
hit 4 inches to the left of his na-
vel and 2 inches above.”
Another detective, L.C.
Graves, on Oswald’s other side,
grabbedRuby’spistol around
the cylinder, preventing anoth-
er shot, Mr. Leavelle recalled.
“I could see Ruby’s fingers flex-
ing on the trigger, trying to
fire,” he said. He knocked Os-
wald to the floor, removed the
handcuffs, and got him loaded
into an ambulance. “I tried to
take his pulse but I never could
detect any pulse,” Mr. Leavelle
said. He remembered hearing a
groan and sigh in the ambu-
lance, which he said he latertook as the moment of Os-
wald’s expiration, although he
was pronounced dead at Park-
land Hospital, where Kennedy
had been pronounced dead
two days earlier.
Mr. Leavelle joined the Dal-
las Police Department in 1950,
but his life had hardly lacked
drama before then. The son of
farm parents, James Robert
Leavelle was born Aug. 23,
1920, and grew up in northeastTexas near Texarkana. He
joined the Navy out of high
school in 1939 and was sta-
tioned at Pearl Harbor. He was
on a destroyer tender that car-
ried supplies to other ships
when the Japanese bombed the
fleet about a mile away on Dec.
7, 1941. He was unhurt in the
attack, but while at sea in the
Pacific during a severe storm in
1942, he fell off a ship’s ladder
and had to be evacuated to anaval hospital in California.
There he met a nurse who
became his wife, Taimi, who
died in 2014. They had three
children, Karla, Tanya Evers,
and James Craig. His son died
in 2009. He is survived by his
daughters, three grandchil-
dren, and a great-grandchild.
Unable to return to the
fighting, Mr. Leavelle became a
civilian employee of the Army
Air Force, running a militarywarehouse in Riverside, Calif.
He then became an auditor for
the federal government, inves-
tigating colleges receiving
money under the GI Bill.
He spent his first six years
on the Dallas force in patrol be-
fore making detective in 1956,
andworkedhiswayupfrom
the burglary and theft squad to
homicide, where he was work-
ing when Kennedy was assassi-
nated on Nov. 22, 1963. Mr.
Leavelle retired in 1976 and
founded a polygraph business,
which he turned over to his
daughter Karla in 1980. He un-
derwent triple-bypass heart
surgery in 2004.
Mr. Leavelle, who remained
active into his late 90s, traveled
with the help of a Dallas police
officer to the National Law En-
forcement Museum in Wash-
ington in late 2018 to rerecord
an oral history he had made
several years earlier before the
museum’s opening in October.
For years, the light-colored
double-breasted suit that Mr.
Leavelle wore in the famous
photo gathered dust in his clos-
et. He later lent it to the Sixth
Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza,
in the former Texas School
Book Depository, from where
Oswald is believed to have fired
the fatal shots.
It is displayed behind glass
with his original hat, tie, and
handcuffs.
The boots on display are a
later addition. He had thrown
out the pair he was wearing on
Nov. 22, 1963.
“I didn’t realize they were
worth something,” he said.JamesR.Leavelle,detectiveatLeeHarveyOswald’sside,diesat99
BOB JACKSON/DALLAS TIMES HERALD
Detective Leavelle (left) was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when Oswald was fatally
shot. The suit and Stetson hat Leavelle was wearing are on display at a museum in Texas.By Steven Wine
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIAMI — Pro Football Hall
of Fame center Jim Langer, who
was literally in the middle of
the Miami Dolphins’ 1972 per-
fect season, has died at the age
of 71.
Mr. Langer died Thursday at
a Coon Rapids, Minn., hospital
near his home of a sudden
heart-related problem, said his
wife, Linda.
He was a first-year starter
and played every offensive
down for the NFL’s only un-
beaten, untied team that went
17-0. The following year Mr.
Langer helped the Dolphins re-
peat as Super Bowl champions,
and began a stretch of six con-
secutive Pro Bowl seasons for
Miami while playing in 128
games in a row.
A Minnesota native, Mr.
Langer played linebacker at
South Dakota State and went
undrafted. He signed with
Cleveland as a rookie in 1970
but was cut, joined the Dol-
phins and made the team as a
center in coach Don Shula’s
first season with Miami.
‘‘Jim Langer was the ulti-
mate conversion story,’’ tweeted
former NFL executive Gil
Brandt, another Hall of Famer.
‘‘From a free agent to a
bronzed bust, Jim’s selfless sac-
rifice, perseverance and never
giving up on his goal are impor-
tant life lessons that can inspire
us all,’’ Hall of Fame president
and CEO David Baker said in a
statement.
Mr. Langer was voted the
Dolphins’ most valuable player
in 1975, and played in the NFL
until 1981, spending his final
two seasons with the Minneso-
ta Vikings.
A four-time All-Pro choice,
Mr. Langer was inducted into
the Hall of Fame in his first year
of eligibility in 1987.
His perfect season team-
mate Nick Buoniconti, another
Hall of Famer, died a month
ago. His longtime Dolphins
roommate, guard Bob Kuech-
enberg, died in January.
In 2007, Kuechenberg re-
called a conversation he and
Mr. Langer had 10 games into
the season.
“I told Langer, ‘Obviously
we’re going to have to lose a
game.’
‘‘‘I suppose,’ he said.
‘‘‘When?’ I said.
‘‘‘Not this week,’ was the only
answer.’’JimLanger;
waskeyto
Dolphins
perfectteam
By John Rogers
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Valerie
Harper, who scored guffaws,
stole hearts, and busted TV ta-
boos as the brash, self-depre-
cating Rhoda Morgenstern on
back-to-back hit sitcoms in the
1970s, has died.
Longtime family friend Dan
Watt confirmed Ms. Harper
died Friday, adding the family
wasn’t immediately releasing
any further details. She had
been battling cancer for years,
and her husband said recently
he had been advised to put her
in hospice care.
Ms. Harper was a breakout
star on ‘‘The Mary Tyler Moore
Show,’’ then the lead of her own
series, ‘‘Rhoda.’’ She was 80.
She won three consecutive
Emmys (1971-73) as support-
ing actress on ‘‘The Mary Tyler
Moore Show’’ and another for
outstanding lead actress for
‘‘Rhoda,’’ which ran from 1974-
- Beyond awards, she was
immortalized — and typecast
— for playing one of television’s
most beloved characters, a best
friend the equal of Ethel Mertz
and Ed Norton in TV’s sidekick
pantheon.
Fans had long feared the
news of her passing. In 2013,
she first revealed that she had
been diagnosed with brain can-
cer and had been told by her
doctors she had as little as
three months to live. Some re-
sponded as if a family member
were in peril.
But she refused to despair.
‘‘I’m not dying until I do,’’ Ms.
Harper said in an interview on
NBC’s ‘‘Today’’ show. ‘‘I prom-
ise I won’t.’’ Ms. Harper did
outlive her famous co-star:
Mary Tyler Moore died in Janu-
ary 2017. Ed Asner, Cloris
Leachman, and Betty White are
among the former cast mem-
bers who survive her.
In recent years, Ms. Harp-
er’s other appearances includ-
ed ‘‘American Dad!,’’ “The
Simpsons,’’ and ‘‘Two Broke
Girls.’’
Ms. Harper was a chorus
dancer on Broadway as a teen
before moving into comedy
and improv when, in 1970, she
auditioned for the part of a
Bronx-born Jewish girl who
would be a neighbor and pal of
Minneapolis news producer
Mary Richards on a new sitcom
for CBS.
It seemed a long shot for the
young, unknown actress. As
she recalled, ‘‘I’m not Jewish,
not from New York, and I have
a small shiksa nose.’’ And she
had almost no TV experience.
But Ms. Harper may have
clinched the role when she
blurted out in admiration to
the show’s tall, slender star:
‘‘Look at you in white pants
without a long jacket to cover
your behind!’’
It was exactly the sort of
thing Rhoda would say to
‘‘Mar,’’ as Ms. Harper recalled
in her 2013 memoir, ‘‘I, Rho-
da.’’ Ms. Harper was signed
without a screen test.
Of course, if CBS had gotten
its way, Rhoda might have been
a very different character with
a much different actress in
place. As ‘‘The Mary Tyler
Moore Show’’ was being devel-
oped, its producers were bat-
tling a four-point decree from
the network, which insisted
that the nation’s TV viewers
would not accept series charac-
ters who were (1) divorced, (2)
from New York, (3) Jewish, or
(4) have mustaches.
The producers lost on hav-
ing Mary Richards divorced
(instead, she had been dumped
by her longtime boyfriend). But
with Rhoda they overrode the
network on two other counts.
The show that resulted was
a groundbreaking hit, with
comically relatable Rhoda one
big reason.
‘‘Women really identified
with Rhoda because her prob-
lems and fears were theirs,’’ Ms.
Harper theorized in her book.
‘‘Despite the fact that she was
the butt of most of her own
jokes, so to speak... her confi-
dent swagger masked her inse-
curity. Rhoda never gave up.’’
Neither did Ms. Harper,
who confronted her own inse-
curities with similar moxie.
‘‘I’d say, ‘Hello, I’m Valerie
Harper and I’m overweight.’ I’d
say it quickly before they could... I always got called chubby,
my nose was too wide, my hair
was too kinky.’’
But as ‘‘The Mary Tyler
Moore Show’’ evolved, so did
Rhoda. Rhoda trimmed down
and glammed up, while never
losing her comic step. The au-
dience loved her more than ev-
er.
A spinoff seemed inevitable.
In 1974, Rhoda was dispatched
from Minneapolis back home
to New York City, where she
was reunited with her parents
and younger sister in a new sit-
com that costarred Nancy
Walker, Harold Gould, and Ju-
lie Kavner.
She also met and fell in love
with the hunky owner of a de-
molition firm.
The premiere of ‘‘Rhoda’’
that September was the week’s
top-rated show, getting a 42
percent share of audience
against competition including
Monday Night Football on
ABC. And a few weeks later,
when Rhoda and her fiance,
Joe, were wed in a one-hour
special episode, more than 52
million people — half of the US
viewing audience — tuned in.
But ‘‘Rhoda’’ couldn’t main-
tain those comic or popular
heights. A domesticated, lucky-
in-love Rhoda wasn’t a funny
Rhoda. By the end of the third
season, the writers had taken a
desperate step: Rhoda divorced
Joe. Thus had Rhoda (and Ms.
Harper) defied a third CBS ta-
boo.
The series ended in 1978
with Ms. Harper having played
Rhoda for a total of nine sea-
sons.
She had captured the char-
acter by studying her Italian
stepmother. But Ms. Harper’s
own ethnicity — neither Jewishnor Italian — was summed up
in a New York Times profile as
‘‘an exotic mixture of Spanish-
English-Scotch-Irish-Welsh-
French-Canadian.’’
And she was not a Gotham-
ite. Born in Suffern, N.Y., into a
family headed by a peripatetic
sales executive, she spent her
early years in Oregon, Michi-
gan, and California before set-
tling in Jersey City, N.J.
By high school, she was tak-
ing dance lessons in Manhattan
several times a week. By age 15,
she was dancing specialty num-
bers at Radio City Music Hall.
By 18, she was in the chorus of
the Broadway musical ‘‘Li’l Ab-
ner’’ (then appeared in the film
adaptation a year later). She al-
so danced in the musicals
‘‘Take Me Along’’ (starring
Jackie Gleason) and ‘‘Wildcat’’
(starring Lucille Ball).
She found comedy when she
fell in with a group of Second
City players from Chicago who
had taken up residence in
Greenwich Village. One of
these improv players was Rich-
ard Schaal, whom she wed in- (They divorced in 1978.)
Ms. Harper and Schaal
moved to Los Angeles in 1968.
Two years later, in a theater
production, she was spotted by
a casting agent for the role of
Rhoda.
During ‘‘The Mary Tyler
Moore Show,’’ Ms. Harper ap-
peared in her first major film,
the comedy ‘‘Freebie and the
Bean,’’ and later was cast in
‘‘Blame It on Rio’’ and an adap-
tation of Neil Simon’s play
‘‘Chapter Two.’’
In 1986, she returned to se-
ries TV with a family sitcom
called ‘‘Valerie.’’ While not
matching her past critical suc-
cesses, the show proved popu-
lar. But in the summer of 1987,
Ms. Harper and her manager,
Tony Cacciotti, whom she had
married a few months earlier,
were embroiled in a highly
publicized feud with Lorimar
Telepictures, the show’s pro-
duction company, and its net-
work, NBC.
In a dispute over salary de-
mands, Ms. Harper had re-
fused to report for work, miss-
ing one episode. The episode
was filmed without her. She
was back on duty the following
week, only to be abruptly
dumped and replaced by ac-
tress Sandy Duncan. The show
was renamed ‘‘Valerie’s Family’’
and then ‘‘The Hogan Family.’’
Meanwhile, lawsuits and
countersuits flew. In Septem-
ber 1988, a jury decided that
Ms. Harper was wrongfully
fired. She was awarded $1.4
million compensation plus
profit participation in the show
(which continued without Ms.
Harper until 1991).
‘‘I felt vindicated,’’ Ms. Harp-
er wrote in her memoir. ‘‘I had
beaten Lorimar and reclaimed
my reputation.’’
During the 1990s, Ms.
Harper starred in a pair of
short-lived sitcoms (one of
which, ‘‘City,’’ was created by
future Oscar-winner Paul Hag-
gis) and made guest appear-
ances on series including ‘‘Mel-
rose Place,’’ ‘’Sex and the City,’’
and ‘‘Desperate Housewives.’’
She reunited with Moore in
a 2000 TV film, ‘‘Mary and
Rhoda.’’ In 2013, there was an
even grander reunion: Ms.
Harper and Moore were back
together along with fellow
‘‘MTM’’ alumnae Leachman,
White, and Georgia Engel to
tape an episode of White’s hit
comedy, ‘‘Hot in Cleveland.’’ It
was the ensemble’s first acting
job together in more than 30
years and during a news con-
ference Ms. Harper cited a
valuable lesson: The character
of Rhoda, she said, pointing to
Moore, ‘‘taught me to thank
your lucky stars for a fabulous
friend.’’ValerieHarper,whostoleheartsasTV’sRhoda;at80
ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILEMANUEL BALCE CENETA/ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE 2014
Ms. Harper won three consecutive Emmy awards for her
role as Rhoda Morgenstern on “The Mary Tyler Moore
Show.” Following her cancer diagnosis in 2013, she testified
before a Senate committee about the fight against cancer.