DLers of a certain age, tell us about 60's Icon Karen Valentine

I remember. But I don't remember what show or movie she was in. Sorry.

I just looked her up. She was in Room 222 from 1969 to 74. I was a very young teenager in high school and wasn't into sitcoms. But I do remember her probably from TV promos only.

...and in the news today: Katie Holmes. She is Karen's clone.

She shot to fame in the "Miss Teenage America" pageant, which was televised nationally in the early 60s. It was held in Dallas and sponsored by Dr Pepper and was a very big deal. She was Miss California in something like 1965, and although she didn't win the title, she won the Talent Award. Her talent was lip synching to Eydie Gorme's "Blame It on the Bossa Nova" while wearing a Daisy Mae style costume. Supposedly Ed Sullivan saw her on TV and decided to book her on his show doing the same act.

I was in the same high school class as Miss Teenage America 1968, Stephanie Crane.

She never was able to be a breakout star like Mary Tyler Moore or Cybill or Candice Bergen, but she did okay as a frequent guest on game shows and the likes of The Love Boat and Love American Style. She did star in a couple of enjoyable Movies of the Week, like "Coffee, Tea or Me" and "Gidget Grows Up"

Cute. Pretty. Did well enough with mindless television comedy. But very lightweight and utterly sexless. Her main talent was being reasonably photogenic. She rode what little she had much farther than most in her position are able to do.

Room 222 wasn't a sitcom. I remember seeing it when I was in grade school. Someone spray painted "fag" on another student's locker because he was in a play. I didn't know why then, but that really bothered me.

She was perky, like the girl in Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt, with a touch of quirkiness like that hoarse-voiced girl who always hangs out with all guys in New Girl (Zoey Deschanel or something like that?)

Harmless, sweet, girl-next-door type; Sally -Field-lite (and she was more of a 70s icon). It seemed as if she was everywhere, and as soon as the decade was over, so was she.

I also would compare her to Sally Field. She and Sally could have played sisters.

She was very likable in light comedy roles. If she had found the right show for her to play the lead, she could have become a big star. But she never developed beyond being the cute and funny girl next door, and it seemed like she was always the "guest star."

She was the American version of Claudine Longet. Unlike Claudine, Valentine was common, pretty, likeable, didn't pretend to sing, wasn't jetset, not a hot fuck, obviously not into drugs, nor was she murderous. Pretty. Boring.

When The Santaland Diaries played off-broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company in 1996 w/ a pre-stardom Timothy Olyphant, Valentine was cast to do the curtain raiser, something else written by Sedaris that was a parody of an annual Christmas letter. Valentine was so not up to the task and during previews was sacked and the entire curtain raiser cut.

That's probably where I remember her from - Love Boat. Thanks, r5.

Oh yes, Karen Valentine was a popular television star in the 1970s. It seemed she was everywhere on TV. She was charming and pretty, plus she had talent for comedies. She was in one TV movie "Muggable Mary", which was a drama with comic touches. She was wonderful. I liked her "Coffee, Tea or Me." John Davidson was her co-star.

She should do character roles now. It would be nice to see her again.

She had her own series for half a season

R7, I remember that episode as well and it was because the guy was going to be in the high school play in drag.

Valentine was kind of like Sandy Duncan on TV. Saccharine and overly sincere but she was very, very likable. One episode on Room 222 had the students doing a Free Press and they savage Valentine's character. The Principal wants to shut down the paper but Valentine comes in and defends their right to free speech, even though it's obvious she was hurt by their story. It was very well played.

Lightweight. I tolerated her.

Merv Griffin told her to her face that she looked like Sophia Loren. I always heard she was gay.

[quote]Lightweight. I tolerated her.

What a fucking prince.

What are those things in her cheeks?

From 2013:

r19 Nut pockets

[quote]Merv Griffin told her to her face that she looked like Sophia Loren.

Alas, now she does.

Compare to a current TV star? Are there any?

How could you have a Karen Valentine thread without the intro to "Room 222"?

I always wondered what happened to her...

It was only a few years ago that I learned Lloyd Haines had died so very young...

Wow, that LLoyd Haynes guy was bae. Valentine was really cute and tiny, this is all before my time. She looked like a young actress who would be murdered by a stalker.

Who could forget her 70s classic "The Girl Who Came Gift Wrapped".

She was no Susan Richardson.

Lloyd Haynes was sooo hot. So sad he died young.

Big gust of wind, no rain, but power out now. I can hear generators coming on around the neighborhood.

r31 You're on the wrong thread hon, but that Karen could knock the lights out with her energy.

Karen Valentine won an Emmy for "Room 222", as did her co-star Michael Constantine, who played the principal, who later showed up in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", among other things. Karen was very cute, funny, and rather adorable. Sandra Bullock actually kind of reminds me of Karen Valentine, though Karen really mostly got some cute movies of the week and guest star roles from her gig on "Room 222". I remember one episode where the kids want to put on the musical "Hair" with the nude scene, and as it goes forward they basically chicken out after pressure. Lloyd Haynes was a very hot and a great presence, and Denise Nicholas was a lovely co-star as well who sort of fell off the radar for many years until coming back on "In the Heat of the Night" with Carroll O'Connor.

But Karen Valentine was someone a kid could have a bit of crush on -- very pretty, likeable, funny, charming.

I remember Michael as the judge on Mama's Family when Mama and Naomi were suing each other. That was a great episode.

Thank heavens for that, hasbeen at r29.

I remember her from Love American Style. I'm pretty sure I saw every episode in reruns. It was also the show that had the pilot of Happy Days.

She on a lot of episodes of the old show Hollywood Squares. Go to Youtube and she's on many of them along with Rose Marie.

love her

Most of the jokes on Hollywood Squares dealt with her lack of tits. Example: Raquel Welch has two of them, Karen Valentine has none of them.

I wish they'd done "Hair" with a nude scene from Lloyd Haynes.

I did a hit of mescaline and watched Coffee, Tea, or Me and laughed my ass off. Thought it was the funniest movie ever.

I saw her in some play at the Manhattan Theatre Club in the 1990s. She was good, actually had technique and came across as a trained actress with talent. She was funny. Pretty intense though. I think that's what was sort of off about her on TV - she had the girl next door, Mary Ann v. Ginger looks, but if you heard she had a nervous breakdown and boiled a bunny, you could believe it.

from wikipedia: Valentine continues to work in television and on stage. She co-starred with John Larroquette in a 2004 Hallmark Channel TV movie, Wedding Daze. She has starred on stage in many productions, including Romantic Comedy on Broadway and National Tour, Breaking Legs Off-Broadway and National Tour, and the Los Angeles production of Steel Magnolias.

She also was known for her trademark half ponytail dos (as seen at r43) which many girls copied in the early seventies, and which has become a man bun alternative nowadays.

Off-brand Sally Field right down to playing Gidget. She tried to reshape her image in the late '70s ala Sally and gave an interview with Ms or some such magazine where she coined the term 'difficult brown' as euphemism for anal sex.

She also had a bit of Sandy Duncan in her. I liked her in Gidget Goes To Rome.

Why did only the white people on a black show win Emmys? And why did the only one with an Afro on the show was white too?

She was a true America's Sweetheart

R46 - I had a bit of Sandy Duncan in me one time, too.

I loved her fall.

[quote]like the girl in Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt

That is a very good comparison, although I don't think Karen was as a good an actress.

She was great in the Go-Go's.

Karen Valentine was such a good actress that she got the very gay Edward Mulhare to fall in love with her in Gidget Grows Up.

She always looks like she just got caught cutting a fart

From descriptions here she sounds like a prototypical Amanda Bynes.

R37 girlfriend did more than one ‘Hollywood Squares’? What a hack.

My Dad forced me to go on in October ‘87 and I quit after one episode. I was stuck there with Betty White, Charo & Caryn Richman as co-panellists, for God’s sakes.

[quote] She was in one TV movie "Muggable Mary", which was a drama with comic touches.

"Muggable Mary: Street Cop" aired in 1982. Based on an actual New York decoy cop. (I had a bit part in it.) So her TV career lasted slightly beyond the 70s.

Did she ever show the 'pink' for Playboy or any other men's magazine of the day?

She presented hole in Hustler.

bump.

It says she still works but has she been on stage anywhere in 2017, 2018 or this year?

Cute enough, but she's no Elaine Giftos.

Karen Valentine was a major TV star, and her show, "Room 222" was a big hit for which she won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress, Great show and she was the breakout star as "Miss Johnson." It was categorized as a comedy, but I would say that Room 222 was kind a "dramedy." Always had a soft spot for Karen Valentine. She was a kind of Sally Field, Sandy Duncan and Sandra Bullock rolled up in one.

From Wikipedia: Karen Valentine (born May 25, 1947) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as the idealistic schoolteacher Alice Johnson in the ABC comedy drama series Room 222 from 1969 to 1974, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1970, and received a Golden Globe Award nomination in 1971.

The poor man's Katharine Ross.

Loved "Room 222." I always like TV shows with a classroom setting. Great cast with Karen Valentine as "Alice Johnson," Lloyd Haynes, Denise Nicholas and Michael Constantine.

Her double falsh eyelashes became her trademark that '60's doe-eyed look that Twiggy and Edie Sedgewick made famous.

This is a ridiculous old TV movie, but Karen is pretty good in her dramatic role as an amnesiac.

R24- One of the best opening themes for a TV show ever done. That, and NBC's Mystery Movie theme, were sometimes better than the actual show.

I think of Anna Kendrick as a modern comparison.

I bought the pool stick that gouged out Sandy Duncan's eye at a lez bar. I bought it off of ebay for $60.00.

She is a while ethnic who has a sqeauky clean asshole. She's part Italian and has CAF.

R66. Now that you mention it, she looks like Edie Sedgwick -- when Edie was natural and not all made made up like Andy

I always feel like these threads are not really started by a young curious gayling but by an eldergay trying to stoke recollection and discussion of the subject of his choice by others as if someone young was asking about them. It still makes for interesting threads so Im game, but am I right? Does everyone already know this and just play along?

Karen and Jamie Lee Curtis starred in a fairly good TV movie about housewife call girls. Susan Flannery was their madame,

Why does nobody ever show these made for television films.

R73 I think you may be wrong.

I discover actors and other on youtube or via older friends. I may not make a thread about them all but it happens often.

I remember me and Karen were in Bangcock back in the 80's. I remember buying some hash oil and a few Quaaludes from her and then she invited me to this drag bar.

Next thing I know we're both covered in blood and she was screaming "Stay chill, man!" at me as we were careening through some jungle on a mud road.

Anyway, I wound up waking up on a beach wearing different clothes and somehow got myself back to my hotel.

On the news they were still searching for a white midget transvestite drug dealer who shot up a bar with an uzi.

Ah, Karen, she always knew the hot spots to hang out no matter what city we were in.

That fucking bitch stole my thunder. At least I got to fuck Bill Withers which was great until he started using me as a punching bag.

- Denise N.