Karen Valentine

Karen Valentine is an American actress born on May 25, 1947, in Sebastopol, California. Of Portuguese heritage, her grandfather changed the family surname to Valentin before her birth. She attended Birmingham High School and Analy High School, graduating with the class of 1965, and was crowned Miss Sonoma County in 1964.

Valentine's early public appearances included a lip-sync performance of Eydie Gormé's "Blame It on the Bossa Nova" on The Ed Sullivan Show on November 10, 1963, reprising her talent performance from the Miss Teenage America pageant. Her television career began in 1966–1967 when she joined Chuck Barris's The Dream Girl of 1967 as "The Resident Dream Girl," replacing Beverly Adams opposite hosts Dick Stewart and Wink Martindale. During that same period she appeared on Barris's The Dating Game. In 1969 she played Gidget in the film Gidget Grows Up.

Her breakthrough came in 1969 when director Gene Reynolds cast her in the ABC comedy-drama series Room 222, after observing her during an audition. Valentine played Alice Johnson, a young idealistic schoolteacher, alongside Lloyd Haynes, Denise Nicholas, and Michael Constantine. The role earned her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1970, a second Emmy nomination, and a Golden Globe Award nomination in 1971. She remained with the series through 1974.

Following Room 222, Valentine starred in her own sitcom, Karen, in 1975. An unsold pilot, The Karen Valentine Program, had gone unaired in 1974. Her feature film work includes Forever Young, Forever Free (1975), the Disney productions Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) and The North Avenue Irregulars (1979), and The Power Within (1995). Her television movies include The Daughters of Joshua Cabe (1972), Coffee, Tea or Me? (1973), The Girl Who Came Gift-Wrapped (1974), Murder at the World Series (1977), Go West, Young Girl (1978), Money on the Side (1982), Skeezer (1982), and the critically noted Muggable Mary, Street Cop (1982), in which she played the title role. She was a semi-regular on The Hollywood Squares from 1971 to 1977 on both NBC and in syndication, and guest-starred on series including Starsky & Hutch, Baretta, Cybill, Murder She Wrote, and multiple episodes of The Love Boat and Love, American Style. She appeared in the 25th episode of the third season of the 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone, entitled "Many, Many Monkeys," and co-starred with John Larroquette in the 2004 Hallmark Channel television movie Wedding Daze.

On stage, Valentine starred in Romantic Comedy on Broadway in 1979 and subsequently on its national tour. She appeared in Breaking Legs, which played Off-Broadway and on national tour, and performed in the Los Angeles production of Steel Magnolias.