Karen Valentine

Night Court alum John Larroquette and character actress Karen Valentine (Gidget Grows Up, Room 222) play Jack Landry and Audrey Landry, husband and wife and the parents of three grown daughters, in this made-for-television comic feature. Learning to adjust to the girls' absence, Jack and Audrey are just beginning to enjoy the empty nest syndrome -- even planning a second honeymoon -- when all three girls (played by Kelly Overton, Marina Black, and Jaime Ray Newman) unexpectedly resurface and each announces her wedding plans. With three trips to the altar for the beleaguered Jack, and Audrey drowning in a sea of invitations, complete pandemonium -- and a surfeit of laughs -- are not far behind. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

This week, Jessica is in Hartford, Connecticut--in the vicinity of Trinity College, to be exact. While walking along minding her business, Jessica is witness to the slaying of Adam Cosgrove,who with his dying breath confesses that he is a professional hit man. Before long, Jessica finds herself sequestered in a government "safe house", along with a priest who isn't a priest, and several shady-looking gentlemen all named after American presidents. And that's not all: turns out that the "dead man" isn't quite dead after all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast on The Disney Sunday Movie, A Fighting Choice stars Patrick Dempsey as an epileptic teen suffering from grand mal seizures. When the possibility arises that an experimental form of brain surgery may alleviate his agony, Dempsey wants to go for it. His parents (Beau Bridges and Karen Valentine were playing parents by 1986) are terrified that the operation will fail, and refuse permission. Dempsey is persistent, taking his case all the way to court. A few too many punches are pulled for Fighting Choice to be any more than a standard "disease of the week" TV movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Children in the Crossfire examines the plight of the youngest victims of Northern Ireland's never-ending religious strife. Amidst the speeding bullets and burned-out buildings, a group of Catholic and Protestant children courageously join the Children's Committee 10. This organization is dedicated to mending age-old political and social chasms by having the children spend a summer together in America with host families. Calling themselves "Summertime Yanks", four Belfast children--two boys, two girls--struggle to meet one another halfway in the safe harbor of Southern California. The authenticity of Children in the Crossfire is enhanced by the decision to cast four genuine Belfast kids, with no prior acting experience, in the principal roles. The first telecast December 3, 1984, Children in the Crossfire was produced by George Schafer, who twelve years earlier painted a bleaker portrait of Northern Ireland's sectarian conflict in the made-for-TV A War of Children. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jane Doe, played by Karen Valentine, is an amnesiac with no clue as to her true identity. She does know that she's recovering from a brutal attempted murder. She also knows that a psychopath--a serial killer known as the Roadside Strangler--is tracking her every move. But why? William Devane plays the detective on the case, David Huffman appears as Doe's husband, and Stephen E. Miller is sufficiently menacing as the Strangler. But don't be lulled into complacency: there's a surprise ending. Originally telecast March 12, 1983, Jane Doe was written by Cynthia Mandelberg and Walter Halsey Davis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Money on the Side is a feminist's worst nightmare. This TV movie proposes that the only recourse a housewife has to the nation's "faltering economy" (to quote the film's press release) is to turn to prostitution. The three suburban housewife hookers in this opus are Jamie Lee Curtis, Linda Purl, and....Karen VALENTINE?!?!?!? Say it ain't so, Joe. Forget this one: even the title of Money on the Side sounds like a dirty joke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the bigger non-cartoon moneymakers for Disney in the 1970s, The North Avenue Irregulars is predicated on the premise of the "Neighborhood Watch" system. Priest Michael Hill (Edward Herrmann), newly arrived on North Avenue, decides to buck the patriarchal notions of his superiors by delegating church responsibilities to the neighborhood women. Since the ladies include Vickie, Jane, Anne, Claire and Rose (Barbara Harris, Karen Valentine, Susan Clark, Cloris Leachman and Patsy Kelly), we're well primed for a surfeit of feistiness. Father Michael entrusts the church funds to Rose, who loses it all at the race track. In trying to retrieve the cash, he comes up against an influential bookie ring, controlled by several of the above-suspicion town officials. The wily priest responds by organizing the ladies of his congregation into the North Avenue Irregulars, a two-fisted crimefighting unit. There's slapstick aplenty within the film's 99 minutes, including the expected comic car crash. North Avenue Irregulars is based on a (drawn-from-life?) novel by the Reverend Albert Fay Hill. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Karen Valentine, who's probably starred in more unsold pilots than McLean Stevenson and Don Meredith combined, stars in this made-for-TV comedy western. Playing a "Nellie Bly" type reporter, Karen heads thattaway, hoping to interview Billy the Kid (Richard Jaeckel). This might prove difficult in that Billy has supposedly been dead for years. Valentine is joined in her quest by Billy's sister (Sandra Will), a cavalry officer's widow who likewise doesn't swallow the official story of Billy's final, fatal showdown. "They've Taken Off Their Petticoats and Strapped On Their Guns!" read the TV Guide ad copy for Go West, Young Girl. No one watched anyway. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A kidnapping plot includes 5 women along with the last 2 games of the baseball World Series. ~ All Movie Guide

Originally telecast September 17, 1976, Love Boat was the first of two pilot films for the long-running TV series of the same name. On this maiden voyage of the Pacific Princess (from California to Mexico), we zero in on four separate sets of passengers. Gabe Kaplan plays a goofy salesman who falls for sexy model Jette Speer. Tom Bosley and Cloris Leachman are the haughtily rich folks who disapprove of their daughter's "common" boy friend. Suave businessman Hal Linden finds himself attracted by Karen Valentine. And Don Adams, about to undergo an expensive divorce, plots and plans to do away with wife Florence Henderson. The luxury-cruise setting and multistoried format of the subsequent Love Boat series are already in place, but the series' cast of regulars is not. In this first Love Boat film, Ted Hamilton is the Captain, Teri O'Mara is the cruise director, bartender Isaac is Theodore Wilson, the ship's doctor is Dick Van Patten, and Sandy Helberg is Gopher, the purser. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Karen Valentine guest stars as Holly Dean, the fiancée of a former mobster. When her boyfriend dies, he entrusts his "little black book" to Holly's care. Since the book contains the itemized accounts of several local mobsters, both the good guys and the bad guys would like to get their hands on the valuable legacy. But when Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) approaches Holly and asks for the book, she lies about having it -- a misguided act of loyalty to her late sweetheart that may cost the lives of both herself and Baretta. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A dirty joke that became a "clean" TV movie, Coffee, Tea or Me stars Karen Valentine, cast to type as a perky stewardess. In a chaste variation of The Captain's Paradise, Valentine finds herself married to two different men in two different countries. Since the men are played by John Davidson and Michael Anderson Jr., each in his own way as cute as Valentine, the girl's dilemma is profound. Until its cop-out ending, Coffee Tea or Me glides through its risque situations with class and finesse. The film was directed by Norman Panama, who earlier had been responsible (in collaboration with Melvin Frank) for such comedies as Danny Kaye's The Court Jester (56) and the film version of the Broadway musical Li'l Abner (59). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gidget, the teenybopper surfer created by Frederick Kohner, grows up in the form of Karen Valentine (rather than such previous Gidgets as Sandra Dee and Sally Field). She leaves her friends and family at Malibu to head for New York, there to take a job as a guide at the United Nations building. Before this made-for-TV effort is over, Gidget teaches the U.N. delegates the true meaning of the words "foreign relations" by falling in love with handsome Edward Mulhare. Gidget Grows Up was one of several pilot films produced in hopes of reviving the 1966 Gidget series. This 1969 effort would be a waste of time if not for the presence of the ever-sneering Paul Lynde as Gidget's landlord. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide