“Theme for the new term of Ocean Mist Assembly No. 232, International Order of Rainbow for Girls,” reported the Mendocino Beacon of June 11, 1965, “is ‘Patriotism is the strength of our Country,’ chosen by Karen Valentine, who headed the slate of officers installed on Sunday afternoon, June sixth, in a beautifully impressive ceremony.”
Yes, that Karen Valentine. One of a number of actors/actresses who were in demand on television in the 1970s, given a crack at starring in their own show(s), then faded away.
She seemed to live a storybook, charmed childhood. In 1953, she was selected as an attendant to the Sebastopol Apple Blossom Queen. Ten years later she was given a full-page spread in the Oct. 24, 1963 Sonoma West Times and News after she had been crowned Miss Teenage Santa Rosa. She was not only the first "Nature" of her new Rainbow Assembly, she was a cheerleader, an A student, took part in school plays and said she hoped to get off the family chicken farm to become a dramatic teacher. (There was nothing saying she hoped to hear the words “Karen Valentine to block” sitting next to Paul Lynde on Hollywood Squares).
Her star rose pretty quickly. She entered the Miss Teen Age America contest. On Nov. 2, Peggy Simpson of the Associated Press reported from Dallas:
A living Doll—Judy by name—is the new Miss Teen-age America, but a bubbly sprite from Santa Rosa, California, Calif., Karen Valentine, has the first television contract. . . .
Pixie-like Karen Valentine, 16, captured the audience—as she has all week.
“I’ve just never seen anyone as cute as that gal,” one man said, after seeing her uninhibited, shoulder-wiggling, eye-rolling version of “Blame it on the Bossa Nova.”
“Wonder if I could adopt her?”
Karen had been announced earlier as talent winner for the pageant.
Showman Ed Sullivan telephoned from New York after seeing Karen’s act and invited her to his program.
“Some people like chocolate ice cream—I just love to perform—over and over and over,” Karen said, her big brown eyes laughing.
Her first appearance on Sullivan was Nov. 10, 1963 along with Allen and Rossi, Shelley Berman and the West Point Glee Club.
Two years later, she was installing the officers of her Rainbow Assembly. Four years after that, came Room 222. Producer Gene Reynolds told columnist Don Royal at the time: “I had already read, not just interviewed, 130 girls for the part of Alice, the student teacher. Then Karen came in, went through only three or four lines and I knew she had it.”
The series oozed ‘60s awareness. It was about an integrated high school. Valentine had been called “perky,” “a sprite” and “likened to an uncorked bottle of champagne” in reviews at the time, but Richard K. Shull of the Scripps-Howard news service dumped a gotcha-question on her, mid-interview. From the Indianapolis News, Nov. 27, 1969:
I asked her if she resented playing a caricature in the show. Her voice still giggled but her hackles were up. She didn’t consider her character a caricature, she said. “I think all our characters are valid. I’ve known student teachers just like Alice Johnson, the girl I play,” she added. Ditto, she said there's no conscious effort in the show to make the black characters credible and the white characters overdrawn. And further, she said, she didn't much like to have "Room 222" compared to Bill Cosby's show. In both shows, a good many viewers have detected what for want of a better name might he called the Stepin Fetchit's revenge syndrome—in which the whites are grotesque travesties. "Bill Cosby and 'Room 222' can't be compared. In the first place," she said. "Cosby is a caricature of Cosby, but Lloyd Haynes as Pete Dixon deals with problems realistically. "The two shows are totally different because of who Bill Cosby is. He's a very funny comedian," she said. And that seemed to be that. But, since the vice-president contends news media treat subject matter with all the impartiality of the Masked Court of the Venetian Doge: Karen Valentine's character is a caricature. Karen Valentine's character is a caricature.
Karen Valentine's character is a caricature.
Room 222 aired five seasons and begat an Emmy for Valentine. The series was a dramady, but when it ended ABC wanted a sitcom for her. And what could be funnier than post-Shull's vice president, post-Watergate, Washington, D.C. This syndicated column is from Jan. 18, 1975.
Karen Valentine Quits Classroom for Capital
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD — ABC has finally found a format for "that cute little girl from 'Room 222' " — Karen Valentine.
On Friday (Jan. 24), "Room 222's" substitute teacher, Alice Johnson, begins a new life in Washington, D.C., in "Karen," a comedy series about a girl being useful in one of those Common Cause-type lobbying associations.
With "M*A*S*H" already in the can for the season, Reynolds and Gelbart have time to work with Carl Kleinschmitt on the project, and will simply switch the "M*A*S*H" crew over to the "Karen" set at 20th Century-Fox. Earlier in the year, researcher Reynolds spent time in Washington's Common Cause office, and took a political science class at nearby UCLA, so he wouldn't be a greenhorn plotting Washington machinations.
Having mentor Reynolds in her corner again and the "M*A*S*H" crew pleases both Karen and ABC. The network felt secure enough about the project and the people not to demand a pilot.
"I'm not playing the comedy relief this time,” says Karen Valentine. "My character, Karen Angelo, is more grown-up than '222's' Alice Johnson."
After two pilots since "Room 222," one of which she liked by Mary Tyler Moore Productions successful team of Lorenzo Music and David Davis, Karen has been searching for a "now" character who isn't a Woman's Libber or a young housewife. The struggling girl law student didn't fit either. Something in the middle seemed more like it, and Reynolds idea of the Common Cause worker rang the bell.
"I come to Washington with a new Congressman who promised me during the campaign he would take me with him if he won," Karen explains. "However, I become a gopher in his Washington office, mainly running about doing errands. Since I want to be useful, I quit and join Open America, the lobbying association run by a mixture of old and young dedicated people. Denver Pyle is our leader and Dena Dietrich (Mother Nature in the commercial world) keeps the office functioning."
Young idealist Karen gets around Washington on a bicycle, carrying a colorful flag, putting in about equal time buttonholing politicians, working a broken-down copying machine and solving personal problems. She shares an apartment with a black roommate, Sissy, and listens to the trials and tribulations of a law student who lives in the basement and puts himself through school by tending bar.
Using Karen as the reactor much like Mary Tyler Moore, Reynolds and Gelbart have surrounded their heroine with caricatures. In the Open America group, you'll bump into a retired Navy officer (Liam Dunne), who thinks the world has gone to hell and knows all kids are drug-crazed weirdos. His counterpart is a 50-year-old hippie (Allen Kent), attempting to act half his age, wearing the latest mod rags and mumbling "Peace" or "Groovy."
The producers hope to kid all factions on the Washington scene, virgin territory for Hollywood comedy writers, but know, of course, Karen Valentine's ingratiating manner is their main ticket. Politics is simply a backdrop — comedy comes first.
Still, Washington life is a new toy. Maybe the "M*A*S*H" producers can use it as a comedic backdrop, with Karen the charmer up front. At least it's a move in a different direction, and that's unexpected in televisionland.
Karen suffered the same fate as Mr. Shull’s vice-president. She left Washington, D.C. In Miss Valentine’s case, her show lasted 13 weeks before cancellation. Maybe it was because Karen Valentine was likeable. I don't believe anyone has called politics in Washington, D.C. "likeable."
Plenty of work on TV-movies and TV guest shots followed, even some pilots. But she never got another series. She told columnist Jay Bobbin in 2004 she hoped a Hallmark channel comedy movie with John Laroquette would help her wind her way past the glut of reality shows and help her get back on television. Not long after, newspaper columnists were asked “Whatever happened to...”
As it comes to all who are able to reach a certain time in life, Karen settled into retirement. It’s a shame she didn’t get a crack at her own series again. Watching her back in the ‘70s, she struck me as pleasant and sincere. And she could be fun, as you can see below in her second appearance on Sullivan, March 29, 1964. As a DeMolay, it can tell you it’s a far cry from the ceremonies in a Rainbow Assembly.
"I hate that word. It's the most awful word in the language," Valentine told "TV Guide" in 1982.
ReplyDeleteThat word, of course, was "cute," which was used to describe her in the two articles cited above. But what other word fits her better?