Valerie Mahaffey

Valerie Mahaffey (born June 16, 1953) is an American character actress and producer. She began her career starring in the NBC daytime soap opera The Doctors (1979–81), for which in 1980 she was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. In 1992, Mahaffey won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role in the CBS drama series Northern Exposure. She later won fame through her performances in television shows such as Wings, Desperate Housewives, Devious Maids and Big Sky. Mahaffey also appeared in a number of movies, including Senior Trip (1995), Jungle 2 Jungle (1997), Jack and Jill (2011), Sully (2016), and most notably French Exit (2020), for which she received critical acclaim and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Early life Mahaffey was born in Sumatra, Indonesia, to a Canadian mother and a Texan father who met in New Brunswick, Canada. When Mahaffey was 16, the family moved to Austin, Texas, where she graduated from Austin High School. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1975 and later made her Broadway debut in the musical Rex. Career Mahaffey was regular cast member in the soap opera The Doctors from 1979 to 1981, which earned her a nomination for Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1980. She starred in the film Women of Valor in 1986 and while the characters are fictitious, it portrayed women's roles in the Philippines during World War II. Also in 1986 Mahaffey co-starred in the cult satirical TV miniseries Fresno, which parodied popular TV soaps of the day.