Karen Valentine Blame It On The Bossa Nova/Ed Sullivan November 10, 1963

This is such a Datalounge thread. How refreshing! 👏

Here OP.

Go to 1m20s

She appears to be lip miming (badly) the Edie Gorme' song (Sullivan usually prohibited lip-syncing). Her movements are racist; like all people south of The Border are slightly retarded.

Karen Valentine was from my home town:

1-My older brother who went to high school with her said she was very stuck-up.

2-The main industry of the town we were in was apple-growing and canning. The Valentines had a chicken ranch. They bought a new car in 1965, a Rambler Marlin. The father had a fatal heart attack in 1966

3-Their family name was anglicized when they came into the U.S. Don't remember what it was.

4-I went to school with her sister Valerie. If you took away some of Karen's looks, most of her talent and any actual suggestion of a personality, you had Valerie. She also mimed a record for a 7th grade talent show. Think it was a Jayne Mansfield record.

5-I had little to do with Valerie because she was also stuck-up. This was what you got from our town. Attitude from someone who lived on a chicken ranch.

Eydie, R3.

Did you go to Petaluma or Santa Rosa for “fun?”

she looks older than a teenager in this video from 1963 which probably means she was possibly in her late twenties when Room 222 went on the air- hardly a teenager

That was so...odd

Maybe so, R7/OP, but young people did look a lot older back in the day.

Wiki says it was a repeat of her talent from that year’s Miss Teen America pageant. She had caught someone’s eye…I guess.

The lipsynching was purposeful…it was a comedic performance. It failed, but it was all intentional.

Her weird chin always grossed me out.

I think she was 16 or 17 in the clip.

Datalounge rumor - Karen was a lesbian

I will always add something to a Kaaren Valentine thread.

She didn’t play a teenager on Room 222, she played a teacher.

She started off as a student teacher.

But not a teenager…

R10 is correct. The first time I saw that video was when Karen was on The Mike Douglas Show and she was talking about the Miss Teen USA pageant and winning the talent competition that year - although she didn't win the title.

She was married for awhile to one of the Hager Twins who posed for Playgirl.

Miss Teenage America, not Teen USA—different pageant that didn’t start until years later.

Of course.....I always get my pageants confused.

You’re forgiven…

Also, not to be confused with the prissy pageant of the day “America’s Junior Miss” . Their winner that same year —1963—was some Southern belle bitch named Diane Sawyer. WHET?

Some of the men she dances with were good looking.

They danced around her, near her but not with her.

NY was full of handsome chorus boys in those days

I saw her in a production of Extremities at a theater near Rancho Mirage in the mid-1980s, she was a revelation! Too bad she wasn't given the chance to sink her teeth into some significant film roles, I'd love to see what she would have done with A Cry in the Dark or Silence of the Lambs.

R25 = Karen Valentine.

She played Gidget in a 1969 tv movie. She was not bad in it but by 1969 that whole Gidget thing was totally out of date.

I remember watching her on the pageant and winning the talent competition. If I recall correctly, she got the Sullivan offer during the show. I also watched her recreate it on Ed's show.

On a couple of interviews she gave she seemed a bit sad and disconnected from her family.....

Hmmmmm internet bios mention two husbands neither of which is one of the Hagers.....maybe I just dreamed that or they were dating or something.

R$ did you have a local dance - jazz/ballet/acro - teacher in your town because those steps in that video looked like something she learned in Miss Ludie's basement......

With her hairdo and body type and dance moves at times she evokes that dl fave Bonnie Franklin.

R30 she WON the talent portion!

R4 - that is......see above.

R32 is that you, Miss Ludie?

For you fans of Sonoma County’s finest: authentic news photos of young Karen in her pageant days

Karen admiring a picture of her own crowning moment as Santa Rosa’s finest young lady.

Karen Valentine, 78 (born May 25, 1947; Sebastopol, California) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as young 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. She later went to star in her own short-lived sitcom Karen (1975), and played leading roles in the Disney films Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) and The North Avenue Irregulars (1979).

Sally Field stole Karen's career.

Sally was already a tv star when Karen was still in pageants.

Pathetic admission: When I first visited NYC around 1980 I spotted a poster for some off broadway play (I think the illustration was of a park bench) featuring Ms. Valentine. I thought, "Wow, Karen VALENTINE, live on stage! You could actually sit near her!"

I'd just never been anywhere that had any proximity to any stars. The funny thing is, I'd only glimpsed her on "Room 222" reruns once or twice, but I still dimly knew she was a "name." And that was enough to awe ME.

Later when I moved to NYC and then L.A. I realized that poster was probably for some awful, tacky production, running four nights or something.

Karen did so well on Sullivan that it was immediately announced she was invited back on the Ed Sullivan Show a few weeks later. The Kennedy Assassination and her need to work on a new act lengthened those weeks into months. Karen finally made it back on March 29, 1964 but had to sing in her own voice and her act was another dated Charleston-themed number in all black fringe and a long cigarette holder. Lots of articles about her leaving for New York and not a peep after - even in her hometown paper. Looks like lightning did not strike a second time and Karen went back into pageant life in her hometown and that next summer became Miss Teen Sebastipol. No footage of that second Sullivan performance can be found.

She was a Sebastopol Festival Queen and then Miss Sonoma County. Not a second Miss Teen.

Miss Alice Johnson Room 222 forever.

Walt Whitman aka the original L.A. High School (replaced after the Sylmar earthquake).

Here is her Emmy win.

1970 was a fallow era in television history.

How did you get that thumbnail to display, R45?

Does Karen have what it takes to become a true DL icon?

Fuck no!

If she closes in on 100, she does, R48,

Apparently Karen and Shanna Reed were in talks with HBO to do a mini-series version of 'Night Mother but sadly things hit a snag when one of the two actresses demanded too much creative control.

Pageants, movies of the week, sitcoms, nutty award speech…old neighbors postíng here. I’d say she meets several of the DL’s requirements already.

R48. Vicki dear...Karen Valentine is already a DL icon.

There's room for others.

Thanks, OP. Karen Valentine was very cute. And I love her hairstyle. Absolutely hate the current style of long, straight hair on women.

[quote] Pageants, movies of the week, sitcoms, nutty award speech…old neighbors postíng here. I’d say she meets several of the DL’s requirements already.

Yes. But she hasn’t said or done anything controversial, absurd or outrageous. True DL icons have something messy, hilarious and/or delicious in their past. Or present.

More evidence required.

She was a Petaluma wrist-wrestling champ under an assumed name. Would that help?

Fuck you R46. 1970 also brought us this classic Emmy moment.

Those bongo boys were cute, but the beatnik shtick was probably old by 1963.

Karen danced like a chicken with its head cut off, reflecting her lived experience as a farm girl.

[quote] Karen danced like a chicken with its head cut off, reflecting her lived experience as a farm girl.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Well, I have to admit she IS pretty adorable at R45.

I saw her in a play with Gary Sandy in Boston, maybe in the early 90s. She was a Mafia princess I think. Bizarre cast have no idea what it was called.

I hope Gary wore tight jeans.

It’s all he had…

Karen, Vicki, Linda Purl, and Jessica Walter together at last.

You're all DL icons, ladies!

It was the first of a series of baby having movies on ABC

R63 This should be the opening night feature at the First DL International Film Festival.

Excellent find! 👏

It gets better, R63.

According to IMDB, Maude’s big-titted daughter Adrienne Barbeau and DL’s favorite raging heterosexual and inexplicable Oscar winner Helen Hunt are also part of this star studded cast.

Plus, Desi Arnaz Jr.? And Abe Vigoda?

This is like finding a Picasso in a thrift shop.

I think Abe Vigoda played Vicki's much younger lover.