Valerie Mahaffey

Acting

Valerie Mahaffey

Born 1953-06-16 · Sumatra, Indonesia

Valerie Mahaffey (June 16, 1953 – May 30, 2025) was an American actress and producer. She began her career starring in the NBC daytime soap opera The Doctors (1979–81), for which she received a nomination 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 portrayal of extroverted and friendly but ultimately insane women on the television shows 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Valerie Mahaffey, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Sully poster
7.2

On 15 January 2009, the world witnessed the 'Miracle on the Hudson' when Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger glided his disabled plane onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 souls aboard. However, even as Sully was being heralded by the public and the media for his unprecedented feat of aviation skill, an investigation was unfolding that threatened to destroy his reputation and career.

Sully

2016

Seabiscuit poster
7.1

True story of the undersized Depression-era racehorse whose victories lifted not only the spirits of the team behind it but also those of their nation.

Seabiscuit

2003

Jack and Jill poster
4.4

Jack Sadelstein, a successful advertising executive in Los Angeles with a beautiful wife and kids, dreads one event each year: the Thanksgiving visit of his twin sister Jill. Jill's neediness and passive-aggressiveness is maddening to Jack, turning his normally tranquil life upside down.

Jack and Jill

2011

French Exit poster
5.6

“My plan was to die before the money ran out,” says 60-year-old penniless Manhattan socialite Frances Price, but things didn’t go as planned. Her husband Franklin has been dead for 12 years and with his vast inheritance gone, she cashes in the last of her possessions and resolves to live out her twilight days anonymously in a borrowed apartment in Paris, accompanied by her directionless son Malcolm and a cat named Small Frank—who may or may not embody the spirit of Frances’s dead husband.

French Exit

2021

National Lampoon's Senior Trip poster
5.5

While on detention, a group of misfits and slackers have to write a letter to the President explaining what is wrong with the education system. There is only one problem, the President loves it! Hence, the group must travel to Washington to meet the Main Man.

National Lampoon's Senior Trip

1995

Jungle 2 Jungle poster
5.4

Uptight New York City executive, Michael Cromwell, pursues his soon-to-be ex-wife to South America and returns home with the son he never knew he had—a boy raised in a tribal village in Brazil. Armed with only his blowgun, the 13-year-old Mimi-Siku discovers that the world outside his jungle home is indeed a strange place.

Jungle 2 Jungle

1997

Witch Hunt poster
5.2

Magic and murder connect an actress, a private eye, a senator and a witch in 1950s Hollywood.

Witch Hunt

1994

The Witch Files poster
6.0

A coven of young women with incredible powers and difficult pasts discovers that they are able to make their every wish come true. Things, however, take a dangerous turn when they discover that their newly-found abilities come with a price and that they may not be as in control as they think.

The Witch Files

2018

If I Were You poster
6.6

When a woman tries to outwit her husband's sexy young mistress, the unexpected consequences include starring as King Lear in a very amateur production - with the mistress, an aspiring actress, playing The Fool.

If I Were You

2013

Women of Valor poster
7.2

A group of American Army nurses are captured by the Japanese in April 1942 and spend three years in a prisoner-of-war camp in Bataan. Lt Margaret Ann Jessup, the head army nurse, survives the camp and testifies against the Japanese in front of the United States Congressional subcommittee years later as a colonel.

Women of Valor

1986

Dinner at Fred's poster
5.2

A young businessman with a skill for magic tricks breaks down en route to his fiancee's parents' house on Christmas and ends up spending the holiday with a very different kind of family.

Dinner at Fred's

1997

They poster
7.4

A father experiences strange apparitions after his daughter is killed in a car accident.

They

1993

Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder poster
6.5

A young theatre director is accused of killing a more famous Broadway director. Perry takes his case.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder

1989

No Pay, Nudity poster
4.0

Aging actor Lester Rosenthal (Gabriel Byrne), who has lost his way with his career, with his family, and with his friends (Nathan Lane, Frances Conroy, & Boyd Gaines) finds out that the way out is through.

No Pay, Nudity

2016

The 8th Day poster
7.3

Two small-time thugs, an old woman living with a dark secret, a young woman desperate to get out, and a check cashing store full of money will all intersect in a small Texas town… in eight days.

The 8th Day

2025

Perry Mason: The Case of the All-Star Assassin poster
6.6

A hockey player of friend of Ken Malansky's is accused of murdering a team owner. Perry takes the case.

Perry Mason: The Case of the All-Star Assassin

1989

My First Wedding poster
5.1

A young lady about to get married realizes that she has a problem: she fantasizes about every man she sees. She goes to confess at church but unknowingly confesses to a young man who is not a priest. He agrees to help her, but falls in love with her along the way. Unfortunately she still thinks he is a priest.

My First Wedding

2006

Till Death Us Do Part poster
7.0

This is a true crime story based on the book of the same title by prosecuting attorney, Vincent Bugliosi. (Bugliosi is the L.A. prosecutor that put Charles Manson away.) On December 11, 1966, a murder occurs in a small neighborhood of El Sereno, CA. In the middle of the night, Henry Stockton is shot three times in the head and twice in the chest and then his house is set on fire. The murderer left no clues, baffling the police, until a year later when a young pregnant woman is found bludgeoned to death in a Jaguar. Strangely, these two murders are related. As the mystery unfolds a horrific tale of greed, lust and ambition are revealed.

Till Death Us Do Part

1992

No artwork available
NR

Eight hours to save his world. Surely investing all he has in a shaky enterprise is a good idea?

GRQ the Movie

No Ordinary Baby poster
5.4

A reporter gets the scoop on the first ever human cloning, but the furor surrounding the event jeopardizes the baby's birth and the career of the responsible doctor.

No Ordinary Baby

2001

Her Secret Life poster
5.8

Kate Capshaw plays a schoolteacher and suburban housewife who happens to be an ex-spy. Nobody knows of Capshaw's previous espionage activities, least of all her somewhat obtuse husband Cliff De Young. When Capshaw's ex-lover Jeroen Krabbe, an intimate of Castro, lands in a Cuban prison, she is swept back into the spy business, leaving her nonplussed hubby in the dust.

Her Secret Life

1987

Crazy Eyes poster
4.1

Zack is a young, divorced father who starts to develop romantic feelings towards his friend Rebecca, whom he refers to as "Crazy Eyes". He spends a lot of time at a bar run by his best friend Dan Drake and hanging out with Autumn. As he pursues a sexual relationship with Rebecca, Zack grows increasingly aware of the importance of his son's role in his life amidst the failing health of his own father.

Crazy Eyes

2012

Par 6 poster
7.0

A cynical man returns to his family's homestead in Texas and starts up a golf course with his brothers and sisters.

Par 6

2002

Tell Me My Name poster
9.0

Based on the book by Mary Carter, "Tell Me My Name" is about a girl's visit to the woman who gave her up for adoption 19 years earlier. The adoption was a secret which now threatens to destroy the entire family.

Tell Me My Name

1977