By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline SurferORLANDO, Fla. -- I was 9 going on 10 when I had my first crush from a classic TV show: It was young actress Karen Valentine of the ABC primetime sitcom-drama "Room 222.
Surely you remember Karen Valentine, right?
She played Alice Johnson, the perky student teacher who was shown fourth among the four main actors in the opening theme song for the ABC show that ran for five seasons, 1969-74.
• Lloyd Haynes as Mr. Pete Dixon, the protagonist, teaches 11th grade American History in room 222 of Walt Whitman High School.
• Denise Nicholas as Miss Liz McIntyre, the guidance counselor at Whitman, dating Pete.
• Michael Constantine as Mr. Seymour Kaufman, the principal of Whitman, preoccupied with his duties but dryly humorous.
• And of course, Karen Valentine as Miss Alice Johnson, a student teacher learning from Pete.
The overview as described in Wikipedia: The series mainly focused on an American history class in Room 222 of the fictional Walt Whitman High School, an extremely racially diverse school in Los Angeles, California, although it also depicted other events at and outside the school, such as the home lives of students and faculty.
The class is taught by Pete Dixon (Lloyd Haynes), an idealistic African-American school teacher. Other characters featured in the show were the school's compassionate guidance counselor, Liz McIntyre (Denise Nicholas), who is also Pete's girlfriend; the dryly humorous school principal, Seymour Kaufman (Michael Constantine); and the petite and enthusiastic Alice Johnson (Karen Valentine), a student teacher (and later full-time teacher) whom Pete mentors. There's also Patsy Garrett played Mr. Kaufman's secretary, Miss Hogarth. In addition, many recurring students were featured from episode to episode.
Pete Dixon delivers gentle lessons in tolerance and understanding to his students. They admire his wisdom, insight, and easygoing manner. The themes of the episodes were sometimes topical, reflecting the contemporary political climate of the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s, such as the Vietnam War, women's rights, race relations, and Watergate.
However, most plots were timeless and featured themes still common to modern-day teenagers. For example, the 1969 episode "Funny Boy" deals with a class clown who is self-conscious about being overweight, the 1971 episode "What Is a Man?" deals with a student who is mistakenly the victim of anti-gay harassment, and the 1974 episode "I Didn't Raise My Girl to Be a Soldier" with parent–teenager issues.
The show was broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 8:30 p.m. for its first two seasons, before settling into Friday evenings at 9:00, following The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family, and preceding The Odd Couple and Love, American Style.
And how about the theme song for "Room 222," written by Jerry Goldsmith? It never gets old no matter how many times one listens to it.
Room 222's initial episodes garnered weak ratings, and ABC was poised to cancel the program after one season. However, the show earned several nominations at the 1970 Emmy Awards, and ABC relented. In the spring of 1970, Room 222 won Emmy Awards for Best New Series; Best Supporting Actor (Michael Constantine); and Best Supporting Actress (Karen Valentine). The following year, Constantine and Valentine were again nominated in the supporting acting awards category.
After the shaky first season, Room 222 nevertheless managed to receive respectable ratings during its next three years. Ratings peaked during the 1971–72 season, during which it held a No. 28 viewership ranking. By the start of the 1973–74 season, ratings had fallen drastically, and ABC canceled the show at midseason. After the series ended, the program entered syndication and was rerun on several television stations throughout the US.
I started watching full episodes of "Room 222" during the past few weeks on YouTube. So why Karen Valentine back in the day?
Why not? She was perky, funny, and the polar opposite of the principal, Mr. Kaufman, with his dry wit.
Nine-year-old yours truly saw her as a younger version of his own mom, wholesome, loving, and nurturing in an innocent sort of way, if that makes sense.
Looking back, yours truly, now at age 60 still sees Karen Valentine on "Room 222" the same way, with one distinct difference: Karen Valentine was uber sexy! Petite, friendly, caring, and vulnerable, yet she fits well with the other three main characters.
So where are they now?
LLOYD HAYNES: Sadly, Haynes died died of lung cancer on Jan. 1, 1987, of lung cancer at age 52 in Coronado, Calif. A heavy smoker, Haynes was survived by his third wife, Carolyn Inglis, and their 4-year-old daughter, Jessica Haynes.[4] His Room 222 co-star, Denise Nicholas, was in attendance at Haynes' small private funeral in San Diego County. During his illness, Haynes was co-starring in the television soap opera General Hospital as Mayor Ken Morgan and was working up until the time of his death.
Haynes' film career included roles in Madigan (1968), Ice Station Zebra (1968), Assault on the Wayne (1971), Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976), The Greatest (1977), and Good Guys Wear Black (1978). He also appeared in a number of television series, such as Batman and the miniseries 79 Park Avenue (1977). He played Communications Officer Alden in the second Star Trek pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1965), but was replaced by Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura when the series went into production the following year.
DENISE NICHOLAS: Now semi-retired from acting at age 77, Nicholas is known primarily for her roles as high-school guidance counselor Liz McIntyre on "Room 222" and as Councilwoman Harriet DeLong on the NBC/CBS drama series In the Heat of the Night. Prior to her acting career, Nicholas was involved in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s.
Nicholas began her television acting career in 1968, with an episode of It Takes a Thief. Nicholas wrote the song "Can We Pretend," which her then-husband Bill Withers recorded on his 1974 album +'Justments. Nicholas first novel, Freshwater Road, was published by Agate Publishing, in August 2005.
MICHAEL CONSTANTINE: The veteran actor, who played Principal Seymour Kaufman in Room 222, died on Aug. 31, 2021, at age 94 of natural causes. Constantine is most widely recognized for his portrayal of Kostas "Gus" Portokalos, the Windex bottle-toting Greek father of Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos), in the 2002 film My Big Fat Greek Wedding).
Constantine reprised his role as Gus Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016). Constantine's acting career began with a small but memorable supporting role in the 1961 film, The Hustler. In 1964 and 1965, Constantine appeared on Perry Mason, both times as the murderer.
KAREN VALENTINE: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).
Valentine was born in Sebastopol, California, in 1947. She is of Portuguese heritage, and her grandfather changed the family name from Valentin before her birth. In 1966–1967, she started her television career as "The Resident Dream Girl" on The Dream Girl of 1967, replacing Beverly Adams from the first weekday broadcast opposite hosts Dick Stewart and Wink Martindale, and during that time, she appeared on another Chuck Barris show, The Dating Game. She was discovered by Gene Reynolds, the director of Room 222, who saw her lip-synching in rehearsal and realized she was funny.
Well, there you have it - fond memories of one of the best TV shows of the late 1960s-early 1970s. Karen Valentine is now 75, and as beautiful to this 60-year-old fan as she was to the 9-year-old back in the day.
Display Pics / Pinterest / Candid shot of Karen Valentine in Room 222; 1963 Plymouth Valiant Signet driven by teacher Pete Dixon in Room 222; Second candid shot of Karen Valentine in Room 222.
Multimedia:
YouTube embedding: Top left: Room 222 opening theme song; Top right: Season 1, Ep. 3 Funny Boy; Bottom left: Season 1, Ep. 7 Teachers Dropping Out; Bottom right: Season 1, Ep. 25 Funny Money.
About the Byline Writer: Henry Frederick is a member of the working press and publisher of Headline Surfer, the award-winning 24/7 internet news outlet launched in 2008 along the I-4 tourism corridor in greater Daytona Beach to Orlando from Lake Mary, Florida via HeadlineSurfer.com. Frederick has amassed 115 award-winning bylines in print & online. He earned his Master of Arts in New Media Journalism from Full Sail University in 2019. He was a breaking news reporter (metro cops & courts beat) for the Daytona Beach News-Journal for nearly a decade. And Before that worked the same beat for The Journal-News/Gannett Suburban Newspapers in Rockland/Westchester counties, NY, dating back to 1989. Having witnessed the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Florida's death chamber and covering other high-profile cases such as the George Zimmerman murder trial, Frederick has appeared on national crime shows on Discovery ID, Reelz, and the Oxygen Network series "Snapped" for his analysis. AWJ: