Valerie Mahaffey, a character actress with a knack for playing eccentric women who sometimes revealed themselves to be sinister in television shows like “Desperate Housewives,” “Northern Exposure” and “Devious Maids,” died on Friday in Los Angeles. She was 71.
The cause was cancer, her husband, the actor Joseph Kell, said in a statement, adding: “I have lost the love of my life.”
Ms. Mahaffey had worked steadily over the past five decades, starting out on the NBC daytime soap opera, “The Doctors,” for which she received a Daytime Emmy nomination for best supporting actress in 1980. Most recently, she appeared in the movie “The 8th Day,” a crime thriller released in March. She was also known for her guest starring roles on well-known TV series such as “Seinfeld” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
She won an Emmy for best supporting actress in 1992 for her work as Eve, a hypochondriac, on the 1990s CBS series “Northern Exposure,” a drama set in Alaska. She was best known for playing seemingly friendly women who become villainous characters in dramas such as “Desperate Housewives,” where she appeared in nine episodes.
In her “Housewives” role as Alma Hodge, she was a woman trapped in a loveless marriage who faked her own death to get back at her husband, hoping he would be blamed for her disappearance.
She most recently won acclaim for her work in the 2020 dark comedy, “French Exit,” which saw her nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her portrayal of Madame Reynard, a scene-stealing eccentric widow.
In an interview in 2021 with the Gold Derby, Ms. Mahaffey discussed the role, saying: “I know how to be funny. I’ve done sitcoms. I know ba-dum-bum humor.”
“Maybe it’s this point in my life,” she added, “I don’t want any artifice. And I wanted to play the truth of every moment.”
Ms. Mahaffey was born on June 16, 1953, in Sumatra, Indonesia. Her mother, Jean, was Canadian, and her father, Lewis, was an American who worked in the oil business. Her family later moved to Nigeria before eventually settling in Austin, Texas, where she attended high school and went on to earn a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1975, from the University of Texas.
The frequent moves made her family very close, she told The New York Times in a 1983 interview.
“We had to leave friends behind all the time, and so we turned toward one another,” she said.
In addition to her husband, Ms. Mahaffey is survived by their daughter, Alice Richards.
