TV star Valerie Mahaffey dead at 71: Emmy-winner also appeared in ‘ER,’ ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Young Sheldon’

The Emmy-award winner appeared on many hit shows including ER, Seinfeld, Glee, Young Sheldon and Northern Exposure as well as blockbuster movies.

Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy-winning actor best known for her roles in Northern Exposure, Big Sky and Young Sheldon, has died at 71.

Mahaffey died Friday following a short battle with cancer, her husband, Joseph Kell, said in a heartbreaking statement.

“I have lost the love of my life, and America has lost one of its most endearing actors,” he wrote, The NY Post reports.

“She will be missed.”

Valerie Mahaffey attends an industry Screening of Sully at The DGA Theater on Sept. 8, 2016, in Los Angeles. Picture: Steve Cohn/Invision for Warner Bros./AP Images.

Mahaffey, who was born in Indonesia to a Canadian mother and an American father, got her Hollywood break in the late 1970s with a role on the hit TV soap The Doctors. She subsequently appeared in episodes of Newhart, Cheers and Seinfeld, before joining the cast of Northern Exposure in 1991.

The cast of Seinfeld: from left actor Michael Kramer with Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jerry Seinfeld.

The small-screen star won an Emmy for her role as Eve in the whimsical CBS dramedy, which ran for six seasons.

Mahaffey went on to appear in some of the biggest TV shows of the 1990s and 2000s, including ER, Ally McBeal, Frasier, The West Wing and CSI.

She also played Alma Hodge in nine episodes of Desperate Housewives.

The industrious actor continued her impressive body of work into the 2010s, with roles in Glee, Grey’s Anatomy and The Man In The High Castle.

Mahaffey later joined the cast of Young Sheldon, playing Mrs MacElroy from 2017 – 2020. She also had a lead role on the first season of David E. Kelley’s crime drama Big Sky.

In addition to her small-screen roles, Mahaffey also starred in several films, including 2016’s Sully, in which she appeared opposite Tom Hanks.

This article originally appeared in The NY Post and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as TV star Valerie Mahaffey dead at 71: Emmy-winner also appeared in ‘ER,’ ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Young Sheldon’