Celebrity Nooz: Deborah Van Valkenburgh

Deborah Van Valkenburgh (Actress) - Too Close for Comfort

Updated: 12/12/22

Name: Deborah Van Valkenburgh

Birth Name: Deborah Gaye Van Valkenburgh

Born: August 29, 1952 in Schenectady, New York

Claim To Fame: Deborah Van Valkenburgh is an American actress best known for her screen debut as Mercy in the 1979 cult film The Warriors, and her role as Jackie Rush for five seasons (1980-1985) on the TV sitcom Too Close for Comfort.

Family Life: N/A

Info: In 1970, graduated from Shaker High School in Latham, New York.

Graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, with a BFA in Painting & Drawing.

Studied acting with William Esper and John Shea, ballet with Ballet Arts Carnegie Hall and modern dance with James Cunningham.

Studied for a period in the early 1980s at New York University's School of Social Work.

Trivia: She started her acting career in 1977 with the Broadway revival of "Hair".

Deborah also appearing in Off-Broadway plays Honeybee, The Tempest, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Hay Fever, When Did You last See Your Mother?, Iolanthe, It Ain't Aardvark, and Minutemen.

Her debut film role was as the love interest to Michael Beck's character in Walter Hill's cult classic The Warriors (1979).

In 2012, she won the Best Supporting Actress in a Fantasy Film award at the PollyGrind Underground Film Festival for the film Road to Hell.

Where Are They Now: Van Valkenburgh is still performing on stage. Here most recent screen appearance was in the Hulu TV series Helstrom (2020).

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