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Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy and Obie Award-winning actress known for playing eccentric characters on shows including Northern Exposure and Desperate Housewives, died on Friday. She was 71.

Her husband, actor Joseph Kell, said she died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer, Variety reports.

Mahaffey won an Emmy in 1992 for her supporting actress role in the dramedy Northern Exposure, where she portrayed the hypochondriac Eve, the wife of Adam Arkin’s character, from 1991-1994.

Mahaffey’s recurring television roles include portraying the conniving Alma Hodge, the ex-wife of Orson Hodge...

Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy-winning actor known for such TV series as “Northern Exposure,” “Big Sky” and “Desperate Housewives” and films including “Sully” and “Seabiscuit,” has died. She was 71.

Mahaffey’s husband, actor Joseph Kell, disclosed that she died May 30 in Los Angeles after a battle with cancer.

“I have lost the love of my life, and America has lost one of its most endearing actresses. She will be missed,” Kell said.

Mahaffey won the supporting comedy actress Emmy in 1992 for her work as a hypochondriac Eve in the fictional Alaskan town featured in CBS’ fish-out-of-water dramedy “Northern Exposure,” which aired from 1990 to 1995.

Most recently, Mahaffey was seen in the Apple TV+ series “Echo 3” and the 2020 indie film “French Exit” opposite Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges. For the latter, she earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her role as the optimstic Madame Reynard in Azazel Jacobs’ dark comedy.

She co-starred...

Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy-winning actress known for her work on such shows as Northern Exposure, Desperate Housewives, Young Sheldon and Dead to Me, died Friday. She was 71.

Mahaffey died in Los Angeles after a battle with cancer, publicist Jillian Roscoe announced.

Known for playing eccentric characters, Mahaffey received a Spirit Award nomination for her turn as widowed American expat Madame Reynard in French Exit (2020) opposite Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges as mother and son.

From 1991-94, she appeared on five episodes of CBS’ Northern Exposure over three seasons and received a supporting actress Emmy in 1992 for portraying the hypochondriac Eve, wife of Adam Arkin’s character.

She played the manipulative Alma Hodge, ex-wife of Kyle MacLachlan’s Orson Hodge, on ABC’s Desperate Housewives from 2006-07; recurred as the teacher Victoria MacElroy on CBS’ Young Sheldon from 2017-20; and played Lorna Harding, Christina Applegate’s narcissistic mother-in-law, on Netflix’s...

Jeanine Serralles (Hot Summer Nights) is set as a series regular opposite John Cusack, Rainn Wilson and Sasha Lane in Utopia, Amazon’s straight-to-series adaptation of the British drama, written by Gone Girl author and screenwriter Gillian Flynn.

Utopia follows a group of young adults who meet online that are mercilessly hunted by a shadowy deep state organization after they come into possession of a near-mythical cult underground graphic novel. Within the comic’s pages, they discover the conspiracy theories that actually might be real and are forced into the dangerous, unique and ironic position of saving the world.

Serralles will play Colleen. A cheerful, self-possessed mortgage broker who encourages her scientist husband, Michael Stearns (Wilson), to step forward and assert himself in the midst of a national health crisis. Having found each other later in life, Colleen is her husband’s biggest cheerleader and confidence booster.

The Amazon adaptation...