Deborah Van Valkenburgh, the actor best known for playing Mercy in the 1979 cult film The Warriors and Jackie Rush on the sitcom Too Close for Comfort, was photographed in Los Angeles this week with noticeably silver hair, a contrast to the jet-black look that made her widely recognizable in the 1970s and 1980s.
In images captured on Tuesday, Van Valkenburgh, 73, wore her gray hair in soft shoulder-length curls, light makeup and rectangular prescription glasses. She was dressed in an olive green parka with the word "Warriors" across one front pocket, a white T-shirt, dark blue denim jeans and red flat shoes. The actor carried a purse over her shoulder and pulled a rolling suitcase as she walked through the city.
Van Valkenburgh emerged from the New York theater scene before transitioning to film and television. She graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing and trained in acting with teachers including William Esper and John Shea. Her performing arts studies also encompassed ballet at Ballet Arts Carnegie Hall, modern dance, puppet production with Jim Henson, voice work and improvisation.
Her early stage work included a role in the Broadway production of Hair and appearances in Off-Broadway plays such as Honeybee, The Tempest, Six Characters in Search of an Author and Hay Fever. Van Valkenburgh later joined regional and touring productions, including Mooney's Kid Don't Cry, The Children's Hour and A View From the Bridge.
Van Valkenburgh's screen breakthrough came with The Warriors, released in 1979. The film follows a Coney Island gang framed for the murder of a prominent gang leader and forced to fight their way back to their home turf. Van Valkenburgh played Mercy, a streetwise character who becomes entangled with the gang as they traverse New York City. The film was shot on location across the city in 1978 and has since attained cult status.
In 1984 she appeared in Streets of Fire, a rock-infused action movie in which she played the sister of the lead character portrayed by Michael Paré. The plot centers on rescuing Ellen Aim, a rock singer played by Diane Lane, after she is abducted by a crime boss played by Willem Dafoe. Streets of Fire earned roughly $22.5 million at the global box office and is often cited as a cult favorite.
On television Van Valkenburgh was a regular on Too Close for Comfort, portraying Jackie Rush for five seasons from 1980 to 1985. The sitcom starred Ted Knight as cartoonist Henry Rush and focused on the comic tensions of a family in San Francisco; the series later was retooled and retitled The Ted Knight Show for its final season.
Her screen credits span decades and include feature films such as Rampage (1987), Phantom of the Ritz (1988), Mean Guns (1997), Sorcerers (1998), The Devil's Rejects (2005), Broken Hart (2009) and The Trials of Cate McCall (2013). On television she has guest-starred on series including Cagney & Lacey, Crime Story, MacGyver, Picket Fences, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Chicago Hope, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer and Law & Order: LA.
The recent Los Angeles sighting marks a rare public appearance for Van Valkenburgh. Photographs from the outing emphasize the change in her hair color and a low-key, practical wardrobe rather than the glamour associated with some of her most famous screen roles. She has continued to work periodically in film and television into the 2010s.