I'll Take Valerie

The eight-hour miniseries I'll Take Manhattan (Mar 1-4, 1987) on CBS, the screen adaptation of Judith Krantz's best-seller was a HUGE hit for Valerie, helping her solidfy her title as mini-series queen.

Valerie said the thing was amazing, it did amazing ratings, it was the biggest miniseries of the year (topping the AmeriKKa miniseries two weeks before, which had better critical reviews but lower ratings).

Valerie's miniseries followed a day of hosting on "Saturday Night Live" on NBC, preceded by her "Good Morning America" appearance on ABC the day before that, and who knows what other shows she was plugging her Manhattan project on. Seems that every time Valerie makes a TV movie, we literally see her everywhere possible, in talk shows, in panel discussions, in magazine covers, even dreams.

But despite the miniserie's commerical success, she is critical of her performance. Valerie says she really did love the book, it was a really fun read, but, she doesn't know if she was really right for that part.

"I can do this, I know I can do this, I am Maxie Amberville"

More TV movie projects would follow before the birth of Wolfie like Pancho Barnes (Oct 25, 1988), a three-hour movie that had very stiff competetion between NBC's popular Matlock and a Geraldo Rivera special on Devil Worship, and ABC's strong schedule of Who's The Boss featuring another teen-queen Alyssa Milano, the just-hatched Roseanne, Moonlighting, and thirtysomething. It was just one of those rare times where I had to have three VCRs running to catch eight out of nine hours of TV that night. I wasn't that much into Matlock, so eight was enough for one night.

Valerie starred in another TV-movie Taken Away (Nov 5, 1989)