Valerie Bertinelli is an American actress who has a net worth of $20 million. Bertinelli has earned her net worth through her many acting roles on television and from her marriage to Eddie Van Halen. She is probably best known for her role on the sitcom “One Day at A Time” (1975–1984), which earned her two Golden Globes. Valerie has also appeared on the TV series “Café Americain” (1993–1994), “Touched by an Angel” (2001–2003), and “Hot in Cleveland” (2010–2015). She began hosting “Valerie’s Home Cooking” on the Food Network in 2015, and she has released the cookbooks “One Dish at a Time: Delicious Recipes and Stories from My Italian-American Childhood and Beyond” (2012) and “Valerie’s Home Cooking: More than 100 Delicious Recipes to Share with Friends and Family” (2017). Bertinelli published her memoir, “Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time,” in 2008, and followed it with “Finding It: And Satisfying My Hunger for Life Without Opening the Fridge” in 2009.
Early Life
Valerie Bertinelli was born Valerie Anne Bertinelli on April 23, 1960, in Wilmington, Delaware. She grew up in Claymont, Delaware, Shreveport, Louisiana, Clarkston, Michigan, Oklahoma City, and Los Angeles, California, with mother Nancy, father Andrew (a General Motors executive), and brothers Patrick, David, and Drew. Her parents also had a son, Mark, who died from accidental poisoning when he was 17 months old, before Valerie was born. Bertinelli studied at Granada Hills High School and the Tami Lynn School of Artists, and Tami Lynn served as her manager from 1971 to 1979.
Career
In 1974, Valerie guest-starred on an episode of the CBS drama “Apple’s Way,” and she was soon asked to audition for the new sitcom “One Day at a Time” by producer Norman Lear. She was cast as Barbara Cooper and became a TV star at the age of 15. “One Day at a Time” aired 209 episodes over nine seasons, and in 2005, Bertinelli and co-stars Mackenzie Phillips, Bonnie Franklin, and Pat Harrington, Jr. appeared on “The One Day at a Time Reunion” on CBS. While starring on “One Day at a Time,” Valerie appeared on “Battle of the Network Stars III” (1977), “The Hardy Boys” (1978), “C.H.O.M.P.S.” (1979), and “Fridays” (1981–1982) as well as the television films “valerie bertinelli young Love, First Love” (1979), “The Promise of Love” (1980), “The Princess and the Cabbie” (1981), “I Was a Mail Order Bride” (1982), “The Seduction of Gina” (1984), and “Shattered Vows” (1984). Bertinelli starred in several more made-for-TV movies throughout the 1980s, including “Silent Witness” (1985), “Ordinary Heroes” (1986), “Rockabye” (1986), and “Taken Away” (1989), and she appeared in the 1987 miniseries “I’ll Take Manhattan.”
Personal Life
Valerie married musician Eddie Van Halen on April 11, 1981, and they welcomed son Wolfgang Van Halen on March 16, 1991. Bertinelli and Van Halen split in 2001, and their divorce was finalized in December 2007. Valerie has said that Eddie’s drug addiction his refusal to stop smoking after his oral cancer diagnosis were major reasons for the divorce. Bertinelli went on to wed financial planner Tom Vitale on January 1, 2011, and she is stepmother to his four children. Sadly, Van Halen died in October 2020 after a long battle with cancer, and Valerie and Wolfgang were with him when he passed.
Bertinelli has been very open about her struggle with weight loss, and she appeared in ads for Jenny Craig after losing 40 pounds on their weight loss program. In 2010, she ran in the Boston Marathon as part of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Team, finishing in a time of 5:14:37. In 2014, Valerie appeared on the TLC series “Who Do You Think You Are?” and discovered that she’s a descendant of King Edward I of England.