Valerie Bertinelli
Small-screen actress Valerie Bertinelli was born in Wilmington, Del., to parents Nancy and Luke Bertinelli. Her father was a General Motors executive who relocated his family to Michigan and later California when Bertinelli was in her early teens.
During her time in Van Nuys, Bertinelli befriended a TV producer's daughter and enrolled in the Tami Lynn School of Artists to study acting. Tami Lynn became Bertinelli's personal manager in 1971 and managed the young actress through 1979; during that time, the young actress signed on to the hit sitcom "One Day at a Time."
She made her name on Norman Lear's situation comedy in 1975 playing Barbara Cooper, one of two daughters to a recently divorced Ann Romano (played by Bonnie Franklin). The CBS show remained on the air until 1984. The baby-faced teen became one of America's sweethearts thanks to her run on the series and earned a Golden Globe Award in 1982 for her performance.
The actress became a staple of made-for-TV movies by appearing in one film nearly every year between 1978 and 2003.
She also appeared in the short-lived sitcom "Sydney," which helped launch the careers of Daniel Baldwin, Matthew Perry, Rebeccah Bush, Craig Bierko and Barney Martin.
In 1981, she married rocker Eddie Van Halen, with whom she had a son named Wolfgang in 1991. The couple separated in 2001 after she learned that Van Halen boarded a plane while carrying cocaine and their son in tow. She filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, in 2005 and it was finalized in 2007.
The actress also appeared in the series "Café Americain" before taking on a 59-episode run in CBS' "Touched By an Angel" in 1997.
In 2007, Bertinelli made her way back onto the small screen, this time during commercial breaks, by becoming a spokeswoman for weight-loss giant Jenny Craig. The actress had hit 172 pounds after her TV-movie options dwindled and when "Angel" was on its way to cancellation. She said she turned to food to relieve the stress. Bertinelli said the company helped her shed 30 pounds. In 2008, she released the book "Losing It — And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time."
Tom Vitale came into Bertinelli's life in 2004. After a six-year courtship, the financial planner proposed to Bertinelli while they were vacationing in Italy. He proposed at one of Florence's oldest restaurants in 2010. The two married on New Year's Day 2011 at their home in Malibu. Van Halen attended the wedding.
Bertinelli returned to sitcoms yet again in June 2010 with white-hot Betty White in the pilot of "Hot in Cleveland," a TV Land sitcom also starring Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves that planted three women of a certain age in Cleveland, where they decided to rent a house. The series was nominated for several Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
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