The Beginning Of Her Acting Years

She got into acting when a meeting young girl who was working in commercials inspired Valerie to try out to appear in ads of her own with the help of her mother, Nancy, enrolling her in some acting classes. After discovering that acting was her forte, Valerie came out of her shell. She fell in love with acting. Her shyness seemed to melt away. Acting helped her make new friends and made her feel accepted. It was a perfect avenue of expression for her, turning her liabilities into assets. She would soon be rocketing to stardom as we shall see.

Valerie says she remembers being really shy and embarrassed when she first started going to acting school, and not wanting to get up there and do things, but once she was up there on stage, she says, and into whatever it was she was doing or playing, she loved it, but when it was over, she realized that what she had done was realize she just did that.

The following year, 1972, armed with headshots, began auditioning for TV work. After 75 casting sessions, she landed her first paid part working in a commercial. Her mother says all she and Andrew wanted to see her do one commercial so that her grandmother back in Delaware could say "That's my granddaughter" and that's all they wanted, one commercial, and if she didn't want to do it anymore, she was free to drop it, but it just went on from there. Her first commercial acting project was eating a chocolate Easter bunny for a J.C. Penney's ad, then other acting projects followed for snacks and tuna.

Although Valerie took acting quite seriously, the rejection bothered her and she didn't like missing school for auditions. She and her mother used to have arguments all the time because Nancy believed that if you're going to be doing something you do it with all your passion. Valerie says she used to cry and get so angry at her mother, taking it out on her, and she'd come in during her favorite part of school, and every other period of school Valerie can give and take, but her mother would come in third period art class Mr. Hamill and Valerie would be in the middle of something, loving it, and she and her mom would get taken out of class and she would blame her and she's like "Fine, if you don't want to do this, you don't have to do it", and she would get into her car so upset cause she had to leave art class. We do this all or we stop, it's her choice. Valerie said alright, she'd think she'd rather want to do it now, and then she started getting commercial after commercial, because Valerie guesses something clicked in her that she wasn't going to take it personally.

Valerie also played a small guest role in "Apple's Way" in 1974.

By the age of 15 when most girls were thinking of boys, Friday night dances, and talking on the phone, Valerie was on a collision course with stardom.

Before she got her first job on "One Day at a Time" in 1975, Valerie did eight commercials.