Their Love Is Stronger

For Valerie and Eddie, real life is a matter of taking it one day at a time, so to speak. They credit therapy and a strong sense of spirituality with helping them through the rough spots. Valerie says they had a really good therapist, so she helped them immensely. She never thought it would be like give somebody else credit for anything in life that Valerie does, but she has yet given her a path. Eddie says that their therapist has saved his life, or he would have drank himself to death.

In an industry that thrives on illusion and often masks the reality of real life, Valerie is a very down-to-earth woman, grounded with the real-life role she plays as mother and wife. Everybody seems to think just because she is who she is and she's married to Eddie that they have this extravagant Hollywood life, but, basically they live a very normal life. Some really don't think she's happier than when she's alone with Wolfie playing on the floor and she's doing her needlepoint and there's some great movie on the TV. Those may be the happiest moments for her. She enjoys being mom more than she does working. Valerie enjoys going to the grocery store and going to Wolfie's school and being Wolfie's mother, not an actress, she likes going to the mall and having people know her because she's been going there for so long, or going down to the grocery store because they know her because she's been going there for 17 years, not because she's Valerie Bertinelli. She likes having a life.

What also keeps Valerie's feet on the ground is the role she plays as friend, and friendship to Valerie is a sacred bond and trust. Jane Leeves and Faith Ford are two well-known actresses who are lucky to be among her closest and dearest friends. Valerie says they're mall girls, and they have a ball together, they shop! They go out to dinner, hang around the house, barbecue, swim parties, basically they hang, they don't do anything Hollywood, they just hang.