For most television actors, the cancellation of a TV show can be a bitter pill to swallow. But in the case of Food Network star Valerie Bertinelli, she saw the axing of her 1990 sitcom Sydney as an opportunity.
Appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show on Thursday, Sept. 18, Bertinelli shared a photo from her 30th birthday, which she had celebrated with her Sydney co-stars. The series starred Bertinelli in the titular role as a private investigator who relocates her one-woman private detective agency from New York City to her small hometown, where she struggles to balance her personal and professional life.
“OK, starting on the left that’s Craig Bierko, Rebecca Bush, me, Matthew Perry, Daniel Baldwin, and Barney Martin, God rest his soul,” the 65 year-old explained, via People. “It was a lot of fun. It had a lot of problems, though. But I must say, Craig Bierko and Matthew Perry are probably two of the funniest men I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with in a sitcom. So funny.”
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Sydney had marked Bertinelli’s return to television in a lead role since the conclusion of her CBS sitcom One Day at a Time, which ran from 1975 to 1984. At the time, she was married to rocker Eddie Van Halen, whom she had wed in 1981.
“All I remember mainly about this is that we were canceled, and as soon as we were canceled, I said, ‘OK, it’s time.’ And I got pregnant a couple weeks later,” Bertinelli continued. “I was like, ‘I’m 30. We’re either gonna do it now or we’re not, Ed.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah!’”
Sydney aired for 13 episodes from March through June of 1990. And sure enough, the couple gave birth to their son, Wolfgang Van Halen, on March 16, 1991.
However, the marriage didn’t last. Bertinelli and Van Halen separated in 2001 and later divorced in December 2007. Though, the co-parents remained close until Van Halen’s death in October 2020 following a battle with throat cancer. She was even by his side when he passed away.
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Last year, Bertinelli opened up about the tumultuous relationship in a since-deleted Instagram Reel after watching Wolfgang’s episode of Behind the Music on Paramount Plus, as her son followed in his famous father’s footsteps.
“I fell in love with him when I was 20 and it rapidly declined into drugs and alcohol and infidelity—nothing that makes you feel loved and wanted cared for,” she said at the time. “Nothing that would scream ‘soulmate, that’s for sure. But after Ed died, I was more than willing to put myself in the grieving widow category for a man that I hadn’t lived with for 20 years.”
“What we had together was this beautiful son that we both unconditionally loved,” Bertinelli continued. “That’s what I got out of that marriage, is Wolfie, the best thing that ever happened to me. Not a soulmate.”
