Still, Bertinelli recalled the super-producer as “so loving,” and said she and her sitcom costar Mackenzie Phillips were “incredibly lucky to have such a mentor.”

Valerie Bertinelli says she was ‘always afraid’ of being ‘reprimanded’ by Norman Lear on One Day at a Time

Still, Bertinelli recalled the super-producer as “so loving,” and said she and her sitcom costar Mackenzie Phillips were “incredibly lucky to have such a mentor.”

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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September 10, 2026 7:00 p.m. ET

Valerie Bertinelli in 1979; Norman Lear in 1984. Credit:

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- Valerie Bertinelli says she was “always afraid I was going to be reprimanded” by her *One Day at a Time *boss, Norman Lear.

- Bertinelli confided in her sitcom costar, Mackenzie Phillips, that she remembers “being so scared” of the super-producer across her nine seasons on the show.

- Still, Bertinelli remembered Lear as “so loving,” adding that she and Phillips were “incredibly lucky to have such a mentor.”

Valerie Bertinelli is getting candid about her mixed feelings for her old *One Day at a Time** *boss, Norman Lear.

“He was so loving,” Bertinelli recalled on Monday’s episode of her *Getting Naked: The Podcast*, for which she was joined by her costar across the sitcom’s nine seasons, Mackenzie Phillips.

“Both of us are incredibly lucky to have such a mentor, and someone who wasn’t what you think Hollywood is, because young girls in Hollywood are eaten up and [spit] out, and we were not under Norman’s tutelage. I felt very, very protected and I always was in awe of him,” Bertinelli gushed. And yet, she also confessed to feeling “afraid of him a little bit — a little bit always afraid I was going to be reprimanded by Norman.”

Norman Lear in Bel Air, Calif. in 1984.

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty

“He was the one that immediately took me aside when I had to cry in the finale of the first season and I couldn’t do it,” Bertinelli recalled.

Now 66, Bertinelli got her big break on the CBS sitcom when she was only 14. *One Day at a Time *starred Bonnie Franklin as a divorcée navigating single motherhood, with Bertinelli as her wry daughter Julie, and Phillips as Julie’s troublemaker sister, Barbara. The season 1 finale was the conclusion of a two-part arc in which Julie and Barbara scheme to get their parents back together, and when they fail, Julie takes it personally.

“I was too embarrassed because I wasn’t an actor. I was just learning how to do this,” Bertinelli explained. “Now I can. But I also have 50 years experience behind me, right? But I remember being so scared of [Lear].”

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Phillips did not have the same experience of the TV legend behind hits like *All in the Family*, *Good Times*, and *Diff’rent Strokes*. “I had a wonderful relationship with Norman. I don’t think this is a word, but I pedestalized him,” Phillips said. “I always adored Norman, and whenever we would get a script, you remember the script, it would get that up in the right hand corner, it said ‘Lear Polish.’”

Both Phillips and Bertinelli admitted they’re still in possession of those scripts.

But Phillips did recall tension between Lear and Bertinelli. “Years later, I wanted us to split the cost of doing a full page ‘Happy birthday Norman,’ or ‘Congratulations Norman’” advertisement in a newspaper, but Bertinelli “didn’t want to do it.” Bertinelli didn’t recall her refusal, but Phillips explained that “there was some sort of ridge that had developed” between her costar and the series developer. Bertinelli, Phillips made a point to clarify, did ultimately chip in for the ad.

Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli at the Norman Lear centennial celebration in Los Angeles in 2022.

Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty

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Still, Bertinelli frequently shares fond memories of working on the sitcom, which wrapped its nine-season run in 1984.

“I remember being 15, standing at the apartment door, and really thinking, at 15 years old, ‘This is gonna change my life,’” Bertinelli recalled in 2025, on the occasion of the sitcom’s 50th anniversary. “I can still smell the smells. I can still see the audience. It’s like there’s certain moments — I mean, 15 is a long time ago from 50 years — so it’s hard to remember a lot of stuff that’s not *that* recent, but there’s certain memories from *One Day at a Time* that I still take with me. And that’s one of them.”

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