Back in the early 80s, both Valerie Bertinelli and Steven Spielberg were young, hot commodities in Hollywood. She was hot off the success of “One Day At A Time” and he already had some blockbuster films under his belt. As we all know now, his “Indiana Jones” series of movies would prove to be box office gold in that decade, but back in early 1980, he was still in the casting phase for the first film, “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” That’s when Bertinelli’s name came up on the audition list, but according to her, Spielberg had ulterior motives.
“I went up to read for ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ which I was so wrong for,” Bertinelli told Oprah Winfrey on her talk show in 2008, via People. “And the next day I got a call and some flowers … [Spielberg] asked me out. We went out a few times … And did more.” According to her memoir “Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound At A Time,” she was cynical from the start. “The hotshot director must have seen me as a cute face and potentially easy l*y. Too cynical? Maybe,” she wrote, via CheatSheet.
Despite some of her misgivings, they reportedly dated for a few months, and she even recalls meeting his mother, but she has one major deal-breaker when it comes to relationships that Spielberg just couldn’t meet.
