When Natalie Raitano landed a role in "V.I.P." her dreams came true after years of struggling to make it big.
"I remember saying I'm going to L.A. I'm going to be a star," Raitano said. "Then when it happened it was like wow, I manifested this.
"I got it and my life changed," said the 36-year-old native of Carroll Township, where her parents, Angie and Bart Raitano, still live.
Raitano bought a house in Hollywood Hills, started hanging out with stars like Pamela Anderson and found herself being recognized by strangers.
"Everything changed," said Raitano. "I didn't even know what was in store for me."
Still, she was determined to "stay totally grounded" and "keep God first, no matter what."
"It's really important not to believe the hype," Raitano said.
Now the 1984 graduate of Mon Valley Catholic High School is still trying to make her dreams come true. "V.I.P." is in syndication on TNN, but new shows are not being filmed.
"Success isn't a one-time thing," she said. "I have to make it happen again."
She's working on that now. One of the hottest irons in the fire is a talk show. "It's kinda like 'Sex in the City' meets 'The View.' It's going to be topic driven, not celebrity driven."
It's not a definite yet. "It's an idea we're selling right now. Hopefully, we'll have it produced."
Staying in the business is tough. "If you get the opportunity to stay in it you're really, really lucky."
Late last week, Angie Raitano reported her daughter will soon be off to Australia to work as an understudy for an actress on a reality show. "I told her I don't want to see you on TV eating bugs," Angie Raitano said.
Upon graduation from Mercyhurst College, where she studied dance, Natalie Raitano moved to New York City and got an apartment on Madison Avenue with a fellow graduate.
"It was culture shock going from Erie to New York," she said, remembering being "eaten up by the city."
Eventually she moved to Los Angeles. "I struggled a lot of years in L.A."
"I was out here pursuing a singing career," she said. "And when you're pursuing a dream you have to take a lot of side jobs."
Through one of her odd jobs, the former aerobics instructor and host of a 1997 ESPN2 exercise show caught the attention of "V.I.P." creator J.F. Lawton at a party in 1998.
She immediately hit it off with Pamela Anderson, whose character heads up the Vallery Irons Protection team, a Hollywood bodyguard agency that solves cases from the risky to the simply ridiculous. Raitano plays Nikki Franco, a quick-tempered bomb expert and weapons lover.
Raitano's sister, Nicol, tunes into the show each weekday in her room, where the walls are lined with autographed pictures of the cast.
"Nicky never misses it. I hear her in the bedroom. She'll yell out 'V.I.P.!' " Angie Raitano said.
Occasionally Angie Raitano will watch the show with her youngest daughter. "I missed a lot of the shows. I couldn't watch every one of them," she said, remembering the program aired at 1 a.m. Sundays and she would often fall asleep simply because of how late it was on.
Nicky is delighted that the character her sister plays has the same name as her.
"It was a total coincidence, but I think everything happens for a reason," said Natalie Raitano, referring to her sister as her "little angel."
The Raitano family visited the set on a number of occasions. "It's really interesting. Until you've seen it, you just can't realize how they stage those things and accomplish what they do in sometimes very small spaces," Angie Raitano said. "Some of the things that look like they take place in another state or some other locale is out in their parking lot.
"It's very intriguing. I never dreamed that there would be so many people on the set to accomplish that little bit that they film. It's an amazing production."
Angie Raitano said she had the opportunity to meet Pamela Anderson on the set and attend a party at the star's home. "She's a very nice girl. In person she's not the ditzy thing that she plays on television. She's very intelligent and very down to earth. She's a very smart girl.
"She (Anderson) has taken her career a long way and it's very nice that she's included Natalie in a lot of things in those four years that they were making the show," Angie Raitano said.
Never in her wildest dreams did Angie Raitano think her daughter would be famous as she was raising her and nurturing her love for dancing, singing and gymnastics. "But I always knew she had a spark to entertain," Angie Raitano said. "She just had some sort of a spark that drew your attention. Well, that's a mother talking."
She remembers the family was often entertained by Natalie who liked to perform on the fireplace hearth.
When asked what it's like to have a famous daughter, Angie Raitano replied: "I think Nicky was famous when she was young because of her Special Olympics, but that's not like this is."
Raitano's 29-year-old daughter Nicky was born with Down syndrome, and in year's past competed in running and skiing in the Special Olympics.
Looking through the pages of a scrapbook she filled with photos of Natalie as she grew up, Angie Raitano added that her daughter was also very photogenic and loved posing for the camera. "She could be crying, but if you came along and said I want to take a picture, she could just (stop crying) like that," said Angie Raitano, snapping her fingers.
Many smiles can be found in Natalie's album, which is filled with snapshots from her days as a student at St. Jerome's Elementary School and many years of gymnastics, tennis camp, skiing and dancing as a student of Marlene Celaschi.
Angie Raitano also keeps a scrapbook of the many articles written about her daughter through the years. Looking through it she says she thinks her daughter handles the stardom well.
"If she's here in Pittsburgh she's recognized. In Florida she's recognized. Any time we go out somebody will stop and say you look just like that girl on 'V.I.P.,'" she said. "It's real cute. She handles it very nicely.
"She's very personable. I'm really proud about how she takes that when people come up. She never refuses to sign an autograph or a napkin. She'll even take pictures with them," Angie Raitano said.
Natalie Raitano's childhood friend Alexis "Lexie" (Passarello) Massari, of Monongahela, finds it "hysterical" when Natalie is recognized.
"It's the funniest thing to me," Massari said. "She's not a star at all to me."
Massari enjoys visiting with Natalie Raitano when she comes home. Each time they reunite, it's like they've never missed a beat. "We laugh all the time when we're together."
The two met in ninth grade at Mon Valley Catholic High School. "We just hit it off," Massari recalled.
The girls kept company with a group of five other girls who called themselves "The Bunch."
As teenagers the two spent time at the Super 71 Drive-in movie theater in Belle Vernon. They also went to football and basketball games and dances at their school.
Massari said if anyone had asked her back then who in her school would be famous some day, she would have said Natalie Raitano.
"She had that spark in her from the beginning," said Massari, remembering at age 15 thinking her friend had a star quality. "She has no inhibitions at all."
Massari is amused when she thinks how the two have forged such different lifestyles.
"We laugh at our total differences," said Massari, who is married and enjoys being a stay-at-home mom with three children.
"My kids think she's a big movie star," said Massari, explaining her children have seen her on "Entertainment Tonight" and "MTV Cribs," a show that offers a peek into stars' homes.
"It ( Cribs) was probably the best thing she ever did," Massari said. "She looked like a true movie star."
