Amy Yasbeck

The redhead who survived slapstick

Amy Yasbeck didn't come to Hollywood to be a silent muse. She had fiery red hair that recalled the Technicolor divas, but her energy fit better with the physical comedy chaos of the nineties. In 1988, she landed the role of Madison in the TV sequel Splash, Too, and that put her face in homes across the United States.

Her real springboard, however, was fast-paced genre cinema. In 1990 she shot Problem Child, where she met John Ritter. Interestingly, in the first installment she played Ritter's wife, but in the 1991 sequel she returned with a completely different character. The producers didn't want to lose their chemistry on camera.

And the gamble paid off.

During that decade she became the go-to actress for directors looking for a female foil with character. Mel Brooks cast her in Robin Hood: Men in Tights in 1993, where she played Lady Marian. It wasn't a typical damsel role, because Brooks demanded a pace of jokes per minute that very few actresses could keep up without losing their composure.

In 1994 she appeared in The Mask alongside Jim Carrey. She played reporter Peggy Brandt and made sure her character wasn't overshadowed by the special effects or Carrey's impossible facial contortions. She was a standout supporting player who knew when to step back so the lead could shine.

She reteamed with Mel Brooks in 1995 for Dracula: Dead and Loving It. That film was a critical flop but cemented Yasbeck as the friendly face of cinematic parody. Her salary and her prominent place on the posters of the era showed she was one of the studio's safe bets for the summer box office.

A plot twist away from the spotlight

Yasbeck's personal life was almost symbiotically tied to her work. She married John Ritter in 1999 at a Disney theme park in Ohio. They were one of the industry's most beloved couples because they projected a normalcy that was rare in the Los Angeles hills. But everything broke off suddenly in 2003.

Ritter died during the filming of the series No con mis hijas from an aortic dissection that wasn't diagnosed in time. Amy Yasbeck went from red carpets to courtrooms within months. She filed a medical negligence lawsuit for 67 million dollars against the hospital and the doctors who treated her husband.

The trial was an exhausting and highly publicized process.

Although the jury ruled in favor of the doctors in 2008, she did not stop. She decided her acting career would take a back seat so she could focus on medical awareness. She founded the John Ritter Foundation to raise awareness of aortic diseases and keep other families from going through the same ordeal. Her acting work became intermittent from that point on.

In 2010, she published the book With Love and Laughter, John Ritter to raise funds. It wasn't a conventional biography but a public exercise in grief that helped her close a very dark chapter of her life. The industry respected her and offered her small television roles that wouldn't take too much time away from her activism.

She appeared in an episode of the series Bones in 2013, playing Diana Child. Later, in 2016, she showed up in Pretty Little Liars, playing Claudia during the seventh season. These are carefully chosen roles that show that her priorities stopped being fame a long time ago.

Her last credited appearance in a fiction production was in the short film The Little Death in 2021. Yasbeck stays out of the spotlight and focuses on preserving Ritter's legacy through annual charity events. The Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank runs a specialized cardiology unit named after the actor, thanks to his donations.

The final amount of the settlement she received after the out-of-court agreements with the hospital was never made public.