Amy Yasbeck (Actor)

Amy Yasbeck in Dracula: Dead and Loving It. (Photo: Castle Rock)

About Amy Yasbeck

A pretty, energetic performer with luxuriant auburn hair, Yasbeck is best known for her sitcom work and for playing shrewish wives, first as the social climbing spouse of Jason Alexander in the box-office hit "Pretty Woman" and then as John Ritter's bossy, supremely shallow wife in "Problem Child" (both 1990).

Yasbeck became a part of baby boomer pop history as the little girl on the Easy Bake Oven box at the age of six. Active in community theater in high school, she dropped out of college in Detroit and went to New York to pursue acting. There, she was discovered by a talent agent who spotted her working as a hostess in a restaurant. Yasbeck made her TV debut with the comedy troupe that performed sketches on the revival of "Love, American Style" (NBC, 1985-1986). More work followed with starring roles as the mermaid in "Splash Too" (ABC, 1988), the two-part TV sequel to the highly popular Daryl Hannah-Tom Hanks feature film, and the female lead in the biopic "Dillinger" (ABC, 1991), based on the life of the 1930s gangster. She also had small roles in the series "J.J. Starbuck" the pilot "Rockhopper" (CBS, 1985) and had a recurring role in the final episodes of Tom Selleck's "Magnum, P.I." (CBS, 1988). She has also appeared in the TV-movies "Trenchcoat in Paradise" (CBS, 1989), "Little White Lies" (NBC, 1989) and co-starred with a talking dog in "Poochinski" (NBC, 1990).

Yasbeck's big-screen career has consisted mostly of comedies which failed to find an audience. She debuted in the low-budget horror parody "House II: The Second Story" (1987), then bounced from one misfire to another: the two "Problem Child" comedies (1990 and 1991), the frenetic "The Nutty Nut" (1992), two disappointing Mel Brooks films ("Robin Hood: Men in Tights," 1993, as the chaste Maid Marian, and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It," 1995), and had a memorable cameo in Jodie Foster's "Home for the Holidays" (also 1995). The only two certified hits she has appeared in are "Pretty Woman" and the action comedy "The Mask" (1994), in which she was a duplicitous reporter.

On episodic TV, Yasbeck marked time with appearances on "Matlock", "Designing Women", "Dallas" and "The Cosby Show," among others. For one year on the daytime soap "Days of Our Lives" (NBC, 1986-87), she played the villain-turned-heroine Olivia. She achieved her biggest exposure, however, on the long-running sitcom "Wings" (NBC), replacing Farrah Forke as second female lead as of the 1994-95 season. Yasbeck joined the cast as the sister of Helen Chappel (Crystal Bernard), and sometimes love interest of Brian (Steven Weber).

While her "Wings" role has not yet led to big-screen success, Yasbeck has made a number of other TV appearances. In the USA thriller "Bloodhounds II" (1996), she played a therapist, supported Tiffani-Amber Thiessen in another thriller, "Sweet Dreams" (NBC, 1996) and co-hosted the Showtime documentary "Sex and the Silver Screen" (1996).

Notes

"I keep going for Stella. It's a huge lesson for her to know that it's okay to be alive and to go on living and that it honors the person to live with a little bit of their light inside of you."---Yasbeck on her daughter with John Ritter, who passed away on September 11, 2003. People, April 11, 2005.

Yasbeck filed a lawsuit against the hospital where Ritter died. She and her stepchildren, from Ritter's previous marriage to Nancy Morgan, claimed that the doctors at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank, California misdiagnosed the heart condition that cost Ritter his life. The suit was settled out of court in March 2006.