Twenty-three years after John Ritter’s death, Amy Yasbeck still makes time to speak to her late husband. “I still talk to John,” she told Page Six. “I check in all the time. … I talk to him every day.”
In the October 31 interview, the 64-year-old actress remembered someone who enjoyed comedy as much from the audience as he did onstage.
The Three’s Company star died on September 11, 2003, at 54, after becoming ill while working on 8 Simple Rules. He was playing Paul Hennessy, the father of three teenagers, opposite Katey Sagal.
Yasbeck and Ritter met during a read-through for the 1990 film Problem Child. They married in 1999, and she has remained close to his older children while raising their own child.
The Family Shares Comedy Ritter Would Have Loved
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Yasbeck said she and Ritter’s children connect over new comedians and physical comedy they believe he would have enjoyed. Watching something entertaining together can make her feel as though he is beside them.
That shared taste also has a home in their family group chat. In a separate May 2024 interview with PEOPLE, Yasbeck described exchanging videos of people falling down, unexpected mishaps and other slapstick moments.
Sometimes someone points out that Ritter would have loved a clip. Often, she said, the connection needs no explanation because they recognize his sense of humor in the same things.
Yasbeck Most Misses Watching Him Be a Father
Asked what she misses most, Yasbeck chose seeing Ritter with his children. She said fatherhood brought together his humor and empathy.
He was especially troubled when children were treated unfairly. Yasbeck remembered that his frustration extended beyond his own household to what was happening in the wider world.
Ritter had three children with his first wife, Nancy Morgan: Jason, Carly and Tyler. He and Yasbeck welcomed Noah in 1998.
His Death Prompted Yasbeck’s Work on Aortic Health
Ritter suffered an aortic dissection, which was initially mistaken for a heart attack. A dissection occurs when a tear in the aorta’s inner lining allows blood to enter and separate the layers of its wall. The aorta is the main artery carrying blood away from the heart.
Weeks after losing him, Yasbeck established the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health. Its work includes research, education and advocacy aimed at preventing deaths from thoracic aortic disease.
Understanding inherited risks became particularly important to Yasbeck. At the foundation’s 20th-anniversary event in 2023, she explained that learning about the condition was part of her effort to protect Ritter’s children and brother.
Joyce DeWitt Will Join Yasbeck for a New York Benefit
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Yasbeck and Joyce DeWitt, who played Janet Wood on Three’s Company, will co-host Evening From the Heart at Joe’s Pub in New York City on November 2.
The event features a staged reading of the sitcom’s original pilot. Jason Biggs is scheduled to play Jack Tripper, Ritter’s role, while original cast member Richard Kline will narrate. Other announced performers include Christine Taylor, Richard Kind and Susie Essman.
The John Ritter Foundation lists the benefit for 8 to 10 p.m., with proceeds supporting its aortic-health work. It launches a celebration ahead of the show’s 50th anniversary on March 15, 2027.
The tour is scheduled to continue in Dallas on February 27, Cleveland on March 13 and Los Angeles on September 9, 2027.