Actor Amy Yasbeck appeared in some of the biggest movies and TV shows of our time. She sits down with Steve Kmetko to talk about her career and how the death of her husband, John Ritter, partially changed her focus.
Actor Amy Yasbeck appeared in some of the biggest movies and TV shows of our time. Pretty Woman, The Mask, Wings. Along with several acclaimed Mel Brooks films, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It, along with many more. Amy was married to comic actor John Ritter, known best for TV's Three's Company. John died in 2003 of an Aortic Dissection. In addition to her acting career, Amy runs the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health.
https://johnritterfoundation.org/
Steve Kmetko
Yes. I'm still here, Hollywood. And coming up on today's episode,
Amy Yasbeck
I'm like, I know how to ride a horse like side saddle and you'll be wearing a chastity belt. I'm like, it's a what? Aha. And I have had a, a crush on her. And I don't like when you go a girl crush, a boy crush, crush. Mel's like, hold on. Did you just genuflect to my wife? He's like, stop talking to the extras and concentrate. I'm like, but they're my friends.
Steve Kmetko
Actors come to Hollywood from all over the world to take their shot at being a star. Some say that acting is their calling, but once in a while, life events can change that focus from acting to something more important than stardom. Today I'm talking to an actor who's been in some of the most popular movies and TV shows of our time. The Mask, pretty Woman Wings, though now she's working on the most critical role of her career, saving lives. This is still here. Hollywood. I'm Steve Kemetko. Join me with today's guest, Amy Yasbeck.
Amy Yasbeck
I even put makeup on my hands. Cool. They're a mess.
Steve Kmetko
They look fine.
Amy Yasbeck
You sure they do. They have makeup on him. You know what Dolly Parton does? What? She has these beautiful kind of mesh gloves, like skin colored gloves that have nails on them. Smart, right? Yeah. Listen, everything you ever wanted to know about beauty, you can learn from a drag queen. And Dolly has done just that. God bless her. Can I have some money?
Steve Kmetko
A lot of drag queens Look up to her.
Amy Yasbeck
Absolutely.
Steve Kmetko
How are you, Amy?
Amy Yasbeck
You know, I'm good considering all of the ways that the world knocks one down and challenges one. We know this.
Steve Kmetko
Well, and we're living in kind of a dark time. I think,
Amy Yasbeck
Yeah. I think so. To be able to be true to yourself sometimes without checking with what's cool or what's correct, everybody knows for themselves what's correct for them. And, but in some ways it's a kinder time and in some ways it's a crueler time. How did that happen?
Steve Kmetko:
I don't know. I don't know. I thought we were getting past all of that but
Amy Yasbeck:
I think the more, I think a few, oh, I hate to say this. A few generations have to maybe live out their time. That sounds terrible.
Steve Kmetko:
We have to learn as we go every generation.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yes. But there are some people who are more amenable to learning about how others live their lives and not feeling threatened by it. Am I Right?
Steve Kmetko:
Right.
Amy Yasbeck:
Plus also how to put on your phone on a silent during a movie. I'm older generation. I'm learning stuff. I'll learn from anybody. Thanks for the vodka, by the way.
Steve Kmetko:
You're welcome. No ice.
Amy Yasbeck:
You really wanted to do a spit take in John's honor, but you look so nice.
Steve Kmetko:
Thank you. In 1989, Amy met her future husband, comic acting legend, John Ritter, who was best known for the groundbreaking series threes company. They married a decade later in 1999. And in 2003, John died of what was later identified as an aortic dissection. You kind of stepped away from acting, didn't you?
Amy Yasbeck:
Not on purpose. I mean, I didn't, I didn't make a conscious effort to do it. I think I ra I made choices when I would get an audition. I'm thinking, yes, but then I have that symposium and I'm meeting with that doctor and maybe they're going to talk. And I just started like getting my eye off the ball, which was stupid. But also, I mean, it was for a good cause.
Steve Kmetko:
Do you think you stepped away too soon? Do you ever wish you hadn't stepped away quite so far?
Amy Yasbeck:
It was the time to do it. And of course, acting goes with everything. I mean, I'm lucky, you know, I had enough money that I, for those times, I couldn't work. Did lose my SAG insurance though. During the pandemic, it happens. That sucks. I had breast cancer during that time. Totally fine. Good. Now. But when people start talking about sag and contracts and stuff, I'm like, oh, this really makes sense.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yes. I want to act again. Jonathan Howard, my agent, game up. You know, Jonathan,
Steve Kmetko:
Okay. I want to ask one thing about Suzanne Sommers.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yes.
Steve Kmetko:
You got John and Susan. We, she, we lost her not long ago. Yeah. You got the two of them kind of back together, didn't you?
Amy Yasbeck:
Yeah. That was so weird.
Steve Kmetko:
In season five of three's company, there was a reported salary dispute between Suzanne Summers and the producers. It led to summers leaving the series. It was kind of sneaky, wasn't it?
Amy Yasbeck:
I didn't do it a sneaky way. We were at the premier of Victor Victoria on Broadway. Because Blake and Julie had invited John to it, dear friends. And at the intermission I went to the ladies' room and all of a sudden, Suzanne is standing next to me and I'm like, hi. I said, I'm Amy. I'm here with John Ritter. She's like, oh, okay. I said, I'll make sure. Or after party, she goes, well, I'm singing at the after party. I'm like, awesome. I'll make sure he says hi. And so then I went, I went back to my seat and I said, for those who know, no. And I said, John, who's the last person you would want to see here? And he went, oh sh** Bochco’s here?
Sorry, I don't know. I can't say any more than that. I went, no, Suzanne. And he just like, sat down and the seat, he's like, okay. I don't know if he watched the rest of, I mean, he watched the rest of the show, but I remember he was like, and I said, it's fine. Just go up. Because they had, you know, and so she sang a song can't Dance, don't Ask Me. And so I think he went up to her she was talking to somebody and said can't dance, don't ask me. And he like, turned around and they hugged it out and stuff, which was great. You know, it, it was a big thing. And may I say, may I say way before my time of like the real stuff that was going on with them. But I think they were great together. And I don't think they ever maybe got each other, like where each other was coming from after that kind of split. Because John never felt that it was about a woman being paid. And John was like the most liberal and whatever. It was pretty even, I don't think, you know, and John wasn't able to, he didn't ever want to talk about it.
Steve Kmetko:
Not a talker, huh?
Amy Yasbeck:
Didn't want to know. He'd talk about it to me. But I mean, he didn't want to refute anything that Suzanne was saying or get into any kind of a, a weird thing. He just loved her, you know? And for a while from afar. So that, it was tricky. And it was sad when she passed. It was sad when John passed away. Because that's then 20 years.
Steve Kmetko:
Lost?
Amy Yasbeck:
Lost for like a friendship or any kind of furthering of a reunion. But she was great. She was a great, super strong woman and did a lot, you know, in also her own being a health advocate. Right. So, I thought she was cool. And I met her a couple other times too. It was perfectly nice. Now I know Priscilla and Joyce very well, and Richard, who's hilarious. Richard Klein, hilarious. So, I never really knew Suzanne very well, but I know like the, the rest of the cast. And God, I watched this. I just did a re-watch podcast that this woman, Joss Richard does. People are so still fascinated by that show. So, interested, remembering it from their childhood. And then I watched so many with John, and then I'll just go, oh yeah, he hit his head on that. So, then he actually did pass out and slipped under the table, but then by the end, and they're like, wait, what? So that's kind of fun. John liked to tell those stories and I like to tell those stories.
Steve Kmetko:
What was the best acting experience you ever had?
Amy Yasbeck:
I think, that was so stupid. Best. I mean, all of it. Of course. I loved working with John and I loved working with Mel Brooks.
Steve Kmetko:
Men in Tights.
Amy Yasbeck:
Men in Tights and men in tights and Dracula, dead and loving it. I do all the weird things. But the most I ever felt like, I'm doing the thing. I'm just being me. And I'm acting was an episode of Street Justice with Carl Weathers. This sounds so dumb, but it was this storyline of a young woman who has AIDS and is, doesn't want to tell anybody because she doesn't want to be reminded of it. And she just wants to live her life. This is so dumb. And if you look it up, maybe I'm horrible in it, but I just remember feeling Carl was great, you know? And I just remember, I don't know, like really feeling in touch with, because I had lost, this was the nineties, right? Yes. We had lost so many people and agents and friends and acquaintances and people lost spouses.
And to AIDS that I kind of wanted to do like a really good job and don't be, I don't know, this is so dumb. But I just, I thought about that recently. It's like, that's when I really felt like, I'm doing it. I'm actually doing like, not a service, but like actually doing acting. Because a lot of times I feel like I'm just like a trained monkey that can-do accents, which is fine. And people love that. I really do serve a comedy script very, very well. I do not have as much, in those days, I did not have as much confidence doing anything dramatic. Now I do. Because I'm trying not to cry all the time. It's like a whole different thing.
Steve Kmetko:
What's your favorite accent?
Amy Yasbeck:
Oh, stop. All of them. But I got a very, a compliment from the Queen of Accents.
Steve Kmetko:
Meryl Streep.
Amy Yasbeck:
Okay. The British Queen of Accents, Tracy Allman. Oh, oh, yes. Tracy was in Robinhood Men and Tights with me. And I didn't know her. I had met, then I met her and my daughter-in-Law, Melanie Linsky has worked with her. And so I thought she was just like having me on. But she was like, where I'm not doing the accents. She says, where did you come up with the Kensentonian accent? I'm like, what is Kensentonian? She's like, just the queen. And just like four blocks around the Yeah, I'm happy like that. And I went, isn't that how she talks? She goes, but do you think that's how everyone in England talks? She goes, I said, no, but a princess. She goes, yeah, it's really camp. And it's, I go, oh, it's really, I mean, I kind of thought that she was like kidding with me. And then over the years, John worked with Tracy. I've run into her. Melanie Linsky, my daughter-in-Law has worked. And they all tell them, oh, Amy's accent. And then I ran into her walking across the street in West Hollywood. And I'm like, huh, we hugged. She's a widow now.
Steve Kmetko:
Oh, really? I didn't know that.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yeah. And so we hugged and we talked about how much we love Melanie and my granddaughter also, who she met. And she brought up the accent thing again. I'm like, Tracy, I can't even like take that in. She, and she was like, no, you're real good. I'm like, huh. So maybe I can just do voiceovers. I don't care.
Steve Kmetko:
One day she made the announcements read the announcements at the Emmy Award nominations. And she did it as Judy Andrews. And it was so funny. And then another time I was with Debbie Reynolds. I hosted a night of with Debbie Reynolds at my college, Columbia College in Chicago. Oh my God. And she liked my last name Kemetko. Yeah. So, she kept doing like I do too.
Amy Yasbeck:
I keep saying it.
Steve Kmetko:
An Eastern European accent. Kemetko. Kemetko. Yeah.
Amy Yasbeck:
It does lend itself to exactly Mr. Kmetko.
Steve Kmetko:
Yes, it does.
Amy Yasbeck:
May talk to you for a moment.
Steve Kmetko:
You sound like all my relatives.
Amy Yasbeck:
There you go. Do they speak like this?
Steve Kmetko:
Some of them did.
Amy Yasbeck:
That's fantastic. Debbie Reynolds played my mom on Wings.
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah. Oh, she was wonderful.
Amy Yasbeck:
Crystal. And my mom, it was crazy. Because she had a woman that worked with her that did everything except for show night. She came in, she was like her, her stand-in. But, and she was great. And she was wearing one of the, you know how Debbie Reynolds had their, like her own wig? Right. Like line, she, so she kind of looked like her. So later, and then Debbie, Debbie came in and watched and just came in and just like, did it. It's crazy.
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah.
Amy Yasbeck:
I love it. And Rip Taylor came the night of that. She did the show and started throwing around was awesome.
Steve Kmetko:
That would be fun to watch. It was.
Amy Yasbeck:
Oh God. Yeah. Wings was great. Maybe I should say my greatest acting fun was, because this is true, working with Steve Weber, that couple, that weird hate sexing weird couple that we played was out of this world fun. It was,
Steve Kmetko:
It was a good show. I liked that show a lot. I forgot you were in Pretty Woman.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yes.
Steve Kmetko:
The Mask.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yes.
Steve Kmetko:
And of course, wings you just mentioned. Yes. Why did you say that about Pretty Woman? Because I forgot.
Amy Yasbeck:
No, because it's a little part, but it was super, super duper fun. And I got to work with Jason Alexander, which we keep running into each other and doing little things together. But that was so, so, so much fun.
Steve Kmetko:
And director Gary Marshall was a hoot in his own right.
Amy Yasbeck:
I loved, I loved Gary. He can't help it. Right. He would get a egg salad or a tuna salad sandwich every day on the set and he would eat. And he talked so slow. I freaking loved him. And he let Jason Alexander and me, which is correct, English sounds wrong, but it's right. Jason and me improvise a little bit. And we did. And there was one thing we were supposed to be at the very beginning at the polo game we're supposed to be getting out of our DeLorean. And I had never been in a DeLorean before. A duh. And so the, like, the arm, the wings of it opened up the dull wing. Yeah. And then I didn't realize that it would just go, eh, so I slammed it down and the window shattered and we kept going. But you could see people just like, and the car Wrangler and the Teamster, they were all like, freaking out. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I broke a really expensive thing with my acting energy.
Steve Kmetko:
Oh. Well let me ask you what is it you remember most from say, pretty Woman? Was Julia Roberts? That was the first time I interviewed her. And I remember I went to a screening, an early screening of the film. Oh.
Amy Yasbeck:
You did?
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah.
Amy Yasbeck:
Before when it was 3000. Before they cut it.
Steve Kmetko:
They didn't have a, they didn't have a title for it, but I went to the, it was in the valley somewhere at a theater. And I was invited to see it because they wanted me to interview Julia the next day. If I liked the movie. Oh, cool. And I went in there and there was a row, they, they seated me and there was a row in front of me that was empty, empty just before the movie started in walks Michael Eisner. Jeffrey Katzenberg. Oh boy. All the suits. And I thought, Ooh, all the suits. This must be a big deal. Yeah. And then of course she came on screen and all she had to do was smile.
Amy Yasbeck:
And she's, yeah.
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah. And she lights it up.
Amy Yasbeck:
She does. She's a fantastic actress. I mean, pretty Woman was, was great. And she was great in it. But the work she has done since then. Did you, did you see her playing Martha Mitchell?
Steve Kmetko:
Yes, I did.
Amy Yasbeck:
Come on.
Steve Kmetko:
Who knew?
Amy Yasbeck:
It's my favorite role of hers ever. She was so sunken down into that somehow doesn't look anything like Martha. Doesn't any, I mean, they didn't need to. She like embodied. That was very impressed.
Steve Kmetko:
And she has a new movie. What is it? Where it's on Netflix?
Amy Yasbeck:
Yeah. What is that?
Steve Kmetko:
It looks scary. that's all I know.
Amy Yasbeck:
Wait, It's like end of the world. Something. That's the news.
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah. I think she can do just about anything.
Amy Yasbeck:
That's, that's CNN I'm scared to watch it.
Steve Kmetko:
We'll be back in a moment.
Amy Yasbeck:
Oh my God, really? And I have had a, a crush on her. A hundred percent sexiest woman.
Steve Kmetko:
What about Mel Brooks?
Amy Yasbeck:
Adore him. Adore everything about him. I feel like I never actually, when I would rap, they'd go, okay, you're wrapped. I'm like, they're like, we're going to need to like, you know, I was going to say, wash your chastity belt. Not that we're going to need to steam your rope. You need to get outs wardrobe. I'm like, oh. Oh, okay. So I'd run and just go back into my jeans and then just go sit back on the set. How, how would I not, how would I not? And it was so, it was so much fun. Not just because he would like, and in between be Mel Brooks. He was Mel Brooks all the way through it when he was in character. But also I could ask him a little something. And Carl Reiner was shooting on the lot. The Formosa lot is where it was Warner Brothers Formosa.
And he was shooting, it was a like, fatal attraction, something, something else put together, kind of spoof. I can't remember what it was. I can't remember the name of it. But, so every once in a while you'd come back from lunch and there's Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner just in director's chairs talking. And then Elle was Richard Reese. Like all of us, Megan Kavanaugh, we would just like, sit at their feet and listen and, and hope that lunch would never be over, because there, there's nothing like that. That's like the, the inventors of comedy TV and show biz. Yeah.
Steve Kmetko:
Carl Reiner was a nice guy. That's sweet. Rob Reiner's a nice guy too.
Amy Yasbeck:
Very sweet. And Estelle. They were great people.
Steve Kmetko:
I saw Mel on the Tonight Show once he was telling a story. He can, he's a raconteur and he.
Amy Yasbeck:
He's a rocking raconteur,
Steve Kmetko:
A rock and raconteur. Yeah. He was telling a story about having to dispose of his uncle's ashes. And he, he, yeah, he did it on the Hudson River in New York, I believe. And he threw it into the air and it came back all over him. It's a very funny story, the way he told it. But did, did Anne Bancroft ever visit the set?
Amy Yasbeck:
Oh My God, really? And I have had a, a crush on her. And I don't like when you go a girl crush, a boy crush, crush. I didn't like the first time I saw her, I, you know, probably six years old. I was just like, what's happening? And I've always loved her, always thought she was a hundred percent sexiest woman to walk the voice, face everything no matter what.
Steve Kmetko:
And a little intimidating.
Amy Yasbeck:
A little intimidating. A little intimidating. A little intimidating. And so when she came to the set, and it was a thing when I made Marian had to ride a horse. I'm like, I know how to ride a horse. Like it's sat side saddle and you'll be wearing a chastity belt. I'm like, it's a what? So it was, I felt so dorky. Because they'd have to kind of like, hoist me on it. And I was like, Tylo. I was just, you know, and when you went around and she was so sweet, and she was like, and I was just sorry there. And then afterwards, I, I went over and started to speak to her and, and Mel said, hold on, did you just genuflect to my wife? And I said, yeah. And I said, he's like, but not just like, it wasn't a curtsy, it was like you were in the, at a cathedral. I'm like, I don't know. I was like, nice to meet you. I adored her. She was very nice to me. And you always called her Ms. Bancroft, not Anne.
Steve Kmetko:
It's natural.
Amy Yasbeck:
And I heard, and then I did a movie called Home for the Holidays that Jodi Foster directed. And Anne Bancroft was in it. And I, I didn't work with her, but I heard all the things of people just want, okay, Anne not Jodi, but like, people like Second 80, or Ann, if you could move over here. And she would just look at Jodi. And Jodi would say, it's miss Bancroft you know what? Good for her. What else?
Steve Kmetko:
She earned it.
Amy Yasbeck:
She earned it just by being born with that punum. She was absolutely beautiful.
Steve Kmetko:
I interviewed Betty Davis once, and she was the same way. You said Ms. Davis. Oh, you didn't say Betty People. Hey, Betty.
Amy Yasbeck:
Somehow when my mom had the first, the first batch of kids all two years apart, then I was 12 years after that. But they all lived in Detroit. They grew up in Detroit. And I grew up in Cincinnati, but it's, my mom at one point got her bangs cut like this. And she had, can I have her hair like this? I don't know. I've got the Timothy shallow me going, don't judge it. I'm trying to grow it out a little bit. But she had her bangs in the, and somebody like mistook her for Betty Davis. It happened once, but I think it made my mom's life. She absolutely loved that. But she had that same like expression, like looking through you. I'm like, please blank that. Yeah, I bet you had to call her Miss, Ms. Davis.
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if she had a natural sense of humor. I think she did. Betty Davis. Yes. But the, the line she gave me when I asked her about working with Linny and Gish was so good. I thought that must've been crafted ahead of time. It was because she said, miss Gish never should have left silent pictures. Whoa. That was when they were in the movie whales of August together. And I
Amy Yasbeck:
Okay, that's so mean. Oh, isn't it? I love it. That's like somebody, you say they have a face for radio.
Steve Kmetko:
Yes, yes. Or a voice for newspaper.
Amy Yasbeck:
What a voice for newspaper. I love that.
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah. Yeah. you were on the set of the mask right? When Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz became kind of a thing.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yeah, I mean, I worked on the show director was brutal. Not go, sorry, Chuck Russell. I was, he was, I don't know. He, he didn't go for me at all. He cast me and then he was just like, Ugh. I was like, stop. He's like, stop talking to the extras and concentrate. I'm like, but they're my friends apparently. My, my work ethic, which was much like John's, which was like, just everybody's, everybody. He didn't go for that. But anyway, Chuck Cameron is another just like the sweetest she could be. And I loved her. I didn't know that she and Jim were what if, so they were a couple. I mean, I knew it after that, but certainly didn't get in the way. Jim's wonderful. Have you ever interviewed him?
SteveL
Yes, I have. And isn't he? And I think he was a little nervous and earlier It was earlier in his career. But then he loosened up and he, you know, absolutely. He became Jim Carrey. And he was just great.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yes. There was a movie, I can't remember, it was a long time, a long, long time ago before Jim was Jim called the Whoopi Boys. And they kept interviewing all, I mean, they kept trying to like cast it. And they had like different combinations of people. And I remember I met Jim at something where they were like matching people. Neither one of us got it, I believe matching people up. And so I spent like a whole day with him and got to watch him just be himself and then be able to, like John was a big admirer of his. And those two I did introduce at a St. Jude fundraiser and just to see John and Jim Carrey talking to each other. And Jim would say something and John's head would like throw back and John would say something and Jim would laugh. And everybody was just like watching them like, oh, this is interesting to see two unbelievably natural and talented physical comedians talking to each other. It was great.
Steve Kmetko:
What artist that you worked with stands out in your mind?
Amy Yasbeck:
Stands out in my mind. Well, besides John.
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah.
Amy Yasbeck:
What I mean honestly, Steve Weber and I worked with him on a with Mel Brooks too.
Steve Kmetko:
He's a genuinely nice guy,
Amy Yasbeck:
Genuinely talented as if guy ridiculous. And he's somebody that, for me, you can just in between takes or in between scenes, just like be a regular person and he could be teasing me or, or whatever. And then da da da da action. And we go right back to where we were before. And I like that. That's easier than me, than just like, staying in character and thinking about my lines. Because If I do that, I overthink everything.
Steve Kmetko:
Don't talk to me. I'm in character.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yeah. Please don't talk. Please get out of my eye line.
Steve Kmetko:
But wait, there's more. We'll be right back.
Amy Yasbeck:
I have set myself up for better or worse to talk about John every day.
Steve Kmetko:
Let me ask about John, if you don't mind. I love it. Okay.
Amy Yasbeck:
And you interviewed him a lot,
Steve Kmetko:
Several times. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. How's life been? It's been 20 years. Do you get tired of people asking you about John?
Amy Yasbeck:
Well, I have set myself up for better or worse to talk about John every day, for better or for worse. I think I remember that from the wedding. Because I've started a foundation 20 years ago, right after he died in his name, dedicated to his legacy. But so other families don't have to suffer through the absolute cluster f of someone being misdiagnosed and dying from an aortic dissection. So I thought, what can I do as one person in John's name? And so I started this foundation and I just very grassroots at the beginning and never let, never lost that grassroots feeling. There's people you can talk to when you, if something happens and your family suffers an aortic dissection, somebody in your family or you find out somehow you're at risk for it. Very often genetic, you can literally, we have whom created this group of people trained them up, who are called aortic advocates.
Amy Yasbeck:
And so it's peer to peer. Because You're, you can get all the information from your doctor and if you don't please see me. Because I will tell your doctor where to look for it. But just creating a community of, of people who understand how it like shakes up your life and then puts it down and like, and now it's Christmas and you're like, wait, what's happening? You know? So, to be able to share and to learn from people. Because sadly with this, this disease, the thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection, there's a lot of grief and sadness that comes. Because It's sudden because the tear, the tear inside your aorta that starts effing you up and the blood is going in the wrong place is sudden the aneurysm that happens before it can grow for years. So, you can see it.
But if you don't know you're at risk for it genetically or then then it feels like it just, they call it a ticking time bomb. And I'm like, I've seen MacGyver. You don't have to blow up. You can figure it out. And so that's, we help families and doctors and surgeons figure it out. Not that we do what doctors do, not that we do what surgeons do, but for them to be able to talk to the family, to the person and the rest of the family and be able to say, Hey, remember John Ritter come and knock on this door. It's called the John Ritter Foundation. And there's community, there's information, there's humor when there needs to be. And so in John's name, I've been doing that for 20 years. So, do I talk about John every day? Do I think about him every day? Yes, I would anyway. And do I feel like he's always with me? Yes. In the way that I feel like my parents are who passed away when I was young. It's you kind of abs you know, you kind of absorb them and there's probably other people you carry him with you. And carry them with you. Right.
Steve Kmetko:
How would you.
Amy Yasbeck:
If, and sometimes you go, don't look, I'm going to do this thing.
Steve Kmetko:
If Yeah. Or I, yeah, I'll say in my head, I, I hope they're not watching right now.
Amy Yasbeck:
I hope they're not watching this. Or did you know that was possible?
Steve Kmetko:
I'm an adult now.
Amy Yasbeck:
That's true.
Steve Kmetko:
How would you describe an aortic dissection to someone in a nutshell? If you, if you met an average person on the street, how would you, what would you say to them about.
Amy Yasbeck:
I think first people need to know what an aorta is because I didn't, I mean, I probably learned it. And whenever you get that, you know, biology or an anatomy book and then you go but it's as, as important as everything else in your body, more important than most things. You can't live without it because you heart is doing the pumping of the blood that goes and feeds your brain. Your body feeds it oxygen actually, that's what people forget. That's what happens. But the way that it feeds that to your body is through this candy cane shape vessel. Right. Biggest artery in your body. And the surgeons, some of them are very romantic about it. God bless them that have may call it the tree of life of your body. Because that's what it does. It feeds or the river Nile, you know.
And so it, it's not part of your heart. It starts at the aortic valve, which usually has three leaflets that just keeps the blood going this way, this way. Not back in. So this part of it's called ascending, which makes sense. This part is the arch and then descending. So it's broken up not biologically, but for the doctors into those three parts. And aneurysm is a ballooning of that in any area of that is bad obviously. Because Something's going to happen. And what often happens is the three layers that it's made out of that redundancy that's put into, like Henry Ford would do if he was creating an aorta to make to nothing slips through. If it gets a little tear on the inside layer, then the blood, which is being pumped at enormous rate, imagine blood from here is being to go to your whole body.
It starts going a little bit inside of that tear and starts ripping inside the lining. And for people in Chicago and Ohio and New York who have, are the baby of their family and got a hand me down winter coat. I said this one time and half the people in the audience went What? And the other ones were like, oh yeah. It's like you put your arm in the sleeve the first time and it doesn't come out the sleeve because it's gone inside the line. Inlining. Yes. Right. Do you know what I'm talking about? Right? Yep. That, that, that thing from where, and so if the blood part of it is going where it needs to be, but the other part is actually ma from the blood pressure being pumped more and more ripping down inside. So there's this tributary, the main, the main freeway is called the lumen true lumen, which just means a big hole.
And then the false lumen starts inva. So if you would do a cross section, it would look, instead of like this, it would start to look like a double barrel shotgun. And one of those places that it's going is just pooling inside. Very, very dangerous. The aneurysm happens in most cases, probably 90% of the cases an aneurysm first. What you can see on a CAT scan, if you go into a hospital with chest pain, it would behoove everyone you, if they know they have family history or not. If they have family history with aortic dissection, you say I have family history of aortic dissection. And feel free to just say you're related to John. I don't care. It's like, check me for that. If you can't remember what it's called, check me for the John Ritter thing. But they should do a CT scan because then that rules out, it's a heart attack. Because sadly, and we talked about this, if you, if you treat for a heart attack, it's not the heart that's failing and it's not a block, it's a tear. So you're doing everything wrong. Blood, all the stuff they did to John blood thinners and all that. And he was dying from a tear in his aorta. Happens a lot.
Steve Kmetko:
If I'm not mistaken. I think Lucille Ball had an aortic, I think that's what she died from.
Amy Yasbeck:
She did die from that. She did. And also George C. Scott. And the other thing is we don't know how many people died from it. Because Tex Ritter, John's dad for sure died from that. And we know because first of all, his mom lived to be 97 or something. But John's brother, I mean Tex's mom, I mean John's mom, Tex's wife, Dorothy Ritter, but John's brother Tom, so John died in 2003. In 2007. Tom had A-T-I-A-A mini stroke. And they treat it the way they treat it. But I just said Tom hasn't had his yearly echo because everybody gets their yearly echoes. That's related. Because There's the, another thing besides the John Ritter foundation is the John Ritter research program in aortic and vascular diseases at University of Texas. This is a genetic research program that had about one and a couple in the hopper when John passed away of genes that were identified for this.
And now there are dozens and dozens and dozens on the way because of the way AI properly, you know, the thing we like about AI is that we can reproduce effects without having, you know, do the math without having all of the families. But we still do need families for it. So Tommy Ritter, when they did do his scan, had an aneurysm same place as John's that ascending that I was talking about. Which is very dangerous because it can pull your, pull the three leaflets of your aortic valve out of shape. And so it can't do what it can do for, for all kinds of reasons. It is.
Steve Kmetko:
Okay.
Amy Yasbeck:
But, but Tom got fixed. Tom had his aortic arch replaced. So, John's brother lives because he knew what to look for.
Steve Kmetko:
I think if there's ever a category about this on jeopardy, you'd do really well.
Amy Yasbeck:
I would do well on Jeopardy anyway. You have no idea. Call me. Just no math. I don't know what would've happened. I don't know what would've happened with the foundation. Because for a while it was just me. I would call it the, the mom and pop shop. No pop. And for years, I mean, we only got a, and we were doing stuff and changing and just, I would speak here I am from Cincinnati College in Detroit. Didn't finish here. I am speaking at Yale, at the Mayo Clinic and like in front of all these surgeons. Because part of the key is what do people need to know? Actual people and surgeons are wonderful, most of him wonderful. But a lot of times they have it, the aortic dissection, just as a, as an emergency. So by the time the surgeon sees somebody they are to use from a different specialty, they're already up on blocks with the hood open. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
Steve Kmetko:
I've enjoyed this.
Amy Yasbeck:
Are we done?
Steve Kmetko:
I think so.
Amy Yasbeck:
Let's do it over a cup of whatever sometime. Okay. Ayahuasca.
Steve Kmetko:
I don't drink, so it has to be something.
Amy Yasbeck:
Oh, you know what?
Steve Kmetko:
Non potent.
Amy Yasbeck:
Me neither. But good.
Steve Kmetko:
Today's my eighth year anniversary.
Amy Yasbeck:
You're kidding. I should have brought a cake. I love it. Congratulations.
Steve Kmetko:
Thanks. I didn't think I'd make it. There were times when I thought I wouldn't make it.
Amy Yasbeck:
Of course. That's what makes it all so f fricking sweet.
Steve Kmetko:
It only took three times in rehab.
Amy Yasbeck:
But do you know what so it does. It does. It's Oh my God. I'm so very, very happy for you.
Steve Kmetko:
Thanks. I am too. It takes such a difference.
Amy Yasbeck:
I'm very lucky. Because It's in my family. My grandfather, you know, probably drank himself to death.
Steve Kmetko:
Yeah. We have a bunch of them in my family too.
Amy Yasbeck:
Yeah. Well I'm Irish, sorry. Oh, but so it was kind of inevitable. Sorry Irish people.
Steve Kmetko:
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