RELATED: She Played Marcy on Married… with Children. See Amanda Bearse Now at 63.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb After Wings ended, Yasbeck made guest appearances on several popular shows, including Hot in Cleveland, Bones, Modern Family, and Workaholics, and acted in a handful of TV movies. Her last onscreen role to date was a 2016 episode of the teen-focused thriller, Pretty Little Liars. She’s acted more recently onstage, however. This March, Yasbeck performed in a one-night-only production of the play Love Letters at the Murphy Theater in Wilmington, Ohio. The theater is named for her great-great grandfather, Charles Murphy, and it’s also where she and Ritter got married in 1999. She told the News Journal that she’d like to be involved in the Murphy in other ways, as well. "I’m a writer, too, and would put up a play there," the actor said. “The dream for me would be to have a Wilmington Film Festival for independent film and such.” Yasbeck and Ritter married in 1999, after dating for years before that and welcoming a child, Stella, together in 1998. They were together until Ritter died unexpectedly in 2003 at the age of 54 after falling into a coma on the set of his sitcom, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. The cause was determined to be an aortic dissection that resulted from an undiagnosed heart defect. In the years since he died, Yasbeck has kept Ritter’s memory alive in different ways. She wrote a memoir about their relationship, With Love and Laughter, John Ritter, which was published in 2010. “I just started writing almost like little headlines, one word or two words to jog my memory, on index cards, napkins, or just saying it into my cell phone until I had pages and pages of stuff,” she told Smashing Interviews of the start of her writing process. “You know how you don’t want stuff to slip away?” RELATED: For more celebrity updates sent right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. To promote awareness and early detection of the condition that caused her husband’s death, Yasbeck started the John Ritter Foundation For Aortic Health. She’s heavily involved in their operations, speaking at events, meeting with patients and their families, and fundraising—often with the help of some celebrity friends. Helping to spare others from the pain and confusion she was left with seems to be Yasbeck’s primary motivation now, even though there were some in Hollywood who advised her against it. “I was told by a publicist after John died: ‘Be careful you don’t become a professional widow.’ I thought: Thank you and also [expletive] you because it’s not about being a widow,” she told Yahoo Entertainment in 2020. “It’s about honoring John’s life in the way that he thought was most important, which was by—he quoted it many times—‘plucking that golden thread that connects us all.’” RELATED: He Played Mr. Sheffield on The Nanny. See Charles Shaughnessy Now at 67.
