Amy Yasbeck (born September 12, 1963, in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American actress, who is probably best known as both the widow and twice co-star of actor John Ritter. Yasbeck first met John Ritter at director Dennis Dugan's house during a read-through of the 1990 movie Problem Child. According to Yasbeck, Ritter forced her to eat a bagel and cream cheese because he thought she was too thin. He also thought she was too young to play his wife in the movie (Ritter was almost 15 years Yasbeck's senior). Amy Yasbeck also starred in the second Problem Child film with John Ritter even though she was playing a different character in the sequel. Yasbeck and Ritter married in 1999 and had one daughter, Stella Ritter.

In 1991, Yasbeck guest starred on The Cosby Show with Ritter, who played her husband. Interestingly, this episode was produced 8 years before the two married for real. Amy Yasbeck also had starring roles on the sitcoms Wings, Alright Already, and Life on a Stick and in movies such as The Mask, Pretty Woman, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

As a child, Yasbeck was featured on the package art for the Betty Crocker Easy-Bake Oven. Years later, in 2000, she was presented with a new Easy-Bake Oven on the show I've Got a Secret for which she was a regular panel member.

She spent her elementary, middle, and high school years at two different Catholic schools: Summit Country Day School and Ursuline Academy. She is noted for her long red hair and is of Irish and Lebanese heritage. After losing both of her parents, her father from a heart attack and her mother from emphysema, Yasbeck moved to New York.

On September 11, 2003, Yasbeck's husband of almost five years, John Ritter, collapsed on the set of his current sitcom, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. He died later that day in hospital. The cause of death was an aortic dissection, stemming from a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect. The date of his death was their daughter Stella's fifth birthday, the day before Yasbeck's fortieth birthday, and six days before their wedding anniversary. Yasbeck eventually filed a lawsuit against the hospital where her husband died. Yasbeck and Ritter's children from his 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.