Amy Yasbeck discusses death of John Ritter on ABC's Primetime with Diane Sawyer

the wife of beloved actor John Ritter speaking out for the very first time since his death I love him I still love him a prime-time exclusive Diane Sawyer with Amy yes back Ritter that's why people are so pissed off that he's gone he was it's a great force four good from the very first time she and John met working on problem child he told me I looked too young for the part that clinched the deal to the very last day we're gonna go across the street to the hospital and as long as driving my place sharing their lives their love and the hard-working innocence of their daughter good evening it's good to have you with us and we welcome you to an all-new edition of primetime Thursday and tonight we begin with a love story which is also a story of laughter and loss it's been just six weeks now since the death of beloved actor John Ritter and it turns out for those who must go on there are no simple rules nothing black and white just as a me as Beck says different colors of grief Amyas Beck is John Ritter's wife and tonight she tells her story for the first time I love him I still love him you know what it is Nessus it seems like a big mistake Oh my daughter said when I was talking to right so this is a kind of a surprise when we're talking about it but it's a bad surprise and she said surprises aren't supposed to be bad this is a mistake and I thought yeah that's true tell me about the first time you met him the first time I met John was at a read-through of the script of problem child at the directors house Denis Duggan's house and he was so sweet and so nice I thought he was doing a bit I thought he was like doing like a little I'm a sweet nice character guy and he forced me to eat a bagel and cream cheese because he thought I was too thin so that was nice that was very fatherly so was it love at first sight falling in love at first bagel mmm nah I don't know I don't I'm too smart for falling in love at first sight I don't think so the smart funny redhead from Ohio ami Yazbeck who came to the big city after losing both her parents her father to a sudden heart attack her mother to emphysema John Ritter was already a big star when they met and the two of them ignited together on the sitcom wings and I'm glad you're here really together of the Bill Cosby shows we breathe everyone said the two of you it was like watching light Wow really oh that's so sweet instead of a lightening in a good way it was as if they were already married by their own alchemy they didn't bother to make marriage official until Yazbeck eight and a half months pregnant and sixty pounds heavier was swimming in the pool and Ritter had a surprise it was August and I was just floating there and he was walking across to me went like he and he swore like he had cut his foot on something so I'm thinking there's sharks in the pool because I'm paranoid and he lifted me because what is this and he handed me my wedding ring and my engagement ring this ring a very modern marriage with the old songs they loved for the first dance at our wedding yeah you belong to me and the honey mom she said it was in the car on the way back to the airport when they finally got a moment's peace because Stella one-year-old had fallen asleep how was he different at home what didn't we know about John Ritter that's the freakishly amazing thing you did know John Ritter he was that guy he was that that guy Moody not Moody tormented by career sometimes not tormented by career in between jobs when people would say to him hey what'd you do since I mean years before eight Sapporo's what you two since Three's Company what happened to you he'd say oh I'm in real estate now completely serious or I sell shoes and give them great details about that and in a town famous for drugs and wild parties they liked staying at home and playing running charades he read so much he was so well informed and he loved he loved TV loved TV loved movies you know sometimes say well I might go get a but and come home and I'd say do you adore the movies and how do you know he would have popcorn in his chest hair he was a man so loving as far as we know there was only one touchy area Suzanne Somers after she reached for more money and it ruptured the hit sitcom Three's Company there was something with Suzanne Somers because they hadn't spoken oh I know when I yes when I met him they had not spoken in whatever however many years but yeah I pushed them together at an event they said somebody's here that you haven't seen in a long time isn't huh and she came offstage and he came up to her and I believe kissed her on her shoulder and said hello darlin but yeah spec says the real center of Ritter's life was just like the one on 8 simple rules on ABC he was above all she says a father to the three older children from his first marriage Jason Carly and Tyler and their own daughter Stella he could tune into you who you were at that moment the big three kids had it and he got to see each of them go to college and find and or be in the search for finding their bliss and supporting it so beautifully along with their mom who is wonderful they've they've they're so buoyed by that and she says by the living sound of his laughter his voice still almost every place they turn for Stella aged five and he did the voice of Clifford the Big Red Dog anybody want to go on the ferris wheel she plays computer games with his voice coming out of you know and I hear John going good job oh that was great try again not quite and then a week after his death he has Beck is driving it accidentally turns on a machine that records messages in the car another old song they loved Chantilly lace baby I was listening to don't forget to get the thing two loaves of bread and the next one was John's voice hello baby bit well I what I just went oh no and I was looking in the rearview mirror as we were driving and I said I have a tape of daddy singing do you want to hear it yeah had he been sick no not at all not sick at all no nothing complete shock and surprise really healthy getting in actually great shape there was no way to know it was going to happen and to predict it except when you go back and look at his life he talked to you like that was the last time I was gonna talk to you every time I saw ya you know he'd give you a little summary of how wonderful you were and how proud he was of you and you felt loved and supported and sent off with a little bounce in your step out into the world did you did that every day and when we come back the day she lost him they were a couple who never had a honeymoon because as Amy s Beck says her life with John Ritter was one big honeymoon but six weeks ago that ended when what they thought was food poisoning turned into something unknown and terrifying and the mother had to tell her only child the worst news imaginable on what should have been a day of celebration you know a Stella's birthday when it happened so we opened lots of birthday presents and rolled around and did puppet shows and played lilo and stitch soundtrack and goofing around the house and all day I something wasn't sitting right and I thought is it because she's at school on her birthday I just something and then I got a phone call that he called and he said that he thought he had food poisoning and I thought he might you know that sounds right people get it and that he didn't it didn't feel good and then so he said maybe you should come over here and I said oh and I thought what does he need me to come over there and then I talked to somebody else from the show and they said you know he's having chest pains and so we're gonna go across the street to the hospital and as the longest driving my life I gotta a traffic man I mean I know I don't know what it is maybe because I lost my parents one fast and once well I don't know it just it smacked of a kind of scary familiarity to me when I got to the hospital they thought he was in the midst of having a heart attack by the numbers and that they were going to do a catheter to see what was going on in in the heart and then at that time if something needed to be fixed to fix it he was scared of a procedure but he wasn't he didn't make me feel afraid or afraid for him she says he kept worrying about inconveniencing his friends on 8 simple rules while she reassured him don't think about it they people you know for smaller things than this they say no some was having a bad hair day they don't do a show don't worry about it and but he was so sweet and we got to say I love you and then he went into the room where they were gonna do this stuff did you have a sense it wasn't going well when you were sitting I'm waiting yeah they come out a lot and before that I knew I knew I don't know why they couldn't figure out what it was and he was having trouble during the angiogram which happens sometimes that he was they were losing him and kind of bringing him back during that they found this problem with his aorta this tear and I could just kind of tell by the mood of the people walking by I you know that something was going I listen to every sound in that hospital and I yeah I knew I wasn't gonna take him home I don't know why and yet so many people speculated that maybe something could have saved him that's if you detect it it was so torn that the blood was going other places not as was around as hard and it was it just doesn't work and the more that you try to restart the heart the more it tears it was impossible the actor John Ritter was only 54 years old when he died when Ritter was stricken while he was working on the set of his latest plans Amy characters if you go at all that he had an iconic place in American hearts if not yes culture he got it I kicked out of it but he knew better than to take himself seriously and he was innocent and modest about how much people loved him but indeed they did I said to my sister who knew I was married to Elvis and I he would have liked that who said the most consoling thing was there was there anything where you thought that really helps I think the most consoling thing was was said by John and before he died but it's private but it's oh it's general lovey-dovey stuff but the fact that I got to say it to him and with him and that that was what where we were which is we're always where we were in our hearts that it is so comforting to have said it to each other before he went and she says it's also a comfort to know that the show eight Simple Rules is going to continue as he would have wanted recently it was announced that James Garner will come in to play a grandfather for the grieving kids on the new show John loved him and thought he was an amazing actor it's interesting I wish I could tell him you know and what about Stella the five year old who grieves in real life how did you know how to tell her I went home and I slept with her and then I told her in the morning I don't know hardest thing I've ever done how often do you and she talk about it still oh we talked Stella and I talked about it even when we're not talking about it do you let her see you cry I can't help it yeah i funny should say that I let her see me cry occasionally because I want her to know that it's okay when she does but there's kind of when she cries real hard and I'm holding her I cry but I don't make any sound because that's too scary I think for her so I let her make the sounds for me but she feels me and she knows that I'm right great with her and going down the same path and sometimes she'll see me I'm just kind of staring and she'll say dad yeah she's yeah darn it and the one time that we both just let loose was on the third episode of the shows that he had made at the end of the end of 8 simple rules they did a little montage of kind of behind the scenes thing and then he waved goodbye at the end and and I wasn't really gonna watch it with her but she caught me watching it and she got out of bed I was recording it and we watched it together we sat in our bed and watched it and at the end she stood up on the bed and she put her arms up in the air and she said drop them I just I said what did he do I mean I didn't get it at first and she said I'm talking to heaven drop them and it just I Stella I know four and of course I'm and I said I know for sure because I always say I don't know and I don't know I'm not scared to say I don't know things I said I know for sure that's not going to work and she said but what if we never tried and that's what would have worked and although I know that he trusts us to take him with us in our hearts it's like he's kind of sent us all off into the world without him

Channel: Kent Alan Griffin

Views: 472,720

Rating: 4.8161387 out of 5

Keywords: John Ritter, Amy Yasbeck, Diane Sawyer

Id: NkNIRjV0lFA

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2016