Here’s How This Little Girl Became The Richest Actress On The Planet
Few Hollywood careers take a turn as dramatic—or as successful—as Jami Gertz’s. The former teen star who lit up the screen in Sixteen Candles has traveled a path that looks nothing like the typical celebrity arc. And she knows it.
“I understand,” she told The Hollywood Reporter years ago. “This isn’t your standard Hollywood story.”
That’s putting it mildly. Gertz went from 1980s fan favorite to one of the most powerful women in professional sports, co-owning an NBA franchise alongside her billionaire husband, Tony Ressler.
Her launch into show business happened almost by accident. At just 16, she entered a talent search and suddenly found herself cast on the early ’80s sitcom Square Pegs, sharing the screen with a young Sarah Jessica Parker.
“I was discovered at a search and tossed straight into the job,” she later explained on Resilience with Richard Cabral. “I didn’t question it—I just went forward. It was an unusual path.”
Unusual, yes, but life-changing. “By the time I was 16, I was bringing in more money than my dad,” she recalled. “That shifts the family dynamic. It shifts everything.”
The roles kept coming. Gertz became familiar to households across America thanks to parts in The Facts of Life, Dreams, Sixteen Candles, The Lost Boys and Less Than Zero. Her career was booming, but her personal life soon took an equally significant turn.