If someone asked you to name the richest actress in Hollywood, who would come to mind?

Jennifer Aniston?

Julia Roberts?

Reese Witherspoon?

Maybe one of the modern stars who earns millions from movies while building businesses away from the screen?

The answer appearing again and again on celebrity wealth rankings is much more surprising.

Jami Gertz.

For movie fans who grew up during the 1980s and 1990s, the name is immediately familiar.

Gertz appeared in films including The Lost Boys, Less Than Zero and Twister, while building an extensive television career that later included shows such as Still Standing and The Neighbors.

But acting alone doesn’t explain why her name now appears beside enormous estimates of wealth.

The story involves an acting career, a marriage that began before her husband became extraordinarily wealthy, major investments, ownership of an NBA franchise and decades of philanthropy.

And there’s an important catch behind the “richest actress” headline.

Meet Jami Gertz

Jami Gertz was born in Chicago and raised in Glenview, Illinois.

Her route into entertainment wasn’t a story of growing up inside a powerful Hollywood family.

She was discovered as a teenager through a nationwide talent search.

The Melanoma Research Alliance, where Gertz serves on the board, says she was discovered at 16 through a nationwide search connected with the television sitcom Square Pegs.

From there, acting became a career.

The 1980s Made Her a Familiar Face

Gertz became particularly recognizable through a series of film roles during the 1980s.

Among the movies most associated with her are Less Than Zero and the 1987 cult favorite The Lost Boys.

In The Lost Boys, she played Star alongside a cast that included Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Haim.

It became one of the movies that continued introducing Gertz to audiences long after its theatrical release.

She later appeared in Twister, the hugely successful 1996 disaster film.

But Gertz wasn’t limited to movies.

Television Became a Major Part of Her Career

Her television résumé stretched across decades.

She appeared in Square Pegs early in her career and later made appearances on shows including Seinfeld, ER and Ally McBeal.

Her work on Ally McBeal earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination.

She later spent four seasons starring opposite Mark Addy in the sitcom Still Standing.

A younger generation of television viewers may remember her as Debbie Weaver on ABC’s The Neighbors.

In other words, Gertz had a legitimate and sustained Hollywood career long before internet headlines began calling her the richest actress in the world.

But her financial story followed a very different trajectory.

Then She Met Tony Ressler

Gertz met financier Antony “Tony” Ressler during the 1980s.

They married in 1989.

Looking at their lives today, it would be easy to assume Gertz simply married an already enormously wealthy businessman.

She has pushed back strongly against that assumption.

In a widely cited 2018 interview, Gertz explained that when they met, she was making substantially more money than Ressler.

She said she paid for their first house.

She also paid for their first vacation.

Her explanation for marrying him was much simpler than the billionaire narrative that came later.

She fell in love with him.

The Billionaire Fortune Came Later

That timeline changes the story considerably.

Ressler wasn’t yet the billionaire investor people know today when their relationship began.

In 1990, after the couple married, Ressler became one of the co-founders of Apollo Global Management.

Several years later, he went on to co-found Ares Management.

Those ventures eventually helped make him one of America’s wealthiest financiers.

By 2026, published estimates placed Ressler’s personal fortune in the neighborhood of $11 billion or more, although billionaire wealth estimates can fluctuate considerably with asset values and methodology.

That enormous financial success transformed the scale of the family’s wealth.

So Is Jami Gertz Really the World’s Richest Actress?

This is where the headline needs context.

Several celebrity-wealth publications have described Gertz as the world’s richest actress or one of Hollywood’s wealthiest women.

Some estimates have placed the combined Gertz-Ressler fortune at approximately $12 billion.

But that doesn’t mean Gertz earned $12 billion acting in movies and television.

She didn’t.

The vast majority of the fortune associated with those rankings is connected to Ressler’s investment career and the couple’s broader family holdings.

That’s why comparing Gertz’s reported wealth directly with the acting earnings of another Hollywood star can be misleading.

Her Own Success Still Matters

The other extreme would be equally misleading.

Gertz wasn’t an unknown woman who met an already-established billionaire and suddenly became wealthy.

She had her own career.

She was financially successful before Ressler’s investment empire was built.

By her own account, she was the higher earner when their relationship began.

That makes the chronology important.

The couple’s current financial position may be dominated by investment wealth, but their marriage didn’t begin that way.

Then Came Professional Sports

Their business interests eventually expanded into professional sports.

In 2015, a group led by Ressler acquired the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.

Today, the Hawks officially list both Tony Ressler and Jami Gertz among the franchise’s principal ownership.

That gave Gertz another public identity.

She was no longer simply the actress viewers remembered from The Lost Boys or Twister.

She had become an NBA owner.

Some Basketball Fans Discovered Her Through the Hawks

Gertz even represented the Atlanta Hawks at the NBA Draft Lottery.

For viewers who hadn’t followed her acting career, that created a funny reversal.

Longtime movie fans knew her as Jami Gertz the actress.

Some younger sports fans first encountered her as the woman representing the Hawks.

Then they discovered she’d already spent decades in Hollywood.

It’s an unusual second act.

She Didn’t Simply Disappear From Hollywood

Although Gertz became less visible as a working actress, she didn’t abandon entertainment entirely.

She formed Lime Orchard Productions in 2007.

The company later produced the 2011 film A Better Life, directed by Chris Weitz.

Its lead actor, Demián Bichir, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

So even as her family and business responsibilities expanded, Gertz maintained a connection with the entertainment industry.

Philanthropy Became Another Major Part of Her Life

Money is only one side of the Gertz-Ressler story.

The couple have also become major philanthropists.

Their giving has supported areas including education, healthcare, arts and community programs.

Gertz has personally held charitable leadership roles as well.

One of them involves melanoma research.

Gertz Serves on the Melanoma Research Alliance Board

The Melanoma Research Alliance currently lists Jami Gertz on its board of directors.

The organization focuses on accelerating research aimed at preventing and treating melanoma.

Her involvement provides another example of how her public life has expanded beyond acting.

Hollywood may have made her famous.

It hasn’t been the only focus of her adult life.

The Couple Have Also Invested in Education

Education has been another prominent area of their philanthropic work.

The couple have supported efforts aimed at improving educational opportunities for students, particularly in underserved communities.

Their philanthropy has also extended into healthcare, arts and community development.

In 2026, Gertz and Ressler made headlines again when they committed $50 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, further illustrating the scale of their charitable giving.

Their Atlanta Connection Grew Through the Hawks

Ownership of the Atlanta Hawks also strengthened the family’s connection to Atlanta.

Their involvement with the organization extends beyond simply possessing a financial stake in an NBA team.

Gertz has become a visible representative of the franchise, while the family’s philanthropic work has also reached Atlanta communities.

The Hawks themselves officially identify her as a principal owner.

That’s quite a transformation for someone whose public career began as a teenage actress.

Why Her Story Surprises So Many People

There’s a simple reason the “richest actress” headline continues attracting attention.

Gertz isn’t usually the first person people associate with modern Hollywood wealth.

She isn’t starring in a blockbuster every year.

She doesn’t dominate celebrity news.

She hasn’t built her public identity around luxury.

For someone unfamiliar with her life after Hollywood, discovering that she is connected to a multibillion-dollar family fortune can seem almost unbelievable.

But the story becomes easier to understand once you follow the timeline.

First Came Acting

Gertz began working professionally while still young.

Her Hollywood career took off during the 1980s.

She became financially successful.

Then she met Ressler.

They married.

Only afterward did Ressler help build the investment businesses that eventually generated extraordinary wealth.

Decades later, the couple became NBA owners and major philanthropists.

That’s much more accurate than simply saying:

“An actress married a billionaire.”

She Has Addressed That Assumption Herself

Gertz clearly understands how the story can look from the outside.

When people see her name associated with billions, then see that her husband is a financier, the conclusion can seem obvious.

But she has emphasized that their financial positions were reversed early in their relationship.

She was the established entertainer.

He was still building his career.

She bought their first home and paid for their first vacation, according to her own account.

That’s an important piece of the story because it changes the chronology.

Wealth Rankings Should Still Be Treated Carefully

There’s another point worth remembering whenever celebrity net-worth lists appear online.

These aren’t bank statements.

Private wealth can be difficult to calculate.

Assets may be held jointly.

Ownership stakes fluctuate in value.

Real estate changes in value.

Public-company holdings can move substantially with markets.

Different publications can use different methodologies and arrive at dramatically different totals.

That’s exactly what happens with estimates attached to Gertz.

So presenting one internet figure as an independently verified personal fortune would be misleading.

“Richest Actress” Is Better Understood as a Label

Gertz is frequently called the world’s richest actress because enormous family wealth is associated with her name.

But that shouldn’t be confused with a ranking of who earned the most money from acting.

Those are completely different questions.

Someone can have higher lifetime acting salaries while having a much smaller overall net worth.

Someone else can have a modest acting income compared with Hollywood’s biggest stars but hold enormous investments or family assets.

Gertz belongs firmly in the second category.

And That May Be the Most Interesting Part

Her story isn’t really about becoming the highest-paid actress.

She wasn’t.

It’s about how dramatically a person’s life can evolve beyond the career that first made them famous.

Gertz went from teenage talent discovery…

to movie actress…

to television star…

to producer…

to NBA owner…

to philanthropist…

while the investment career her husband built transformed their family’s financial position.

It’s not the conventional Hollywood billionaire story.

She Is Still Recognizable to Generations of Fans

For some viewers, she’ll always be Star from The Lost Boys.

Others remember Less Than Zero.

Some picture her in Twister.

Television audiences may remember Still Standing.

Basketball fans may know her from the Atlanta Hawks.

Those different identities help explain why renewed attention around her wealth can feel so unexpected.

People know the face.

They simply may not know what happened after the credits rolled.

The Most Important Detail May Be the First House

Of all the billions and investment firms associated with this story, one of the smallest details may be the most revealing.

The first house.

Gertz says she paid for it.

She also says she paid for the couple’s first vacation.

Those aren’t billion-dollar transactions.

But they challenge the simplest version of the story.

When Jami Gertz and Tony Ressler began building their life together, she wasn’t entering a billionaire’s established world.

She was the more established earner.

The billionaire chapter came later.

Final Thoughts

Jami Gertz’s path is one of Hollywood’s more unexpected financial stories.

She was discovered as a teenager and built a successful acting career with memorable roles in films such as The Lost Boys and Less Than Zero, followed by decades of television work.

Then her life expanded far beyond acting.

She married Tony Ressler in 1989, before he accumulated the enormous fortune now associated with his investment career.

Ressler went on to co-found Apollo Global Management and Ares Management.

Together, they became prominent philanthropists and principal owners of the Atlanta Hawks.

And Gertz continues to serve organizations including the Melanoma Research Alliance.

Today, online rankings frequently describe her as the world’s richest actress.

There’s truth behind the astonishing headline—but also an important qualification.

The billions associated with Jami Gertz aren’t the result of acting salaries alone. They largely reflect the extraordinary wealth accumulated through her family’s investments and business holdings.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the story is what happened before all those billions existed.

When Gertz and Ressler started their life together, she says she was the one making more money.

Did you recognize Jami Gertz from The Lost Boys, Twister or one of her television roles before learning about her life today?