Actress Jami Gertz has successfully turned her experience in the entertainment industry into a lucrative commercial career. Her net worth is estimated at a whopping $8 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth . She is well known for playing memorable roles in The Lost Boys , Quicksilver, and Less than Zero, but she came from a modest family. According to Vanity Fair , she was also first considered for the iconic role of Rachel Green in the popular sitcom Friends, thought that did not work out. In addition to receiving an Emmy nomination for her guest appearance in Ally McBeal , she was also nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for her performance in Twister .
In 1989, she wed Tony Ressler, a banker who co-founded Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm that grew into a multibillion-dollar business, a year after they were married. To further solidify his position as a financial tycoon, he later established Ares Management; with his current net worth of almost $11 billion, Gertz has risen to the top of the world’s wealthiest list. “We’re a $125-ish billion asset manager,” Ressler explained about his financial company, Ares. “I guess the right quote would be, ‘We’re the most amazing investment firm in the history of the universe.’”
In addition, their most noteworthy business endeavors include a minority ownership in the Milwaukee Brewers and a majority holding in the Atlanta Hawks NBA team . Gertz also represents the Hawks, a team her husband, Ressler, paid $720 million to acquire in 2015. “All I knew was that she was a working actress,” Ressler recalled. “I didn’t know [her movie and TV credits.”
Gertz, who grew up in Glenview, Illinois, in a Jewish working-class household, was equally smitten. “He was a nice guy with a job,” she said, “which is what any Jewish girl from Glenview would want. It would have been nice if it was a doctor or a lawyer, but a banker was OK, too.”
Later on, “Everyone thinks I married a rich guy. But I made way more money than Tony when I met him. I paid for our first house. I paid for our first vacation. I married him because I fell in love with him,” the Sixteen Candles actress told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. Gertz and Ressler’s investments, combined with her production company Lime Orchard Productions, have allowed her to achieve a colossal net worth. “You reach an age, and you slow down, and the jobs are a little hard to come by,” Gertz said. “So I decided to put money into a project of my own.”
Chris Weitz’s 2011 film A Better Life , which starred Demian Bichir and was nominated for an Oscar, was the company’s only hit. However, the remainder of the production company’s slate was never completed. “I tried for five years and was not very successful,” she revealed. According to her, she invested millions of her funds in the business but lost everything. The couple recently relocated to Atlanta where they are building a network to develop their billion-dollar NBA business.