Rise to Fame
Dynasty gave her the foot in the door at 20, playing scheming Sammy Jo on Aaron Spelling's prime-time soap. The real career-defining move came in 1993, when Melrose Place was failing and producers brought her in for four episodes to stop the bleeding. She didn't leave for six seasons. As Amanda Woodward, she became the show's engine and its highest-paid actress at $100,000 per episode. The lesson wasn't lost on Spelling, who cast her in eight of his productions over her career.
In the Spotlight
The 2018 headlines read like a crisis playbook: two separate arrests, a psychiatric hold, eight misdemeanor counts of battery on police and emergency responders. Court-ordered treatment in 2019 and sobriety since April 2020 reset the narrative. She got engaged to her high school sweetheart in 2020, returned to TV in a Lifetime film in 2024, and a Melrose Place reboot is reportedly in development at CBS Studios. Whether Amanda Woodward has a second act is the only question that matters.
Side Notes
Her first husband was Tommy Lee, a match that started backstage at an REO Speedwagon concert in 1985 and ended in 1993 when he admitted to infidelity. She married Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora in 1994, they had a daughter, and when that marriage ended in 2007, her close friend Denise Richards promptly started dating Sambora. Her high school sweetheart, Chris Heisser, she knew before any of it. Her romantic history is basically a VH1 retrospective.