Tina Yothers Played Jennifer on "Family Ties." See Her Now at 48.
The former child star put acting behind her to pursue another passion.
Anyone who watched Family Ties during its seven-season run in the 1980s will remember the four kids of the Keaton family. Young Republican brother Alex was played by Michael J. Fox. Fashion-loving teen Mallory was portrayed by Justine Bateman. The role of youngest sibling Andy—a new addition in season 3—went to Brian Bonsall. And then there was sister Jennifer, who loved sports and who actually shared her parents' liberal political opinions, unlike her siblings. Jennifer was played by Tina Yothers, who started Family Ties as a nine-year-old and is now 48.
Unlike some of her co-stars, Yothers is no longer a working actor and has remained out of the spotlight in recent years. That said, she has appeared on reality TV shows and given fans a few updates about her life. Read on to see what Yothers has been up to since starring on one of the biggest sitcoms of the '80s.
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Yothers was already a working actor when she joined Family Ties.
Yothers might have only been nine when Family Ties premiered, but she already had an acting career going. As a child, she appeared in the Magical World of Disney TV movie The Cherokee Trail, on the series Father Murphy, and in the movie Shoot the Moon. She had also starred in some commercials, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Her acting career came to a close in the '90s.
Yothers continued acting after Family Ties for a few years. She appeared in the TV movies, Crash Course, Laker Girls, and A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester. She also showed up as a version of herself on a 1996 episode of Married… with Children, which is her last acting credit listed on IMDb.
That said, she didn't leave the arts completely. She and her brother, Cory Yothers, started a band called Jaded in the late '90s. "Even during Family Ties, music has always been my passion, my life, my love," Yothers told Australia's Where Are They Now. The band was around for 10 years.
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She did some reality shows in the 2000s.
While Yothers didn't keep acting, she did still pop up on TV from time to time. In the 2000s, she was on the game show Weakest Link and on the reality series Celebrity Fit Club. Then, in 2012, she participated in the series Celebrity Wife Swap in which she traded homes with actor and comedian Niecy Nash. During the episode, Yothers was given a glamorous makeover by Nash's makeup artist and stylist, which the former child star was not a fan of. The episode also let viewers take a look at Yothers' family life, including her son, who was not particularly nice to his stand-in mom, as reported by Us Weekly.
Yothers made another return to reality TV and got another makeover in 2013 when she appeared on What Not to Wear. Since around that time, she has stayed out of the spotlight.
She has her own family (ties) now.
Yothers is married to Robert Kaiser, an electrical contractor, and they have two children, Lilly and Bobby, as the actor explained on Celebrity Wife Swap. Yothers is also stepmom to Kaiser's daughter, Sarah, from a previous relationship.
"Hollywood was never my cup of tea. I never bought into the phoniness," Yothers said on the Celebrity Wife Swap episode. That said, her family has gotten a taste of her previous life as an actor. While appearing with her Family Ties co-stars on Today in 2015, she said of the series, "My daughter loves it."
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