John Ritter

Jonathan Southworth "John" Ritter (September 17, 1948 – September 11, 2003) was an American actor. Ritter was known for playing Jack Tripper on the hit ABC sitcom Three's Company, for which he won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award in 1984. He was the son of famous country/western star Tex Ritter, and the father of actors Jason Ritter and Tyler Ritter.

Ritter appeared in hundreds of films and television shows/episodes combined (and performed on Broadway), including It (1990), Problem Child (1990), Problem Child 2 (1991) and Bad Santa in 2003 (his final live action film which was dedicated to his memory). Prior to Clifford's Really Big Movie (posthumously released), Ritter received four Daytime Emmy Award nominations for his voice work on the children's television series, Clifford the Big Red Dog, in addition to many other awards Ritter was nominated for or won. Don Knotts called Ritter the "greatest physical comedian on the planet".

Ritter died from an aortic dissection on September 11, 2003. His death occurred shortly after the production of an episode for the second season of 8 Simple Rules.

Spouse(s):

• Nancy Morgan (m. 1977; div. 1996)
• Amy Yasbeck (m. 1999–2003)

Children:

• 4, including Jason Ritter and Tyler Ritter

Parent(s):

• Tex Ritter
• Dorothy Fay

Early life

Ritter was born on September 17, 1948 at the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. Ritter had a birth defect known as a coloboma in his right eye. His father, Tex Ritter, was a singing cowboy/matinee-star, and his mother, Dorothy Fay (née Southworth), was an actress. Ritter attended Hollywood High School, where he was student body president. He went on to the University of Southern California and majored in psychology with plans to have a career in politics. He later changed his major to theater arts after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. While still in college, Ritter traveled to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and West Germany to perform in plays. Ritter graduated in 1971.

Television and film career

Ritter headlined several stage performances. After his graduation from USC in 1970, his first TV acting experience was a campus revolutionary in the TV series, Dan August, starring Burt Reynolds and future Three's Company alumnus Norman Fell. Ritter made his film debut in The Barefoot Executive. Ritter made guest appearances on the television series Hawaii Five-O, M*A*S*H, and many others. Ritter had a recurring role (he appeared in 18 episodes), as Reverend Matthew Fordwick, on the drama series, The Waltons, from October 1972 to December 1976. Since he was not a weekly cast member, he had the time to pursue other roles, which he did until December 1976, when he left for a starring role in the hit ABC sitcom Three's Company (the Americanized version of the 1970s British Thames Television series Man About the House) in 1977. In 1978, Ritter played Ringo Starr's manager on the television special Ringo. In 1982, provided the voice of Peter Dickinson in Flight of Dragons.

Ritter became a house-hold name playing struggling culinary student Jack Tripper with two female roommates. Ritter co-starred opposite (Joyce DeWitt) and (Suzanne Somers), however Somers left due to a contractual dispute in 1981. (Jenilee Harrison) and then (Priscilla Barnes) filled Somers role. Much of the comedy centered around Jack's pretending to be gay to keep the old-fashioned landlords appeased over the seemingly sordid living arrangements. The show spent several seasons near the top of the TV ratings in the U.S. before ending in 1984. A year long spin-off Three's a Crowd ensued, as the Jack Tripper character settles-down and runs his own bistro. The original series has been seen continuously in reruns and is also available on DVD. During the run of Three's Company, Ritter appeared in the films Hero at Large, Americathon, and They All Laughed.

Hooperman was Ritter's first acting role after Three's Company. Detective Harry Hooperman inherits a run-down apartment building and hires Susan Smith (Debrah Farentino) to run it. A relationship follows and Hooperman must juggle work, love, plus the antics of Bijoux the dog. In 1988, John was nominated for both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his work on Hooperman. Ritter won a People's Choice Award for this role. In 1992–95, Ritter returned to TV for three seasons as John Hartman, aide to a US Senator in Hearts Afire. This series starred Markie Post as Georgie Anne Lahti and Billy Bob Thornton as Billy Bob Davis. Ritter played the role of "Dad" in the music video for Graham Nash's song "Innocent Eyes" from the 1996 album of the same name.

After his time on television, Ritter appeared in a number of movies, most notably Problem Child and its first sequel. He rejoined with Billy Bob Thornton in the Oscar-winning Sling Blade (playing a kindhearted, gay, discount store manager) and Noises Off, and played the lead role in Blake Edwards' 1989 film Skin Deep. Ritter starred in many made-for-TV movies, including Gramps (1995), co-starring with Andy Griffith, Rob Hedden's The Colony (1995) with Hal Linden, Stephen King's It, Danielle Steel's Heartbeat with Polly Draper, and It Came From the Sky in 1999 with Yasmine Bleeth.

Ritter also made guest appearances on TV shows, such as Felicity, Ally McBeal, Scrubs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as an episode of Law & Order: SVU where the case involves the beating of a seven-months-pregnant woman, whose unborn child has been forcibly removed from her body via a primitive cesarean section. Among the witnesses questioned, Ritter plays the woman's husband, a psychiatrist with several damaging secrets and knows more about his wife's beating than he's willing to admit. John also provided the voice of the title character in the PBS animated children's show Clifford the Big Red Dog, a role for which he received four Emmy nominations. He starred alongside kickboxing actor Olivier Gruner for the buddy cop film Mercenary.

Broadway career

Ritter played Claude Pichon in The Dinner Party (2000) at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, which was written by Neil Simon. It ran for three hundred and sixty-four performances. Ritter won the Theatre World Award in 2001 for his performance in that work. In 2003, Ritter made what would be his final stage appearance in All About Eve a star-studded benefit for the Actors' Fund of America, held at the Ahmanson Theatre.

Personal life

In 1977, Ritter married actress Nancy Morgan, with whom he had three children: Jason (who first appeared in the opening credits of Three's Company), Carly, and Tyler. They divorced in 1996.

He married actress Amy Yasbeck on September 18, 1999 at the Murphy Theatre in Wilmington, Ohio. Their daughter, Stella, was born on September 11, 1998, one year before they married.

Yasbeck played his love interest in the first two Problem Child movies. Yasbeck also played Ritter's wife in two sitcom appearances. In 1991, both were guest stars on The Cosby Show, in which Yasbeck played the in-labor wife of Ritter's basketball coach character. In 1996, Ritter guest starred on Yasbeck's sitcom, Wings, as the estranged husband of Yasbeck's character, Casey. Ritter was also friends with English actor Tim Curry, his co-star from It and Fish Police.

Death

On September 11, 2003, Ritter fell ill while rehearsing for 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. He began sweating profusely, vomiting and complained of having chest pains. He was taken across the street to the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center. Physicians misdiagnosed Ritter and treated him for a heart attack; however, his condition worsened. Physicians then diagnosed Ritter with an aortic dissection. Ritter died during surgery to repair the dissection at 10:48 p.m, six days before his 55th birthday.

A private funeral was held on September 15 in Los Angeles after which Ritter was interred at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

In 2008, Yasbeck filed a $67 million wrongful death lawsuit against radiologist Dr. Matthew Lotysch and cardiologist Dr. Joseph Lee. Yasbeck accused Lee, who treated Ritter on the day of his death, of misdiagnosing his condition as a heart attack, and Lotysch, who had given him a full-body scan two years earlier, of failing at that time to detect an enlargement of Ritter's aorta. In 2008, at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the jury concluded that the doctors who treated Ritter the day he died were not negligent and thus not responsible for his death. According to court records, Ritter's family received more than $14 million in settlements, including $9.4 million from Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where he died.

Response and legacy

Many of Ritter's co-workers expressed deep sorrow and heartbreak following the news of his death. Ritter's Three's Company co-star Suzanne Somers said: "I'm so sad for the family. We lost a good one, it was so unfinished". Zach Braff, who worked with Ritter on Scrubs, called Ritter a "comic hero" of his and said he had approached series creator Bill Lawrence to get Ritter to play his TV dad. Katey Sagal testified in the wrongful death lawsuit, calling Ritter a "funny man who was funny like nobody's business".

8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter was later retitled 8 Simple Rules following Ritter's death and continued for one and a half more seasons until its cancellation in 2005. Ritter's character, Paul Hennessy, was said to have died after collapsing in a grocery store while buying milk. ABC aired the first three episodes of the show's second season that had been taped before his death, each of which was introduced by the show's cast. The remainder of the show dealt with the family trying to grapple with Paul's death. New male characters, played by James Garner and David Spade, were later added to the main cast as Ritter's replacement. Shortly before his death, Ritter had done a week-long taping with Hollywood Squares, which was aired as a tribute to him, introduced by Henry Winkler, the executive producer of the show and very close friend of Ritter's. Four days after Ritter's death, Nick at Nite ran an all-night Three's Company marathon that was dedicated to his memory.

In 2004, Ritter was posthumously given an Emmy nomination for playing Paul Hennessy in 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, but lost to Kelsey Grammer for playing the title character of Frasier. Upon accepting his trophy, Grammer's remarks included comments made in tribute and remembrance of Ritter. Ritter's final films, Bad Santa and Clifford's Really Big Movie, along with an episode of Scrubs (his character in this series died as well following Ritter's real life death) and King of the Hill, were dedicated in his memory.

On June 6, 2008, a mural of Ritter painted by Eloy Torrez was dedicated at Hollywood High School.

In March 2010, the Thoracic Aortic Disease (TAD) Coalition, in partnership with Yasbeck and the John Ritter Foundation (JRF), announced the creation of the "Ritter Rules" which are life-saving reminders to recognize, treat, and prevent thoracic aortic dissection. The purpose of the JRF is to provide accurate information to the general public about the disease and its risk factors, provide support to individuals who have thoracic aortic disease or have lost a loved one to the disease, and improve the identification of individuals at risk for aortic dissections and the treatment of thoracic aortic disease through medical research. Yasbeck worked with Dianna M. Milewicz, MD, PhD at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) to establish the John Ritter Research Program in Aortic and Vascular Diseases with the goal of preventing premature deaths due to aortic dissection by identifying genetic mutations that predispose individuals to thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections.

• 1983: Star on the Walk of Fame – 6627 Hollywood Boulevard; he and Tex Ritter were the first father-and-son pair to be so honored in different categories.