John Ritter Biography

Jonathan Southworth "John" Ritter (September 17, 1948 - September 11, 2003) was an American actor and comedian, best known for his role of Jack Tripper in Three's Company, for which he won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award in 1984; also playing the same role in Three's a Crowd, he was the son of the late singing cowboy 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.

Early life

Ritter was born at the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, on September 17, 1948. 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 (ne Southworth), was an actress. He has an older brother, Thomas Matthews "Tom" (b. January 8, 1947). 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 and attended the USC School of Dramatic Arts (formerly School of Theatre) 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.

Career

Film and television

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 co-star Norman Fell. Ritter made his film debut in the 1971 Disney film The Barefoot Executive. He made guest appearances on the television series Hawaii Five-O, M*A*S*H, and many others. He had a recurring role as the 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 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 TV special Ringo. In 1982, Ritter provided the voice of Peter Dickinson in Flight of Dragons.

Ritter became a household 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's 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 series 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 has a live-in girlfriend 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 also appeared in the films Hero at Large, Americathon, and They All Laughed.

Hooperman was Ritter's first regular television 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, and 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 television for three seasons as John Hartman, aide to a U.S. Senator in Hearts Afire. This series starred Markie Post as Georgie Anne Lahti and Billy Bob Thornton as Billy Bob Davis. He also played Garry Lejeune / Roger Tramplemain in the production Noises Off in 1992, and he 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, he appeared in a number of movies, most notably Problem Child and its first sequel. He rejoined 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, and an episode of Law & Order: SVU (2002). 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.

Theatre

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 364 performances. Ritter won the Theatre World Award in 2001 for his performance in that work. In 2003, Ritter made what was his final stage appearance in All About Eve star-studded benefit for the Actors' Fund of America, held at the Ahmanson Theatre.

Personal life

In 1977, Ritter married 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 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.

Death

On September 11, 2003, Ritter fell ill while rehearsing for 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. He began sweating profusely and vomiting, and complained of having chest pains. He was taken across the street to the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, by coincidence the same hospital where he was born. 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 pm (PDT), 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 the Hollywood Hills of 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, thus were 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". His Three's Company co-star Joyce DeWitt remarked he was "impossible to forget. [And] Impossible not to love".

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 Katey Sagal. 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 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.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1971	The Barefoot Executive	Roger	Debut
Scandalous John	Wandell
1972	The Other	Rider
1973	The Stone Killer	Officer Mort
1976	Nickelodeon	Franklin Frank
1978	Breakfast in Bed	Paul
1979	Americathon	President Chet Roosevelt
1980	Hero at Large	Steve Nichols
Wholly Moses!	Satan (The Devil)
1981	They All Laughed	Charles Rutledge
1982	The Flight of Dragons	Peter Dickenson	Voice role; direct-to-video
1983	Sunset Limousine	Alan O'Black
1986	A Smoky Mountain Christmas	Judge Harold Benton	Uncredited
1987	Real Men	Bob Wilson/Agent Pillbox, CIA
1989	Skin Deep	Zachary 'Zach' Hutton
1990	It	Ben Hanscom
Problem Child	'Little' Ben Healy
1991	The Real Story of O Christmas Tree	Piney	Voice role; direct-to-video release
Problem Child 2	Ben Healy
Noises Off	Garry Lejeune/Roger Tramplemain
1992	Stay Tuned	Roy Knable
1993	Danielle Steel's Heartbeat	Bill Grant
1994	North	Ward Nelson
1995	The Colony	Rick Knowlton
1996	Sling Blade	Vaughan Cunningham
1997	Nowhere	Moses Helper
A Gun, a Car, a Blonde	Duncan/The Bartender
Hacks	Hank
1998	Montana	Dr. Wexler
1998	Shadow of Doubt	Steven Mayer
I Woke Up Early the Day I Died	Robert Forrest
Bride of Chucky	Police Chief Warren Kincaid
1999	Lethal Vows	Dr. David Farris
2000	Panic	Dr. Josh Parks
Lost in the Perishing Point Hotel	Christian Therapist
Tripfall	Tom Williams
Terror Tract	Bob Carter	Segment: "Make Me an Offer"
2001	Nuncrackers	Narrator	Direct-to-video
2002	Tadpole	Stanley Grubman
Man of the Year	Bill
2003	Manhood	Eli
Bad Santa	Bob Chipeska	Posthumously released; final live action film
2004	Clifford's Really Big Movie	Clifford the Big Red Dog	Voice role (posthumously released)
2006	Stanley's Dinosaur Round-Up	Great Uncle Stew (voice)	Posthumous direct-to-video release

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1968	Crazy World, Crazy People	Various characters	Special
1970	Dan August		Episode: "Quadrangle for Death"
1971	Hawaii Five-O	Ryan Moore Mike Welles	2 episodes
1972	The Waltons	Rev. Matthew Fordwick	18 episodes
1973	Medical Center	Ronnie	Episode: "End of the Line"
Bachelor-at-Law	Ben Sykes	Unsold pilot
M*A*S*H	Pvt. Carter	Episode: "Deal Me Out"
1974	Kojak	Kenny Soames	Episode: "Deliver Us Some Evil"
Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law	Greg	Episode: "To Keep and Bear Arms"
The Bob Newhart Show	Dave	Episode: "Sorry, Wrong Mother"
1975	Movin' On	Casey	Episode: "Landslide"
Mannix	Cliff Elgin	Episode: "Hardball"
The Bob Crane Show	Hornbeck	Episode: "Son of the Campus Capers"
Petrocelli	John Oleson	Episode: "Chain of Command"
Barnaby Jones	Joe Rockwell	Episode: "The Price of Terror"
The Streets of San Francisco	John 'Johnny' Steiner	Episode: "Murder by Proxy"
The Night That Panicked America	Walter Wingate	ABC film
The Mary Tyler Moore Show	Reverend Chatfield	Episode: "Ted's Wedding"
The Rookies	Hap Dawson	Episode: "Reluctant Hero"
Rhoda	Vince Mazuma Jerry Blocker	"Chest Pains" "Attack on Mr. Right"
1976	Starsky & Hutch	Tom Cole	Episode: "The Hostages"
Phyllis	Paul Jameson	Episode: "The New Job"
1977	Three's Company	Jack Tripper	174 episodes
The Love Boat	Ben Cummins / Dale Riley/Reinhardt	2 episodes
1978	Ringo	Marty	Movie
Leave Yesterday Behind	Paul Stallings	ABC film
1979	The Ropers	Jack Tripper	Episode: "The Party"
1980	The Associates	Chick	Episode: "The Censors"
The Comeback Kid	Bubba Newman	ABC film
1981	Insight	Frankie	Episode: "Little Miseries"
1982	Pray TV	Tom McPherson	ABC film
In Love with an Older Woman	Robert	CBS film
The Fantastic Miss Piggy Show	Himself	Special
1983	Sunset Limousine	Alan O'Black	CBS film
1984	Love Thy Neighbor	Danny Loeb	ABC film
Pryor's Place		Episode: "The Showoff"
Three's a Crowd	Jack Tripper	22 episodes
1985	Letting Go	Alex	ABC film
1986	Living Seas	Host	NBC film
Unnatural Causes	Frank Coleman	NBC film
A Smoky Mountain Christmas	Judge Harold Benton	ABC film
Life with Lucy	Himself	Guest Appearance
1987	The Last Fling	Phillip Reed	ABC film
Prison for Children	David Royce	CBS film
Hooperman	Det. Harry Hooperman	42 episodes
1988	Mickey's 60th Birthday	Dudley Goode	Special
Tricks of the Trade	Donald Todsen	Cameo; CBS film
1989	My Brother's Wife	Barney	ABC film
1990	Stephen King's It	Adult Ben "Haystack" Hanscom	ABC film
The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story	L. Frank Baum	NBC film
1991	The Cosby Show	Ray Evans	Episode: "Total Control"
The Summer My Father Grew Up	Paul	NBC film
Anything but Love	Patrick Serreau	5 episodes
1992	Fish Police	Inspector Gill	Voice role
Hearts Afire	John Hartman	54 episodes
1993	Heartbeat	Bill Grant	NBC film
The Only Way Out	Jeremy Carlisle	ABC film
The Larry Sanders Show	Himself	Episode: "Off Camera"
1994	Dave's World	John Hartman	Episode: "Please Won't You Be My Neighbor"
1995	Gramps	Clarke MacGruder	NBC film
The Colony	Rick Knowlton	USA Network film
NewsRadio	Dr. Frank Westford	Episode: "The Shrink"
The Larry Sanders Show	Himself	Episode: "The Fourteenth Floor"
1996	Unforgivable	Paul Hegstrom	CBS film
Wings	Stuart Davenport	Episode: "Love Overboard"
For Hope	Date #5	ABC film (uncredited)
Touched by an Angel	Mike O'Connor Tom McKinsley	2 episodes
1997	Loss of Faith	Bruce Simon Barker	Movie
Mercenary	Jonas Ambler	HBO film
A Child's Wish	Ed Chandler	CBS film
Dead Man's Gun	Harry McDonacle	Segment: "The Great McDonacle"
Over the Top	Justin Talbot	Episode: "The Nemesis"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer	Ted Buchanan	Episode: "Ted"
King of the Hill	Eugene Grandy (Voice)	4 episodes
1998	Chance of a Lifetime	Tom Maguire	CBS film
Ally McBeal	George Madison	2 episodes
Dead Husbands	Dr. Carter Elston	USA Network film
1999	Veronica's Closet	Tim	Episode: "Veronica's Favorite Year"
Holy Joe	Joe Cass	CBS film
It Came from the Sky	Donald Bridges	Romance Classics film
Lethal Vows	Dr. David Farris	CBS film
2000	Chicago Hope	Joe Dysmerski	Episode: "Simon Sez"
Batman Beyond	Dr. David Wheeler (voice)	Episode: "The Last Resort"
Family Law	Father Andrews	Episode: "Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law"
Clifford the Big Red Dog	Clifford	Voice role
Felicity	Mr. Andrew Covington	7 episodes
2001	Tucker	Marty	Episode: "Homewrecker for the Holidays"
2002	The Ellen Show	Percy Moss	Episode: "Gathering Moss"
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Dr. Richard Manning	Episode: "Monogamy"
Breaking News	Lloyd Fuchs	Episode: "Pilot"
Scrubs	Sam Dorian	2 episodes
8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter	Paul Hennessy	31 episodes
2004	King of the Hill	Eugene Grandy	Episode: "Stressed for Success" (posthumously released)

Awards and honors

Association	Year	Category	Work	Result
Daytime Emmy Awards	2001	Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program	Clifford the Big Red Dog
	2002
	2003
	2004
Emmy Awards	1978	Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series	Three's Company
	1981
	1984
	1988		Hooperman
	1999		Ally McBeal
	2004		8 Simple Rules
Golden Globe Awards	1979	Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy	Three's Company
	1980
	1984
	1987	Best Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television	Unnatural Causes
	1988	Best TV Actor in a Musical/Comedy	Hooperman
People's Choice Awards	1988	Favorite Male Performer in a New TV Program	Hooperman
Screen Actors Guild	1997	Outstanding Performance by a Cast	Sling Blade (shared w/co-stars)

• 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.