R.I.P. John Ritter

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 4:08 pm

He apparently died unexpectedly of a sudden, extremely severe heart attack brought on by an undiagnosed heart defect, apparently in the middle of working on his current TV show.

Well, he might not have exactly been in the same league with Johnny Cash and Warren Zevon, John Ritter was a darn fine actor. You might not know it from "Three's Company" but he did outstanding work in "Slingblade", the "Ted" episode of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer." (Hi, Poppet!) and probably a bunch of other movies/TV shows I've forgotten as well as plays I'll never get to see him in.

Also, by all accounts he was a super nice guy and very admirable -- as well as being a fellow son of L.A. (his parents were actors Tex and Thelma Ritter, who was also a wonderful character actress in movies like "Rear Window").

I guess that makes three. Just another reminder to seize the day, folks!

Post by **BlueChair** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 4:14 pm

Yeah, another shocking passing and definitely worth paying tribute to.

Poppet · Post by **Poppet** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 4:15 pm

sieze the day. right. okay. will try.

i actually heard about john ritter's death before johnny cash's. awful, horrible, no-good, very bad day today. it's been a real week, folks.

everybody take care, okay?

Boy With A Problem · Post by **Boy With A Problem** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 9:41 pm

It does seem like a plethora of deaths lately. I can't say I was a bigh John Ritter fan, but like Bobster said, he cam across as a nice man. Tragic.

I don't think we mentioned the passing of Charles Bronson last week. One of the all-time great tough guys. He was alwasys a presence on the screen. One of my favorites of his was the "Hard Times" with James Coburn.

Post by **spooky girlfriend** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 10:43 pm

I don't remember John so much for his main sitcoms, but for some of the more obscure appearances he made over the years. I have thought about this so much today. No, he's not Johnny Cash - he's somebody very different. Entertained me in a very different kind of way over the years.

But it's been a very long day and I've been drinking for a while now. Too long a day and too many people have died this week. Not fair to mourn so many people in such a short span of time.

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 1:01 pm

To me one of the poignant things about John Ritter's death is how there's so little good material to go around. TV is filled with first-rate actors who are forced to perform the most fifth-rate material. It's actually a lot better now than it was when John Ritter got started, but it's still hard for him to find good material.

To me, that's the one of the saddest things about a gifted actor like Ritter dying too young. Live theater aside, he never really seemed to find a regular venue to really do the work he was clearly capable of.

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 3:38 pm

He was damn good in Tadpole and Panic as well....among several others. Hollywood is full of really good actors who make a living being solid in lousy material and he was one of them. A lot like Phil Hartman, another tragic loss, in that respect.

Post by **BlueChair** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 3:41 pm

I think Phil Hartman managed to get a bit more respectable work. I mean he was a recurring voice on The Simpsons, and was part of Saturday Night Live during one of its peaks.

Then again, he was also on Pee Wee's Playhouse and Jingle All The Way. Eek.

Wow though, Phil Hartman's murder was a real shocker at the time.

Watching_Detectives · Post by **Watching_Detectives** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 3:41 pm

Come and knock on our door
We've been waiting for you
Where the kisses are hers, and hers and his
Three's company too.

Come and dance on our floor
Take a step that is new
We've a loveable space that needs your face,
Three's company too

You'll see that life is a frolic and laughter is calling for you
Down at our rendez-vous,
Three's company, too!

martinfoyle · Post by **martinfoyle** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:14 pm

Hardly known this side of the ocean, still John Ritter has gotten some good obituaries, including this one in the Daily Telegraph

- John Ritter
(Filed: 13/09/2003)

John Ritter, the actor who has died aged 54, was one of the best-known faces on American television and the star of the 1970s situation comedy, Three's Company, based on the British series Man About The House.

Ritter first found television fame as the Reverend Matthew Fordwick in The Waltons, the long-running television series set in rural Virginia during the Depression. But it was in his role as the affably bumbling Jack Tripper in the domestic farce Three's Company that he became a household name across America.

The series, which ran from 1977 to 1984, followed the innuendo-filled misadventures of Tripper and his two female flat-mates - a down-to-earth brunette named Janet Wood (Joyce DeWitt) and a clueless blonde called Christmas "Chrissy" Snow (Suzanne Somers). Although the relationship between Tripper and the girls was platonic, every storyline was steeped in titillating possibilities. The script relied heavily on double entendre. Much was also made of the somewhat laborious joke that Ritter's character had appeased his landlord (suspicious of the "threesome") by pretending to be homosexual.

Ritter would later describe his years on the show as "an education". "When the curtain went up," he explained, "no matter how long you've studied or haven't studied at all, you had to answer to the audience. We didn't do retakes. If there was a boom [microphone] in the shot, so be it."

Despite critical sneers, audiences loved Three's Company, and the disapproval of such bodies as Women's Lib, the Parent-Teacher Association of America and the Reverend Donald Wildmon's National Federation for Decency served only to seal its popularity.

Jonathan Southworth Ritter was born on September 17 1948 at Burbank, California. The younger son of the cowboy actor and musician Tex Ritter and his actress wife, Dorothy Fay Ritter, John was educated at Hollywood High School and later attended the University of Southern California, where he read Psychology. But after joining an acting class he switched to Theatre Arts, graduating with a degree in Drama in 1971. He later studied with Stella Adler at the Harvey Lembeck Comedy Workshop.

Ritter's first film role was a bit part in Disney's The Barefoot Executive (1971), which he followed with a number of minor parts before landing Three's Company. The sitcom thrived on Ritter's comic timing and talent for physical comedy, although a spin-off, Three's a Crowd, in 1985, lasted only one season. In 1988, however, he had another television hit playing the crime-busting San Francisco cop Hooperman.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s Ritter's comic talents were displayed (with mixed results) in a variety of film comedies including Real Men (1987); Skin Deep (1988); Stay Tuned (1992); and two Problem Child films (1990 and 1991) which made much use of the pee-in-lemonade, vomit-on-a-roundabout and treading-in-dogs'-mess variety of humour.

In 1996, however, Ritter broke away from comic typecasting to take the role of a homosexual shopkeeper in Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade and in Henry Bromell's Panic (2000) he played a psychiatrist treating a hitman. He recently appeared alongside Sigourney Weaver in the low-budget comic drama Tadpole, which won critical acclaim at the 2002 Sundance Festival.

Ritter was awarded an Emmy in 1984 for Three's Company. He received two Emmy nominations for his role as the voice of Clifford the Big Red Dog in the animated series.

In all Ritter appeared in some 25 television films and numerous feature films; but he also had a distinguished stage career and acted in more than 50 plays across America. He recently spent nine months in the Broadway run of Neil Simon's Dinner Party, playing opposite fellow television star Henry Winkler (formerly "The Fonz" in Happy Days). He also made recent guest appearances in the comedy drama television series Ally McBeal. The film Manhood, in which he appears along with Billy Bob Thornton, will be released in November.

The good-humoured Ritter was a welcome figure on every film set he worked on, although he shunned Hollywood parties. "I don't like being a celebrity," he once revealed, adding that on occasion he would disguise himself when out in public. "I wear wigs, glasses and even a stick-on beard." He preferred family life, saying that "no glitzy showbiz reception can compete with that".

Ritter died on Thursday after a heart attack on the set of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter in which he played a harassed father attempting to cope with his teenage children.

In August 2001, John Ritter had the doleful task of contacting the obituaries desk of The Daily Telegraph after we mistakenly published an obituary of his mother, who had not died. He courteously pointed out the mistake and graciously accepted an apology in the form of an article by the Obituaries Editor. Dorothy Fay Ritter survives him.

Ritter's first marriage to Nancy Morgan was dissolved in 1996. He is survived by his second wife, the actress Amy Yasbeck, and their daughter, as well as two sons and a daughter from his first marriage.

John also co-starred with EC in Americathon.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078766/

Personally, I'll always associate him with the time I spent at UPEI in Canada, when the local CBC station seemed to run Three's Company constantly around teatime or, confusingly, suppertime as they call it over there. It seemed to me so bad it was good.

Post by **BlueChair** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:16 pm

What's so confusing about suppertime?

martinfoyle · Post by **martinfoyle** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:36 pm

BlueChair wrote:What's so confusing about suppertime?

\

Suppertime is bedtime-snack time over here in Ireland and the UK.

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:39 pm

He was great in SLINGBLADE. And as the voice of CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG! I actually had to tell my son this week that the guy who does the voice of Clifford had died... he's just old enough to understand.

Post by **BlueChair** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:42 pm

It was really only the "norvernors" who called dinner "tea" when I was in Nottingham, and they called lunch dinner. What's with that?

A rope leash · Post by **A rope leash** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:58 pm

Here in this part of the Ozarks, lunch is still often reffered to as "dinner". Supper is the evening meal.

In my younger days folks often said I resembled "that guy from Three's Company". I never saw it, myself. He was certaintly a pleasant and kind sort of actor, perfect for television. I wonder if he had lived if he would have ever reached a point where he could have played "the bad guy".

I've got Elvis' part of Americathon on my all-purpose Elvis tape. It's pretty awful, really, but it's better than the rest of the movie, which isn't worth the tape.

Americathon may end up prophetic.

Copenhagen Fan · Post by **Copenhagen Fan** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:14 am

jesus...! I was more upset when Bob Crane bit the big one!....

by the way, Chuck Bronson is also dead...I heard that any way! Dropping like flies!