John Ritter

Diagnoses

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

Family

American actor and member of a theatrical family. Ritter received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series in 1983, Emmys in 1983-84 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, and a People's Choice Award in 1988. In 1993 he received a star on the Hollywood walk of fame next to his dad's. The second of two boys born to country singer Tex Ritter and actress Dorothy Fay, John was a quiet young man spending much time alone when he was young. His brother, two years his senior, has cerebral palsy. Ritter was a Boy Scout. After being elected student body president his senior year at Hollywood High, he decided to become a psychiatrist and attended the University of Southern California. He changed his major to theater arts between his sophomore and junior years, receiving a B.F.A. in drama in 1971 with a minor in architecture. His college theater troop took him to Scotland, England and the continent. He studied acting with Stella Adler and Nina Foch and with Harvey Lembeck at his Comedy Workshop. Ritter's good humor and easy nature belie his unease with his own celebrity. Saying he has inherited none of his dad's singing talent, he has become a very capable dramatic actor with a sense of physical comedy, a modern day vaudeville comic. Enormously successful, he is an intense, hard worker. While on the set he listens to everyone and brings peace if there are clashes, caring deeply about people's feelings. His debut was on the dramatic TV series "Dan August." In 1971 he did a Disney movie, "Scandalous." A recurring role on "The Walton's" from 1972-77 had him playing Reverend Fordwick. "Three's Company," the sitcom for which he won his first awards, began on 3/15/1977 and ended 9/18/1984. The following show, "Three's A Crowd," aired during the 1984-85 seasons. Always hard on himself, he isn't content with past performances and continues to be nominated for awards, 1987 Golden Globe for the TV movie "Unnatural Causes," 1988 Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for "Hooperman" and July 1999 an Emmy nomination for guest actor on "Ally McBeal." After having dated many women, John met three-year-younger Nancy Morgan, an actress, in March 1975 and they married 10/16/1977. They have three children, son Jason in February 1980, daughter Carly in 1982 and son Tyler in 1985. Married for 19 years, they separated in 1993 and filed for divorce in September 1996. In September 1998 John and Amy Yasbeck, an actress, announced the birth of a daughter, Stella. The couple announced their engagement 6/25/1999 and married 9/18/1999. There is a report that due to an injury in his teens, John is legally blind in his right eye. He works toward fund-raising on behalf of Cerebral Palsy, from which his older brother, a lawyer, suffers. On the evening of September 11, 2003 in Burbank, CA, just days before his birthday, the Emmy-award winning son of Tex Ritter collapsed on the set of his TV series and died moments later. The cause of his sudden death was a break in the main coronary artery. One of his sons, Jason Ritter, 23, is an actor who appears in the upcoming CBS series ``Joan of Arcadia. Link to Wikipedia biography