American actor from a theatrical family who received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series in 1983, Emmys in 1983-1984 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, had 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 belied his unease with his own celebrity. Saying he had inherited none of his dad’s singing talent, he became a very capable dramatic actor with a sense of physical comedy, a modern day vaudeville comic. Enormously successful, he was an intense, hard worker. While on the set he listened to everyone and brought peace if there were 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 1972-1977 had him playing Reverend Fordwick. “Three’s Company,” the sitcom for which he won his first awards, began on 15 March 1977 and ended on 18 September 1984. The following show, “Three’s A Crowd,” aired during the 1984-1985 seasons. Always hard on himself, he wasn’t content with past performances and continued 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 on 16 October 1977. They had 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 on 25 June 1999 and married on 18 September 1999.
There was a report that due to an injury in his teens, John was legally blind in his right eye. He worked toward fund-raising on behalf of Cerebral Palsy, from which his older brother, a lawyer, suffered.
On the evening of 11 September 2003 in Burbank, California 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, was then an actor who appeared in the upcoming CBS series “Joan of Arcadia.”
Link to Wikipedia biography