Jonathan Southworth Ritter (September 17, 1948 – September 11, 2003) was an American actor and comedian. He was the son of the singing cowboy star Tex Ritter and the father of actors Jason and Tyler Ritter. Ritter is known for playing Jack Tripperon the ABC sitcom Three's Company (1977–1984), for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award in 1984. He briefly reprised the role on the spin-off Three's a Crowd, which aired for one season, producing 22 episodes before it's cancellation in 1985. Ritter appeared in over 100 films and television series combined and performed on Broadway, with roles including adult Ben Hanscom in 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). His final roles include voicing the title character on the PBS children's program Clifford the Big Red Dog (2000–2003), for which he received four Daytime Emmy Award nominations, as Paul Hennessy on the ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules (2002–2003) and an uncredited role for providing the normal voice as Three in Seven Little Monsters (2000–2003).
Death[]
On September 11, 2003, Ritter fell ill while rehearsing for 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter on the Walt Disney Studio lot in Burbank, California. He was sweating profusely, vomiting and complained of having chest pains. He was taken to the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center across the street (the same hospital in which he was born) at 6 p.m. that evening. Ritter was initially treated by emergency room physicians for a heart attack; however, his condition quickly worsened. Physicians then identified that Ritter had an aortic dissection, and he was pronounced dead at 10:48 pm, six days before his 55th birthday.
A private funeral was held on September 15, 2003, in Los Angeles, after which Ritter was interred at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.
In 2008, Ritter's widow Amy Yasbeck, on behalf of herself and Ritter's children, filed lawsuits against doctors involved in Ritter's treatment and Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. The lawsuits against Providence St. Joseph Medical center were settled out of court for $9.4 million. A $67 million wrongful-death lawsuit against two of the physicians, radiologist Matthew Lotysch and cardiologist Joseph Lee, went to trial. 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 were not responsible for his death.