DustBunny
09-18-2003, 03:37 PM
This excerpt is available at People Magazine's site for subscribers or AOL members. (AOL Keyword: People)
"Wonderful Company"
Shocked by his sudden death, friends recall a gifted performer who glowed with charm.
Reporting to the Burbank set of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter Sept. 11, John Ritter was bouncing with puppyish energy, PEOPLE reports in its latest cover story.
After working out with a trainer at the gym, the man still best known as Three's Company's Jack Tripper arrived on the Disney lot at 11:30 a.m.
Bumping into Howard Alonzo, an actor appearing on the show, Ritter impulsively gave him a bear hug and told him it was his daughter Stella's 5th birthday. (It was also her first week at preschool, and the actor was getting a kick out of being her personal chauffeur.)
"He was in a great mood," says Alonzo. No one would have dreamed that the 54-year-old star's heart would cease beating by the end of the day.
That afternoon, waking from his customary nap, Ritter spent time refining some comedy bits with one of the episode's guest stars, longtime friend Henry Winkler, 57. "I took a long nap and I'm still tired," Winkler recalls him saying. "I joked, 'Yeah, you're always tired.'"
Then at about 4:15 the star's tiredness turned to something worse. "I feel a little sick to my stomach," Ritter told director James Widdoes.
"He was sweating and didn't look right," says costar Katey Sagal. He left for his dressing room. "We thought it was the stomach flu," Widdoes says. "I told him to go lie down." Still worried, Sagal told the assistant director, "Go check on him."
Ritter, stripped down to his underwear and T-shirt, was only growing sicker. He was perspiring heavily, vomiting and suffering chest pains.
A studio doctor was summoned and urged him to go straight to the hospital, which happened to be across the street: Providence St. Joseph Medical Center (where Ritter had been born on Sept. 17, 1948).
Shortly after 5, Ritter changed back into his clothes, got his wallet out of his black Cadillac sedan in the parking lot and was driven to the emergency room by an assistant director. As he was leaving, he cracked open the car door and told a crewmember, "Don't worry, it's going to be fine." He smiled and was driven off.
Only the situation steadily, swiftly worsened.
At 8:15 executive producer Flody Suarez called Widdoes and told him that the upset stomach was actually the tip-off to a heart problem. Doctors would detect a tear in Ritter's heart's main artery -- a rare, often fatal, always tough-to-diagnose condition called aortic dissection.
Surgeons operated on the star -- even being wheeled into surgery, he cracked jokes -- but to no avail. He died in the OR shortly after 10 p.m.
"He went very quickly," says 8 Simple Rules executive producer Tom Shadyac.
"Wonderful Company"
Shocked by his sudden death, friends recall a gifted performer who glowed with charm.
Reporting to the Burbank set of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter Sept. 11, John Ritter was bouncing with puppyish energy, PEOPLE reports in its latest cover story.
After working out with a trainer at the gym, the man still best known as Three's Company's Jack Tripper arrived on the Disney lot at 11:30 a.m.
Bumping into Howard Alonzo, an actor appearing on the show, Ritter impulsively gave him a bear hug and told him it was his daughter Stella's 5th birthday. (It was also her first week at preschool, and the actor was getting a kick out of being her personal chauffeur.)
"He was in a great mood," says Alonzo. No one would have dreamed that the 54-year-old star's heart would cease beating by the end of the day.
That afternoon, waking from his customary nap, Ritter spent time refining some comedy bits with one of the episode's guest stars, longtime friend Henry Winkler, 57. "I took a long nap and I'm still tired," Winkler recalls him saying. "I joked, 'Yeah, you're always tired.'"
Then at about 4:15 the star's tiredness turned to something worse. "I feel a little sick to my stomach," Ritter told director James Widdoes.
"He was sweating and didn't look right," says costar Katey Sagal. He left for his dressing room. "We thought it was the stomach flu," Widdoes says. "I told him to go lie down." Still worried, Sagal told the assistant director, "Go check on him."
Ritter, stripped down to his underwear and T-shirt, was only growing sicker. He was perspiring heavily, vomiting and suffering chest pains.
A studio doctor was summoned and urged him to go straight to the hospital, which happened to be across the street: Providence St. Joseph Medical Center (where Ritter had been born on Sept. 17, 1948).
Shortly after 5, Ritter changed back into his clothes, got his wallet out of his black Cadillac sedan in the parking lot and was driven to the emergency room by an assistant director. As he was leaving, he cracked open the car door and told a crewmember, "Don't worry, it's going to be fine." He smiled and was driven off.
Only the situation steadily, swiftly worsened.
At 8:15 executive producer Flody Suarez called Widdoes and told him that the upset stomach was actually the tip-off to a heart problem. Doctors would detect a tear in Ritter's heart's main artery -- a rare, often fatal, always tough-to-diagnose condition called aortic dissection.
Surgeons operated on the star -- even being wheeled into surgery, he cracked jokes -- but to no avail. He died in the OR shortly after 10 p.m.
"He went very quickly," says 8 Simple Rules executive producer Tom Shadyac.