Joyce DeWitt clearly remembers a “stupendous” evening she spent with John Ritter weeks before his untimely death.
“Not knowing that it would be the last time we would hang out together, it was extraordinarily special,” she told Page Six in a recent exclusive interview.
DeWitt, 77, explained that in August 2003, she happened to be in New York at the same time as Ritter, without knowing it. Paparazzi alerted her that Ritter was in town, so she called to see if he wanted to hang out.
Hours later, as she was seconds away from leaving her hotel room, the late actor called her back and they made plans for that evening.
“If he had called one minute later, I would have been out walking to Lincoln Center on my way to a movie,” DeWitt marveled, noting that this was pre-cellphones. “I mean, it’s like there was divine assistance in allowing us that time together.”
They ended up at an Italian restaurant in the Village with Jim Belushi, and enjoyed an unforgettable night.
“We had such a good time,” DeWitt remembered. “It was dear, and it was precious.”
Ritter died in September 2003 after experiencing chest pains and severe nausea while rehearsing his sitcom “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.”
The actor was rushed to the hospital, where he was initially treated for a heart attack. He died that nightfrom what was later determined to be an aortic dissection. He was 54.
He and DeWitt co-starred, along with Suzanne Somers, in “Three’s Company.”
Somers died in 2023, aged 76, after a lengthy cancer battle.
The sitcom, which ran for eight seasons from 1977 to 1984, revolved around three single roommates. Episodes often featured misheard conversations, romantic escapades and sexual innuendo.
DeWitt sees the show as a “contemporary version of a 16th-century farce, a classic farce.”
The actress praised the sitcom for leaning into sexual innuendo rather than being “explicit” about it, saying, “That would never work for me.”
“When people can laugh about the thing that they are possibly most uncomfortable in public talking about, and they can laugh at it together, it allows them to be just one step closer to being comfortable with one another,” she noted.
On Nov. 2, DeWitt and Ritter’s widow, Amy Yasbeck, will host a “Three’s Company” 50th anniversary celebration at Joe’s Pub in New York City.
The event will feature a celebrity-filled reading with Jason Biggs, Christine Taylor, Richard Kind, Susie Essman and Richard Kline.
Proceeds raised will go to the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health, which raises awareness about aortic dissection.
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