Joyce DeWitt has opened up about a final, chance reunion with John Ritter weeks before his sudden death.
The “Three’s Company” star, 77, said in a recent exclusive interview that she and Ritter spent what she called an “extraordinarily special” evening together in August 2003, neither realizing it would be their last. DeWitt happened to be in New York at the same time as her former co-star, only learning of his presence when paparazzi tipped her off.
She called Ritter to see if he wanted to get together. Hours later, with seconds to spare before she left her hotel room for a movie at Lincoln Center, the phone rang. “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 the era before cellphones dominated daily life. “I mean, it’s like there was divine assistance in allowing us that time together.”
The pair met up with Jim Belushi at an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. DeWitt remembered the night warmly: “We had such a good time,” She added, “It was dear, and it was precious.” The gathering capped a decades-long friendship forged during eight seasons of one of television’s most popular sitcoms.
DeWitt and Ritter starred together in “Three’s Company” from 1977 to 1984 alongside Suzanne Somers, who died in 2023 at 76 after a lengthy cancer battle. The show followed three single roommates navigating romantic escapades and misheard conversations built on sexual innuendo. DeWitt characterized the series as a “contemporary version of a 16th-century farce, a classic farce.”
The actress praised the sitcom’s approach to its risqué material, explaining that leaning into suggestion rather than explicit content made it work. “That would never work for me,” she said of a more graphic alternative. “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.
Ritter died in September 2003 at 54 after experiencing chest pains and severe nausea while rehearsing “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.” Hospital staff initially treated him for a heart attack, but he passed away that night from an aortic dissection, a tear in the body’s main artery that often mimics other cardiac events.
DeWitt’s recollections arrive as planning continues for a major milestone honoring the show that defined both careers. She 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 from the anniversary event will benefit the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health, which raises awareness about the condition that killed the actor. Yasbeck has become a vocal advocate for aortic dissection education since her husband’s death, working to prevent similar misdiagnoses.
DeWitt and Ritter had not planned their August 2003 meeting in advance, making the coincidence of their overlapping New York trips all the more striking to her in retrospect. “Not knowing that it would be the last time we would hang out together, it was extraordinarily special,” she said.
The Nov. 2 event at Joe’s Pub will mark half a century since the sitcom first brought DeWitt, Ritter and Somers into millions of American living rooms.