Jason Ritter reflected on working with Beau Bridges, who plays his on-screen father, Howard “Senior” Markston, in Matlock, and how the actor reminded him of his late father, John Ritter. At the Matlock panel at PaleyFest on Sunday, March 23, Jason, 45, opened up about Beau’s addition to the star-studded cast and his connection to the actor.
“Beau is adorable. It’s weird that Beau was cast. My whole childhood, my dad and Beau were always mistaken for each other,” Jason said. “There was a little bit of a physical resemblance. My dad got a fan letter one time from someone who listed all the things he had done, the performances they loved, and said, ‘could you please sign the attached photo,’ which was a photo of Beau Bridges. So I had this weird feeling of connection with him.”
Jason said he met Beau before working together on Matlock with Kathy Bates, Skye P. Marshall and David Del Rio. “Also, oddly enough, I read a script with him where I played a character that he had created when he did the original play in the ’70s,” the Parenthood actor explained. “And so I met him at that time.” He also talked about meeting his John’s Three’s Company co-star Don Knotts when he was a kid.
“I definitely saw him a lot when I was younger, and then I saw him a few times after that,” Jason recalled of his father’s co-star. “But I think most of the times I ran into him were after my dad passed away [in 2003], at different events and things like that, or the TV Land Awards, I think at some point.”
“He made me laugh so much,” Jason said of meeting Don, who died at age 81 in 2006. “And his facial expressions and his whole emotion on that show were so funny to me. And so I was excited to meet him.” John died at age 54 on September 11, 2003, from an aortic aneurysm. In addition to Jason, he had two children, Tyler Ritter and Carly Ritter, with his first wife, Nancy Morgan.
More than a decade after his father’s death, Jason told Closer that he tried to “live as honestly and simply as possible.” “I feel his presence every day,” the Emmy nominee told Closer. “Sometimes I’ll turn on the TV and watch an old episode of Three’s Company. I always watch it. Sometimes there’s even an episode that I’ve never seen before. It’s special to be able to do that.”
“I really wish he could see all the things [I’ve done] since he passed away,” Jason said. “I also think that somewhere he’s probably seeing them and everything in the future.” Jason said that John’s death made him “realize how fragile we all are.” “Of course, I wish things could be different,” he said. “He was a great guy and I miss him.”
