Lucille Ball greatly admired John Ritter.
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As reported by PEOPLE, Ritter's Three's Company co-star Joyce DeWitt revealed the news on the red carpet at the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health's Evening From the Heart LA Gala at the Sunset Room in Hollywood on Saturday, Sept. 12.
Ritter died from an aortic dissection on Sep. 11, 2003. He was 54.
Lucille Ball Loved "Three's Company," and Its Star, John Ritter
Ball appeared in a 1982 TV special featuring clips from the first six seasons of Three's Company. DeWitt, now 77, was asked what it meant to her that the I Love Lucy star greatly admired the show.
She replied, "Well, I think it's only fair to say her primary love was Jonathan."
She added that Ball "did appreciate the show very much and was kind to all of us." However, it was Ritter's "brilliant physical comedy" that made Ball "a devotee" of Three's Company.
DeWitt Said She Found Ball's Admiration "Flattering"
DeWitt went on to say that to call Ball's love of the sitcom "flattering" would "be an understatement of the century."
"The sweetness that she saw in what we were doing, the stupidness of all the physicality, just to make people laugh, was just so much that she had done with her TV show," DeWitt said.
DeWitt believed that Ball could "see clearly" the effort the stars of Three's Company made to emulate what she did on I Love Lucy.
"I love physical comedy, especially when John Ritter does it," Ball said on the special. "Looks easy, doesn't it? But believe me, it's not. Takes a lot of talent, a lot of agility, and a lot of band-aids."
Ball died in 1989 at the age of 77.
DeWitt shared that doing physical comedy with Ritter was "wonderfully joyous."
"For John and I, the day that we met, our bodies were talking to each other," DeWitt said. "It's like we knew instantly, like if he swung high, I ducked low. If I ran low, he would swing high."
She added, "We didn't even have to talk. My body knew what his body was going to do and his knew what mine was going to do. And that was just there from the moment that we met."
Ritter was nominated twice and won an Emmy for his work on Three's Company.
