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British actor, Paul Ritter, died from a brain tumor at the age of 54. His representative, Isabella Riggs, confirmed the actor died on April 5, 2021, surrounded by his sons and wife. His cause of death was a brain tumor.
The Tony-nominated actor worked in film, TV, and theater. He is most known for his appearances in the miniseries “Chernobyl,” and the movies “The Norman Conquests,” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”
Riggs further stated that Ritter “was an exceptionally talented actor playing an enormous variety of roles on stage and screen with extraordinary skill.” Her statement added that the British actor “was fiercely intelligent, kind and very funny.” Riggs said that Ritter will greatly be missed.
Ritter was born on March 5, 1966, in Kent, England, United Kingdom. Show business did not run in the family. However, Ritter’s mother was a classmate of comic actor Bernard Cribbins. His father attended the same school as writer and comedian Eric Sykes.
The British actor portrayed Sykes in the 2014 TV movie “Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This.” During his career, he worked with the National Theatre in “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” and the “Audience.” He also performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company in “Troilus and Cressida” and “The White Devil.”
He was in the 2008 James Bond film “Quantum of Solace.” Ritter played a political operative in this film.
More recently he starred in the British TV series “Friday Night Dinner.” In this show, he played a patriarch named Martian Goodman. The show was first aired on Feb. 25, 2011, until 2020.
Since news of his death broke many people took to social media to pay tribute to the actor and his family. One person tweeted “Nobody did loveable idiocy quite like Paul Ritter in Friday Night Dinner, May he rest in peace.” Another person said that he “was honestly one of the most underrated comedic people on tv and was the heart of Friday night dinner, so heartbreaking.”
Written by Sheena Robertson
Sources:
IMDb: Paul Ritter
USA Today: Paul Ritter, actor in ‘Chernobyl,’ ‘Harry Potter,’ ‘Friday Night Dinner,’ dies at 54; by Hannah Yasharoff
Featured Image Courtesy of cattan2011’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License