The son of a legendary country singing musician/actor (Tex) and his wife (Dorothy), Jonathan Southworth Ritter was born in Burbank, CA, on September 17, 1948. His older brother, Tom, became a lawyer, but John was destined to follow in his father's footsteps. In 1977, he and his brother emceed the Annual United Cerebral Palsy Telethon (a neurological condition particularly close to their hearts because of Tom's triumph over it) and racked up millions of dollars for the cause. John was enrolled at Hollywood High School, where he was a student body president, and later attended the University of Southern California, where he majored in Psychology and minored in Architecture. After a couple of years, he was induced to join an acting class taught by Nina Foch. He changed his major to Theater Arts, graduating in 1971 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama. In addition to Nina Foch, he also studied acting with Stella Adler at the Harvey Lembeck Comedy Workshop. Between 1968 and 1969, he appeared in a series of stage plays in England, Scotland, Holland and in Germany. His father was entertaining troops in Germany at the same time that his son was performing at an air base there. Unfortunately, John's father passed away in 1973, before his son achieved the celebrity status that arrived with his second series, Three's Company (1977).