I MET JOHN RITTER for the first time two-and-a-half years ago when he and Henry Winkler were ending their hit run on Broadway in “The Dinner Party.” The rest of the cast, the great Len Cariou, Penny Fuller, Jan Maxwell, and Veanne Cox were staying with it, and Neil Simon offered Jon Lovitz and me the chance to step in for Henry and John, which, as you may imagine, took almost three tenths of a second to accept. Lovitz and I went to see it as soon as we got to New York and went up to the dressing rooms afterwards to introduce ourselves. I was taking over John’s part, so I went to his room first. The door was open, and I stuck my head in. He was unlacing his shoes, and when he looked up his face shined like the sun, and he shouted, “Hey, Larry, come on in! Great to meet you!” Before I could move, he stood up and came over and pumped my hand with a big smile. Then, suddenly, his face dropped, his eyes grew wide, and he whispered with fear, “You . . . You want me out of the room?” And I laughed, and he laughed, and we were off to the races, and I remember thinking, “I really, really like this guy.”

And I really did, I liked him an awful lot, but I wasn’t alone. Everyone liked John Ritter, everyone who ever met him, from toll collectors to studio heads. Everyone. I know it’s a cliché, when someone passes away, to insist that everybody liked the guy. I mean, even when Idi Amin was buried somebody probably got up and said, “There’s a lot of love in this room tonight.”