American film director
In 1994, Ritchie purchased for $995,000, the modest hacienda-style house at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in the Brentwood section of LA where Marilyn Monroe died in 1962.
Graduated from Harvard University.
Attended Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California.
Brother of Elsie Ritchie and Jack Ritchie.
Father of Steven Ritchie , Lillian Ritchie , and Miriam Ritchie.
Two stepchildren, Nelly and Billy Bly.
Started his career as an assistant producer in television in the early 1960s. He made his feature film debut as a director with Downhill Racer , for which he was hired by Robert Redford. Sports continued to be his forte, his greatest box-office successes being about baseball ( The Bad News Bears ) and football ( Semi-Tough ). He took a humorous swipe, with far less commercial success, at beauty pageants with the underrated Smile , for which he adopted an effective semi-documentary approach. While his work became more mainstream during the 1980s, it does include a few memorable comedies, notably Fletch (and its sequel) and The Couch Trip .
His father was Benbow Ritchie , a professor of experimental psychology at the University of California.
Director of Massachusetts Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Son, Morgan Ritchie , and daughter, Charlotte Ritchie , with wife Kate Burton.
Son-in-law of actor Richard Burton and Sybil Williams.
Started out in theatre in 1980 as a stage manager in New York, handling more than 50 shows in 15 years on and Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater, Circle in the Square, Circle Rep, the New York Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights Horizons, City Center and the National Actors Theatre.
Ritchie became the new artistic director of Los Angeles Center Theatre Group, overseeing the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and the new Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City in 2005, replacing Gordon Davidson.
I had no training in the theater. I did not study it but just did it.
Los Angeles has always been on the table with us.
The audience includes subscribers, so you have to be careful.
The trick is to have my own particular taste and feel for the theater to,audiences who have been used to one particular style and taste for,nearly 40 years.
In next five to 10 years I probably would have done my best work, but I,was afraid of having another 10 or 15 years ahead of me and feeling,stale, so this was an opportunity to reinvigorate myself.
