Jimmy Ritz of Zany Brothers Comedy Team Dies at Age 81

Jimmy Ritz, second eldest and most volatile member of the zany Ritz Brothers trio whose knockabout comedy routines made them favorites of vaudeville, nightclub and film audiences for more than half a century, died Sunday at UCLA Medical Center.

He was 81 and had been in ill health for some time.

Though never as successful as their rivals, the Marx Brothers, the Ritzes’ mile-a-minute insanity, coupled with complicated dance routines and sound-alike singing voices, kept them at the top of the entertainment heap throughout their careers.

Born Oct. 22, 1904, in Newark, N.J., Jimmy Ritz (original name: Samuel Joachim) said his career in show business began the day his elder brother, Al, won a ballroom dancing prize in a contest held near their home in Brooklyn.

“My dad was a saloon-keeper from Austria-Hungary and he hoped we would all go into the haberdashery business, like he wanted to do himself,” Ritz said. “But when Al got that prize--and a lot of others after it--nothing would do for Harry and me but we had to be on stage, see?

“Don’t know why, exactly. We had two other brothers and a sister who didn’t catch the showbiz bug. But that’s how it was for the three of us. . . .”

Al, Jimmy and Harry Ritz (an agent had told them the family name of Joachim was no good for billboards and they appropriated the new name from either a laundry truck or a cracker truck, depending on who was telling the story) first appeared on stage together as a precision dancing act in 1925, and by 1929 they had arrived in big-time vaudeville with the song “Collegiate” as their theme (it continued for years), and a year later were playing the Palace in New York--the absolute top of the vaudeville tree.

For the next two years, the Ritzes were on the Schubert circuit. They were in the Earl Carroll “Vanities” of 1932, and were appearing at the old Clover Club on the Sunset Strip when Darryl F. Zanuck saw them and signed them to their first movie contract (Al had been before the cameras before, playing a bit part in “The Avenging Trail” in 1918, but nothing seemed to come of it.)

Their first film, in 1936, was “Sing Baby Sing,” a routine programmer that was saved from oblivion by the Ritz slapstick, and the next three years were so filled with film work that the brothers found themselves unable to schedule club or stage dates.

In rapid succession, they appeared (first in featured position, then as stars) in pictures such as “On The Avenue,” “You Can’t Have Everything,” “Life Begins in College,” “One In A Million,” “The Goldwyn Follies,” “Kentucky Moonshine,” “Straight, Place and Show,” “The Three Musketeers,” “The Gorilla,” and “Pack Up Your Troubles.”

Their association with 20th Century-Fox ended, however, in a dispute over money and material, and the Ritzes moved to Universal, where they made four pictures, “Argentine Nights,” “Behind The Eight Ball,” “Hi, Ya Chum,” and “Never A Dull Moment” in three years. These films, however, were less successful than their earlier efforts, and the Ritzes left the screen in 1943 to resume their nightclub careers.

The Ritzes remained a big-time act, appearing regularly in Las Vegas and making a few television specials in the early 1950s. Al died in 1965, and while Harry and Jimmy continued to perform, Jimmy said much of the fun had gone out of it for them.

They appeared together in two pictures--”Blazing Stewardesses,” and “Won Ton Ton--The Dog Who Saved Hollywood”--in the mid-1970s (Harry appeared alone in still another) and then they retired for good.

In addition to his brother, Harry, who lives in San Diego, Jimmy Ritz is survived by his daughter, Alison Ritz Wolff of Studio City, and a sister, Gertrude Soll of Los Angeles.

Funeral services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday at Hollywood Cemetery Chapel, 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, with interment at Beth Olam Mausoleum.