CONFESSIONS OF A VINYL JUNKIE
By James Ritz
From appearing in movies such as APOLLO 13, HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS, COCOON, SPLASH and CINDERELLA MAN where he shared the screen with the likes of Oscar winners Tom Hanks, Rene Zellweger, Russell Crowe, Matthew Mc Conaughey and Ron Howard to hanging in the dugout with baseball greats like Pete Rose, Tug Mc Graw and Hall of Famers Joe Torre, Steve Carlton, Tony La Russa and Mike Schmidt to splitting a bottle of Jack Daniels with Frank Sinatra at the Sinatra compound in Palm Springs and his close friendship with boxing legend, Angelo Dundee, JAMES RITZ has lived an almost Zelig-like existence. Add to that, the encyclopedic knowledge of music he applied to annotate and/or produce over 200 vinyl/CD releases and his meeting up with screen and music legends John Wayne, Orson Welles, Rob Reiner, Sammy Davis, Jr., Johnny Mathis and Elvis Presley’s original band members Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Famers, Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana and you have the makings of one hell of a read in Ritz’s recounting of a life well-led and documented in fascinating detail in his memoir, CONFESSIONS OF A VINYL JUNKIE. It’s irresistible and hard to put down.
IntroductIon
By Steve Carlton
Contrary to popular belief, baseball is not only about accumulating balls, strikes, hits and runs. It’s also about accumulating fun. I’ve known my friend Yimmy now for about five decades and beyond his inherent love of baseball, our friendship has been all about fun.
First of all, let me explain about the ‘Yimmy’ designation. One of our favorite movies is called The Whole Nine Yards, a Bruce Willis comedic gangster film where one of the main characters has a speech impediment and ‘Jimmy’ comes out ‘Yimmy.’ Ever since then, Ritz has been Yimmy. I’m still Lefty and when people refer to us as ‘Lefty & Yimmy’ it sounds like a deranged male sequel to Thelma & Louise......
To be continued
Foreword
By Ron Howard
This is going to be fun for both of us. I can say that because this brief foreword I’ve volunteered to write is already making me smile. And, I’d confidently wager this memoir you’ve chosen to read will do the same for you.
Simply recalling both the professional and personal friendship I’ve enjoyed with Jim Ritz brings me a lot of joy. We met on Happy Days and though I was vaguely aware of Jim’s presence on the lowest rung of our writing staff, what really impressed me was the day he appeared in costume to play a very funny secondary character. Garry Marshall, one of the creators and the boss of our show had cast Jim because when they were rewriting this particular scene, Jim had read this character’s lines and Garry correctly recognized that Jim could nail the role. No reason to look further! And Jim did a flawless job so earning his Screen Actors Guild card that day. I, as a wannabe filmmaker on the hunt for talented collaborators, took note............To be continued