No word from the local media, but a Hollywood soap opera legend who lived on a horse ranch here has died.
Clint Ritchie, who played a small-town newspaper editor on “One Life to Live” for two decades, died at age 70 after a brief illness, The Los Angeles Times reports.
Ritchie’s death is creating some buzz among long-timers around town. There will be a private funeral service for him on Friday afternoon at Chapel of the Angels in Grass Valley.
“Ritchie was a mainstay of the daytime drama until December 1998, when he retired, only to return to the show the next spring for several weeks. He returned for brief stints in 2003 and 2004,” The Times said.
Ritchie grew up on a farm in North Dakoka, and he relocated to California as a teenager and took acting classes.
He also had roles on TV series such as “The Wild, Wild West,” “Batman” and “Thunder.”
Ritchie suffered a serious accident at the horse ranch in 1993 when he fell off a truck, The Times said. “It took forever,” Ritchie told People magazine. “I heard and felt bones breaking like toothpicks.”
He later returned to the show.
Ritchie died at a hospital in Roseville.
(photo courtesy of Associated Press).