Joyce DeWitt back on the scene....

Was introduced to "Three's Company" star Joyce DeWitt last night after the TV DVD Awards in Century City and, of course, then cornered her for an exclusive interview for Out in Hollyhwood. She could not have been nicer or looked better. Really, it was as if time had stood still since she left the airwaves as perky and loveable Janet Wood who shared her apartment with Jack Tripper (John Ritter) and Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers) and later Terri Alden (Prisilla Barnes).
With the eighth and final season of "Three's Company" just out, DeWitt told me she is ready tio give show business another try after many, many years away from the spotlight during which she traveled the world and studied different religions.
"I left and have been meditating nine hours a day for a decade," she says. "I'm in the process of going back to work.I sense it's time to participate in a larger way again. I'm not allowed to hide anymore!"
She jokes that she has a form of "organized schizophrenia" with an astrological chart that is "classical hermit" combined with showbiz leanings

The last season of "Three's Company" has DeWitt's character getting married which was how the producers worte her and Barnes out of the show which would continue on for one more season as the retitled "Three's A Crowd" with Ritter as Tripper in a new live-in relationship. "I would have had her go to law school!" DeWitt says of her character. The poor handling by producers of the transition (DeWitt and Barnes were not told they were being written off until after an episode with the new cast was already shot and it was all in motion). DeWitt was turned off acting for a long time. but whatever she was doing instead certainly has left her looking relaxed and youthful. While famously estranged from Somers ("I don't talk about that") who was fired after season five in a contract dispute, DeWitt did remain friends with Ritter who died in 2003. I told Joyce about an interview I did with Ritter about three weeks before his death for a magazine profile and he had happily told me of a dinner he had with DeWitt in New York earlier that summer. "John used to say we weren't just there to make people laugh. We were there to make them laugh so hard that they fall off their couch. We were willing to do anything to tickle your funny bone and have joy in the moment."

She is thrilled to see the success of Jason Ritter who is starring in the new CBS sitcom "The Class" and whose other roles include a role as a musician who comes out in the indie film "Happy Endings."
"Jason looks like his dad!" Dewitt says. "Then he also looks like his mom! He comes from an amazing and beautiful lineage but Jason is his own person with his own distinct talent. He marches to his own drummer. Part of what he and John enjoyed most was their adult relationship."