(1905–74). Born Maurice Woodward Ritter near Murvaul, Tex., country-music singer and actor Tex Ritter first developed an interest in Western folklore and music while attending the University of Texas in Austin. In Houston he hosted the first cowboy music radio program, and later he made appearances on a similar radio show in New York City. Ritter began a recording career in 1932 and appeared in a number of Broadway musicals, including The New Moon and Green Grow the Lilacs, which provided the basis for the hit Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! (1943). He appeared in more than 70 motion pictures, beginning with Song of the Gringo (1936), and in the 1950s moved into television with a country-music program, Town Hall Party. Ritter was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1964 and joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1965. His best-known songs include “Jealous Heart,” “The Wayward Wind,” and “I Dreamed of a Hill-Billy Heaven”; in 1953 he earned an Academy award for the theme song of the film High Noon. His son, John Ritter, is a successful television actor.