Warren Zevon. Johnny Cash. John Ritter.

That's three. That's enough. Let's take a break for a while.

	Fully aware of his impending death, Zevon worked until the end.

Celebrity deaths come in threes. That's a truism I remember from back in the day, and it seems to hold true still. It's probably a trick of the mind, of course -- life (and our definition of celebrities) is not so neat. But that doesn't matter, because the main point is:

Let's take a break for a while.

For many of our readers, Zevon and Cash, especially, probably rank right where Frank Sinatra and the Ink Spots did for me back in the 1970s -- the hot stars when my parents were young, hanging on for the nostalgia market, occasionally cranking out a good new tune or album. The hits would be so rare as to qualify, almost, as novelty songs, like Sammy Davis Jr.'s "Candy Man" or Chuck Berry's "My Ding-A-Ling" (in fact, a novelty song, and a darned good one).

Warren Zevon, like George Harrison, went about living as fully as he possibly could, even as he knew the end was near. He went working -- finishing, as best he could, a final album, a last set of songs that he knew would be the last. Zevon and Harrison knew they were sick, knew they would die, and they acknowledged and embraced their fates (as best as anyone could) as opportunities -- final, and singular, chapters that they would share with their publics.

I hope I can do so well when my time is up.

Johnny Cash was hitting it big for the second time when I was eight, nine, 10 years old. He was my favorite singer when I was that age, when "A Boy Named Sue" and "Folsom Prison Blues" were hits, when he had his own TV show.

I'm not a country music fan; but at that age, you don't know genres, you know what you like. In fact, Cash was crossing over from country into the pop charts at that time, around 1970, which meant nothing to an eight-year-old. I was exploring some of the last remaining "wild" woods of suburban New Jersey and playing one-on-one football (yep, we even passed to ourselves) with my best friend, David, and we both loved Johnny Cash, and it was our own little world. It was great.

But Cash has gotten his due since then, too -- rightly honored by younger generations of musicians who knew his greatness. Cash caught a third wave of popularity with his 1994 acoustic masterpiece, "American Recordings," and we knew, as he suffered a variety of ailments in his sixties, that he couldn't go on much longer.

	In a town of egos and glitz, Ritter was just a regular guy.

John Ritter -- I can't tell you how blown away I am to read of his death this morning. I loved John Ritter, everything about him. I loved the way he grew older with us. There was something healthy about the way he did it -- not in the suspect manner of so many Hollywood stars, with their personal trainers and nutritionists and plastic surgeons. He got older the way most of us will -- slowly, sometimes almost imperceptibly, often emanating some spark of our younger versions.

In the 1970s, John Ritter was young and a huge star, playing Jack Tripper in "Three's Company." If you don't remember the program's first run, you've probably caught it on Nick at Night. We like to think of it now as the worst kind of kitsch from the past -- did we really think it was good, or funny, way back then? Did we not realize how dumb the show was?

Here's the thing: We did. I watched "Three's Company" religiously when I was a teen, and of course I knew how stupid it was. The situation was absurd to begin with -- Ritter playing a very hot-blooded heterosexual who had to pretend he was gay in order to live with his two beautiful female roommates, Janet (Joyce DeWitt) and Chrissy (Suzanne Somers).

This was risqué fare for prime-time network TV at the time. But even as a horny 15-year-old, I didn't imagine there was anything particularly sexy about sharing an apartment with a couple of girls, especially considering that the ground rules had been set -- Jack and Janet and Chrissy were friends and roommates, and would not, under any circumstances, be more than that.

(In fact, within a few years I'd go on to live in a "Three's Company" situation, sharing a small apartment with two beautiful females. I liked my roommates; but in my situation, the only sexual advantage to a guy living with two girls was that other females found it interesting, or perhaps comforting. I imagine they thought, "He lives with two pretty girls. They like him. They trust him. He must not be a total jerk." That first impression -- he's not a total jerk -- was usually enough to get a first date. A low standard, for sure, but a standard nonetheless. Usually (but not always), I was enough of a not-jerk to get a second or third date and even a few real girlfriends.)

Back to John Ritter. He played slapstick Jack like a pro, then left the celeb radar screen after the demise of "Three's Company." In the 1990s, he made a lot of guest appearances -- on "The Larry Sanders Show," on "Ally McBeal," on "Wings." He usually played himself, more or less -- amiable, pleasant, funny, fun-to-be-around -- Jack Tripper without the slapstick.

	There will never be another performer like the Man In Black.

Then came his comeback, when I figured out that John Ritter was a good actor and a great celebrity -- a celeb I could imagine hanging out with and being friends with. He is immediately recognizable as the voice of Clifford, in "Clifford the Big Red Dog," which I watch with my daughter. And I love him for doing that -- surely, he wasn't paid big bucks by PBS for the role, but it's a great kids show, and Clifford is a great dog, and John Ritter has the perfect voice for the role. It will be jarring to hear someone else's voice coming out of Clifford's mouth when new episodes come out.

Then there was "Tadpole," a good, funny and disturbing little indie film in which Ritter shined opposite Sigourney Weaver and Bebe Neuwirth -- not an easy thing to do. And, finally, the surprise hit sitcom, "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter," in which he played a sportswriter, but in which, in the few episodes I watched, he really was just himself.

Johnny Cash, Warren Zevon, John Ritter. Thanks for the memories. You didn't know me, but I mourn, and will miss you.

R.I.P.