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Harry Potter Star Paul Ritter Leaves £80,000 Estate To His Wife

By Modupeoluwa Adekanye

05 October 2021   |   12:36 pm

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Friday Night Dinner, Harry Potter and Chernobyl star Paul Ritter has left his entire £80,000 estate to his wife after dying from a brain tumour aged 54. The actor, whose real name was Simon Paul Adams, died at home from Faversham, Kent, on April 5 surrounded by his wife Polly Radcliffe and sons Frank and…

Harry Potter Star Paul Ritter Leaves £80,000 Estate To His Wife

Friday Night Dinner, Harry Potter and Chernobyl star Paul Ritter has left his entire £80,000 estate to his wife after dying from a brain tumour aged 54.

The actor, whose real name was Simon Paul Adams, died at home from Faversham, Kent, on April 5 surrounded by his wife Polly Radcliffe and sons Frank and Noah.

Documents show Ritter left his 55-year-old wife his entire estate, which had a gross value of £81,478 and a net value of £69,478.

The family home is a mid-terrace house worth £562,000, which was bought nearly 20 years ago in April 2002 for £181,500.

Probate was granted to Radcliffe, a research fellow at King’s College in London, as the sole administrator and executor of his estate, and its full value was left to her.

Ritter had a long and successful acting career over nearly 30 years that included playing family patriarch Martin Goodman in Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner.

The comedy in which he starred with Tamsin Greig and Simon Bird focuses on the middle-class Jewish family’s weekly evening meal.

He also portrayed engineer Anatoly Dyatlov in the acclaimed HBO drama Chernobyl and wizard Eldred Worple in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Ritter also played special adviser Guy Haines in the James Bond film ‘Quantum of Solace.’ His other TV credits included Vera, Belgravia, Cold Feet, and No Offence.

After his death, Tom Rosenthal, who played his son in Friday Night Dinner, wrote on Twitter: ‘I’ll be forever thankful for working with someone who was so supportive and who taught me so much about professionalism and humility in acting.’

The show’s writer Robert Popper said: ‘Paul was a lovely, wonderful human being. Kind, funny, super caring, and the greatest actor I ever worked with.’

Ritter was born in Kent and made his TV debut in The Bill in 1992.

He later became an acclaimed stage actor, working with the National Theatre on plays including Coram Boy and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.