Mark Ritts
historyMark Ritts is an American actor best known for starring as "Lester the Rat" in the long-running children's television series, Beakman's World. He has had a long and varied career in the United States as a television and video writer, producer, and director. He is also a puppeteer and published author. In the early 1990s, he was Creative Director of New York City's Aniforms, Inc., a large business communications firm. There, he conceived, wrote, and directed videos, theatrical events, and multimedia presentations for a wide variety of media, industrial and institutional clients.
From 1992 to 1998, he played the man in the rat suit on CBS's celebrated science series for kids, Beakman's World. Ritts stars as Lester, a disgruntled actor in a rat suit who reluctantly helps Beakman with his experiments and trades barbs with Josie, Liza and Phoebe. The program has been televised in nearly 90 countries around the world, and a Best Of Beakman DVD was released by Sony Corporation in September 2004. The series is now seen in syndication throughout the United States. Also throughout the 1990s, Ritts was the voice and manipulator of "Kino," the Emmy Award-winning puppet co-host of PBS's Storytime, as well as one of the show's writers. His one-hour documentary on microbiology, Creators of the Future, debuted in prime time on PBS in 1999. Ritts is the co-author (with Don Fleming, Ph.D.) of a parenting book entitled Mom, I Hate You, released by Three Rivers/Random House in April, 2003. In July, 2005, he and co-producer/writer/director Ted Field released Cast Off for Catalina, a DVD about visiting and enjoying southern California's Catalina Island aboard your own boat. A second DVD, Cast Off for Mexico, was released in 2007. Ritts provided the voice for the character Gianciotto in the 2007 film Dante's Inferno alongside former Beakman's World co-star Paul Zaloom.
For many years, Mark has been a successful writer-producer-director of the big events major corporations stage to motivate and inform employees and to launch new products. He has also produced and directed many independent videos and television spots as President of Mark Ritts Productions, Inc., now in its 21st year of service to clients around the world. Since moving to California from the New York area in 1994, Mark has written and produced a Barney the Dinosaur special for Fox, as well as a one-hour prime-time documentary for PBS on microbiology. More recently, he made a major high-definition documentary for Merck & Co and creative directed an elaborate conference for Carlson Hotels at Las Vegas's Bellagio Resort and Casino. He was also a director of the Court TV series, North Mission Road.
The son of noted puppeteers Paul and Mary Ritts, Mark has always pursued a sideline in puppetry, starring in PBS’s The Real Adventures of Sherlock Jones and Proctor Watson and NBC’s Pink Panther Show, among many others. In fact, Beakman's World's “Lester” was originally conceived as a puppet character, but at the last minute, the show's producers decided he should be a disgruntled actor in a rat suit.
Mark is also a surprisingly accomplished guitarist, a licensed private pilot, and a semi-retired magician. The husband of American actress and singer Teresa Parente, he has a daughter and two sons ranging in age from 12 to 33. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in English literature.