Woodward Maurice "Tex" Ritter (12 January 1905-2 January 1974) was an American country musician, actor, and Republican political candidate. He was born in Murvaul, Texas in 1905, and he was raised in Carthage and Beaumont. He became a musician in the 1920s, and he also became an actor in the 1930s. Ritter was popular into the 1960s, and he became the patriarch of an acting family. In 1970, he ran for US Senate in Tennessee as a Republican, but he lost overwhelmingly to Bill Brock in the GOP primary, despite high name recognition. He died of a heart attack in Nashville in 1974 at the age of 68.