Ricky Schroder

Ricky Schroder
Schroder in November 2008
Born	Richard Bartlett Schroder, Jr. (1970-04-13) April 13, 1970 Brooklyn, New York
Other names	Rick Schroder
Occupation	Actor, film director, producer
Years active	1979–present
Spouse(s)	Andrea Bernard (m. 1992)
Children	4
Website	rickyschroderproductions.com

Richard Bartlett "Ricky" Schroder, Jr. (born April 13, 1970) is an American actor and film director. He debuted in the film The Champ (1979), going on to become a child star on the sitcom Silver Spoons. He has continued acting as an adult, notably on the western miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989), and the crime-drama series NYPD Blue.

Early life and career

Schroder was born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York and raised on Staten Island, New York City. He is the son of Diane, an employee at AT&T which is also the same company that employed his father, Richard Bartlett Schroder, Sr. After his older sister, Dawn^[1] and he were born Rick's mother quit her job to raise the children. A good-looking child, Schroder's mother began taking him to photo shoots when he was only three months old. In his own words, he must have been a natural, because he started working right away, never having taken an acting lesson in his life. He appeared in many catalogs, and by the time he was six years old, he had appeared in sixty advertisements.

Leaping from commercials to the silver screen, Schroder made his acting debut as the son of Jon Voight's character in the 1979 remake of the 1931 film The Champ. Schroder performed so well in his first role, that in 1980 he was nominated for and subsequently won a Golden Globe award for Best New Male Star of the Year in a Motion Picture at the age of nine.

After winning the Golden Globe, Schroder embarked on a three-month publicity tour around the world. He toured the locales of Asia and Europe, even meeting the Queen of England and the Pope.

Following his role in The Champ, Schroder was removed from school by his parents in the third grade to focus on his career. He moved to Los Angeles with his mother, but his father remained in New York and kept his job with AT&T. Every weekend, Rick Sr. would fly to Los Angeles to see his wife and son.

In the following year, he made a Walt Disney feature film called The Last Flight of Noah's Ark with Elliott Gould. He also starred as the title character in the film Little Lord Fauntleroy alongside Alec Guinness in 1980.

Schroder became well known as the star of the series Silver Spoons, playing Ricky Stratton. He portrayed the spoiled child of his millionaire father, Edward Stratton, played by Joel Higgins. In a make-believe upbringing that was similar to his own at the time, young Ricky was trying to live as a normal child in spite of his special status. His success on the show earned him two Young Artist awards.

Like many other child stars, Schroder struggled with his identity as an actor when Silver Spoons ended. Prospective roles were few and far between, and mainly he was sought after to play the boyish looking teenager or blond-haired heart throb. Instead of succumbing to the perils that have befallen many other child actors, such as alcohol, drugs and crime, Schroder reinvented himself. He dropped the 'y' from his first name and ensured that his new label as 'Rick Schroder' did not derive itself from his former child persona. His mother enrolled him in Calabasas High School in Calabasas, California, to finish his senior year. Schroder found the environment alien to him, and he had trouble adjusting. He and the other kids didn't necessarily get along right away. Having spent his formative years with a tutor instead of in a classroom, simple things such as sitting in class all day and raising his hand to speak were foreign concepts that he had trouble adjusting to.^[2] In 1988, the year after Silver Spoons ended, he starred in a prime-time CBS-TV feature movie based on a true story, the serious drama Too Young the Hero, playing a 12-year-old who passes for 17 to enlist in World War II.

He made an appearance as the guest timekeeper in Wrestlemania 2 for The Main Event steel cage match between Hulk Hogan and King Kong Bundy. Schroder was ranked #18 in VH1’s list of the 100 Greatest Kid Stars and #33 in VH1’s list of the 100 Greatest Teen Stars.

Adult career

After graduating from high school, Schroder enrolled himself in Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado. Still accepting jobs in various TV movies during this time, Schroder still struggled to establish himself as a serious adult actor.

Schroder's co-starring role in the Western mini-series Lonesome Dove and its sequel, Return to Lonesome Dove, helped in his attempt to be recognized in more mature roles. His roles as Danny Sorenson on three seasons of NYPD Blue, nurse Paul Flowers in Scrubs, Dr. Dylan West on Strong Medicine, and Mike Doyle on the 2007 season of 24 worked to cement that perception with the viewing audience.

In 2004, Schroder wrote and directed the feature film Black Cloud, a drama about a Navajo boxer. The same year he directed and starred in the music video for "Whiskey Lullaby",^[3] a song by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss. Schroder's son Luke and daughter Cambrie also appeared in the video. The same directorial experience garnered Schroder another award for Best Music Video at the 2005 Nashville Film Festival in Nashville, Tennessee. At the 2005 CMT Music Awards, the video won an award for Collaborative Video of the Year, while Schroder won for Director of the Year.

In 2007, Schroder announced that he was changing his credit back to "Ricky" beginning with his role on 24.^[4] In an interview, he admitted that changing his name from "Ricky" to "Rick" at 18, upon prompting by his agent, was a mistake. "'Rick' never really fit,” he said. “I tried for 18 years to make it work, and no one wanted to call me 'Rick'. It should always have been 'Ricky'. That’s what it always should have been, so I’m going back to it.”^[5]

In 2009, he directed the adventure horror film Hellhounds.^[6]

In June 2009, at Andrea's strong urging, Schroder packed up the family and moved to Spain. They rented a home in Barcelona for a year, and celebrated Schroder's 40th birthday in Marrakesh, Morocco. His wife had always wanted to live abroad, and also wanted their children to be able to gain a new perspective on their lives, one that could only be gleaned by immersing themselves in a foreign country. The time spent abroad allowed the family to reconnect with each other and become recommitted to the family as a whole. Since returning in June 2010, Schroder has gone right back to his job in the entertainment industry.

Schroder guest-starred in a January 2011 episode of ABC's No Ordinary Family.^[7]

His production company, Ricky Schroder Productions, has produced Starting Strong, a TV show for the U.S. Army, since 2013, as well as other projects including The Fighting Season. In 2013, the production company produced the movie Our Wild Hearts for the Hallmark Channel, in which Schroder starred with his daughter Cambrie.

Personal life

While filming a television movie in 1991 in Canada titled Blood River, Schroder met a student named Andrea Bernard. Andrea was a fan of Schroder's growing up, Schroder married Andrea Bernard on September 26, 1992. Together, they have four children: Holden (b. January 1992), who was named after Schroder's The Earthling co-star William Holden,^[8] Luke (b. August 1993), Cambrie (b. November 1996), and Faith (b. August 2001). Andrea Bernard Schroder is an interior designer and was a contestant on Season Two of Top Design on Bravo. Andrea is a regular on Hallmark's Home and Family, owns a candle company^[9] with distribution through Hallmark retail and Nordstroms, and is an interior designer and real estate developer, actively engaged in both pursuits. She is a recurring face on the Bravo show Top Design as an interior designer.

Schroder is an active member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and is very active within children's charity circles. He is an auto-racing enthusiast and a past winner of the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race in Long Beach, California. He is also a supporter of Racing For Kids, in which celebrities will race for money to be donated to fund health care for children. Also, Rick and his wife are active celebrity "Advocacy Ambassadors" for the child abuse prevention and treatment non-profit organization Childhelp. He is working with Paul Mitchell Hair Schools to build water wells in Guatemala via Wells of Hope. Schroder is active in support of the Cadet Youth Academy program.

Filmography

Film

Television

Director

• 2004: Black Cloud
• 2009: Locker 13^[10]
• 2009: Hellhounds^[11]
• 2013: Our Wild Hearts^[12]

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ricky Schroder.

• Official website
• Rick Schroder at the Internet Movie Database
• Rick Schroder's Television Schedule