Early Life and Career
Schroder was born in Brooklyn, New York, raised in Staten Island, the son of Diane, a telephone company employee, and Richard Bartlett Schroder, Sr., a telephone company district manager. He has a sister, Dawn. His maternal great-great-grandmother was from Oslo, Norway, while and his paternal grandparents came from Hamburg, Germany. Schroder debuted in the 1979 remake of the movie The Champ, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best New Male Star of the Year in a Motion Picture at the age of nine for his role as T.J. Flynn in the movie.
In the following year, he made a Walt Disney feature film called The Last Flight of Noah's Ark with Elliott Gould. The film bombed at the box office. He also starred as the title character in the film Little Lord Fauntleroy alongside Alec Guinness in 1980.
He became well known as the star of the television series Silver Spoons, when he played the lead character Ricky Stratton. After Silver Spoons ended, he attended Calabasas High School for his senior year. As he grew older, he struggled to become known as a serious actor. He changed his name credit from Ricky to Rick and preferred to take roles which helped him to stretch as an actor. 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.
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