Appearances

Title	Role	Year	Approx. Age
A Son's Promise	Terry O'Kelly	1990	20
Lonesome Dove	Newt Dobbs	1989	19
Reason to Live	Alex Stewart	1985	15
Two Kinds of Love	Susan Farley	1983	13
Lost TV Shorts - Volume 1 and Volume 2	Ricky	1983	13
Silver Spoons TV - Disc One	Ricky Stratton	1982	12
Hansel and Gretel 1982	Hansel	1982	12
Something So Right	Joey Bosnick	1982	12
The Earthling	Shawn Daley	1980	10
The Last Flight of Noah's Ark	Bobby	1980	10
Little Lord Fauntleroy - 1980	Lord Fauntleroy	1980	10
The Champ 1979	T.J.	1979	9

Ricky Schroder was born on Staten Island, New York in 1970. His working class parents knew little Ricky had a golden gift and promptly began seeking commercial work for their adorable blond baby. And the jobs came almost from the start.

At the age of nine, young Ricky got his biggest break when 20th Century Fox casting guru Sam Christiansen recommended Ricky for The Champ (1979), a boy and his racehorse tear-jerker where he would be playing opposite Jon Voight. Logic would say that the perfect next step for Ricky would be a Disney movie, but that film venture, The Last Flight of Noah's Ark (1980), turned out to be a classic sophomore slump for little Mr. Schroder. So did his next two films: Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980) and The Earthling (1980).

Thankfully, television soon came calling, in the form of Silver Spoons (1982-1986) - and his real fan base was established. In fact, Ricky was on the cover of almost every teenybopper magazine in the world before he was an actual teenager. But some fairly lame writing and a big growth spurt put the brakes on young Ricky?s "Spoons" run, and he was off the show and attending regular high school by his senior year.

Schroder knew it was time to make a change if he wanted to continue acting, so the first thing to go was "Ricky", in favor of the more mature sounding Rick. And some notable roles did follow, including the two extremely popular mini-series, Lonesome Dove (1989) and Return to Lonesome Dove (1990). Also, New Yorker Rick suddenly became completely enamored with Wild West culture around this time as well. In fact, it was during this period that Rick fell in love, married, had a family and moved them all to a ranch in Colorado. But commuting back and forth to Hollywood took its toll, and when he was cast in the gritty crime drama NYPD BLUE (1999-2002), the Schroder clan moved back to LA.

There was much speculation as to whether the rather conservative Rick would follow the tradition of previous leading men on that daring cop show by baring some skin. And yes, bold Rick did step up to the plate and proudly bare his buns for the sake of his art. And he also went back to his real roots in 2007, by announcing he was reverting back to the name "Ricky" forever. So the circle is complete. If you were a Ricky Shroder fan then, you can still safely proclaim being one now!