Born in 1949, Richard in the city of Newark, New Jersey, until age five when his parents transplanted him to the suburban town of Fords NJ. He grew up a child of the 50s and 60s with all the influences, and a time of America’s rapid growth.

Growing with a movie buff mother who knew off beat faces about the movies she loved (She had a wealth of knowledge and facts about old movies. This was long before the internet in a home was even a dream.) He learned to love the behind the scenes facts about movies. He has purchased movies he enjoys so he can see out takes, bloopers, and the how scenes were made.

At eighteen he entered to US Navy. He did his boot camp training at Great Lakes and returned there for training as an enginmen. His first duty station was the USS Fulton (AS11) in New London, Conneticutt from Janurary 1968 – November 1969. He spent the next eleven months riding small boats in the DaNang Harbor Security, Viet Nam and on PBR mobile base one near Wei, outside Tam Mi.

During his off hours he was a voracious reader and devoured anything he could get his hands on. Science Fiction stories were pleantiful along with mysteries and high adventure. Old Science Fiction movies, westerns and mysteries were shown to the troops in the base theater