There isn’t any simple approach to mark the lack of a longtime pal. Rick Scheckmanwas a quiet man, the final one to name consideration to himself in any state of affairs. He was additionally a loyal pal and a part of our prolonged household. My daughter Jessie has recognized and liked him her complete life (she’s heartbroken that he gained’t get to fulfill my granddaughter Daisy.) I met him after he wrote me a collection of fan letters about my early books The Great Movie Shorts and The Disney Films. He was 5 years youthful than me however we spoke the identical language and liked the identical offbeat shorts and cartoons.
He was an avid movie collector, however many years in the past he and two like-minded friends turned their interest right into a full-time enterprise, forming Streamline Films. They equipped oddball movie footage for commercials, TV present parodies and the like. If you wanted a canine yawning, one cellphone name was all it took. This meant organizing and cataloguing a whole bunch upon a whole bunch of 16mm reels and determining a manner to offer fast entry to particular person photographs. It additionally meant in the event you arrived at a seller’s room at a conference like Cinefest after he did you misplaced out on the true goodies. The sellers would possibly as properly have positioned a “Ricky Was Here” signal on their tables.
In the early days of David Letterman’s late-night present on NBC, the employees referred to as on Ricky so typically that he was finally provided a full-time job. That job grew to become a second dwelling, fostered ongoing friendships and uncovered the usually shy “Film Coordinator” to the world in a collection of foolish appearances on-camera—which, he famous, earned him a welcome payment. Letterman additionally benefited from Ricky’s huge data and entry to personal movie collections for his personal amusement and edification.
I met Ricky when he was nonetheless a youngster and by no means acquired used to calling him Rick. At Letterman he earned the nickname Shecky, which caught. He was a part of a gaggle of Cinephiles who, underneath the management of Phil Serling (founding father of the annual Cinefest in Syracuse, New York) started taking cruises and continued doing so even after the heartbreaking lack of our fearless chief.We traveled the globe and Ricky outdid us by taking much more cruises, generally with a pal or two however typically on his personal.
He lived merely within the dwelling the place he grew up in Queens, New York. It was crammed—and I imply crammed—with books, magazines, and ephemera protecting a large swath of popular culture. Whenever I referred to as him it appeared he was studying a newly-published e-book on film historical past or a set of comedian strips.
It’s turn out to be a cliché to say that you just don’t get to decide on your loved ones, however as my daughter can attest, you can select your surrogate household. In befriending Ricky we selected properly. Alice, Jessie and I’ll miss him terribly. His associates and colleagues at Letterman put collectively an exquisite video tribute–you’ll be able to watch that HERE.