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Richard (Rick) Partlow was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1948, the youngest of two boys, to Mr and Mrs. James E. Partlow. His Mother, Norma Jane VanDervort, born in 1921, a graduate of Ohio University, was an artist, singer, poet, lyricist, author (under Norma Kalina) and reporter. His Father, James Edwin Partlow, a graduate of North Carolina State University, was a corporate businessman and served as a Captain during World War II in the Army Signal Corps, Intelligence Division.
One year after his birth the family moved to Oakland, California and the at age three to Houston, Texas where Richard was introduced to swimming, boating, water skiing, crabbing and Saturday Morning Serials at the movies like Buck Rogers and Commander Cody. That is where his imagination took root. At age 9 the family moved to Pennsylvania. His parents bought a modest farm house on ten acres a few miles from the village of Chester Springs where Richard attended fifth and sixth grades in a two room school house. Richard graduated at the top of his class of five students. He and older brother, Jamie, attended amid graduated from Downingtown High School, Richard in 1966. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, 80 miles west of Philadelphis, was idyllic for Richard. No young child or teenager could wish for any greater experience. Friendships were forged that exist to this day. Football, track, gymnastics and swimming took up a lot of his time. But the four seasons of the year held so much more. Summer was rope swings over the swimming hole, a three acre honeysuckle canopied pine forest as his private domain, and a one half acre asparagus patch as his summer cash cow when sold to the local farmers market. Fall was sports, riding horses and roaming the forest . Winter was snow forts, sledding, ice hockey on the local pond and for cash, using his Dads 1948 Jeep with plow to clear snow from the long country lanes. Spring was planting veggie gardens, building homemade go-carts and dreaming of summer.
Richard was somewhat rebellious during his last year of High School so his Father insisted he spend his first year of college at Valley Forge Military Academy Jr. College. From there a year at The University of Miami and a semester at Villanova University which is when Richard joined the Marines. Following his stint in the Marines Richard had no idea of what he wanted to do with his life. During summer breaks in high school and college he spent alot of his time playing guitar, singing and writing music with partner Jim Richards. They played mostly in coffee houses and cafés in Phila. and on the Jersey Shore.
So following the Marines, with his parents divorced, the farm sold, Richard moved back to Philly, working as a bartender, bank teller, retail sales and finally with a detective agency as a flagman on a road crew where he was placed to track stolen equipment. With only two weeks on the job a car stopped. A man and woman got out and asked Richard if he wanted to be in a play at a local community theatre. He got the lead in the play in the role of Tom Lee, in 'Tea and Sympathy'. Richard was hooked. During the limited run of the show he was seen by a producer of a local CBS children's show and signed a one year contract where he played characters in history such as young Ben Franklin and young Thomas Edison.
