“The Little Lord” (1980) is an indispensable part of the pre-Christmas period. One day before Christmas Eve, the cult film is traditionally broadcast on the first (December 23, 8:15 p.m.). The American boy, who is said to inherit a title from his grumpy British grandfather (Alec Guinness, 1914-2000), was played by the then ten-year-old blond boy Richard “Ricky” Bartlett Schroder. Not least because of his striking hairstyle, the 52-year-old native of New York has burned himself deeply into the collective film memory.
Schroder was already a child star by the time the TV movie was released. He made his screen debut at the age of nine in the boxing drama “The Champ” (1979). And for the role of little “T.J.”, who still thinks his father, an ex-boxer, is a hero, the boy was awarded a Golden Globe for “Best Young Actor”.
Ricky Schroder has continued with acting. However, he could not build on the outstanding and lasting importance of the “little lord”. In 2004, however, he celebrated success as a screenwriter and director: his drama “Black Cloud” was named “Best Picture” at the San Diego Film Festival that same year. His last acting role was in the 2016 film Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love as Robert Lee Parton.
That same year, he and his wife, Canadian Andrea Bernard (59), also announced their separation. The divorce took place in 2018. The two had married in 1992 and had four children together, two sons and two daughters.
Since then, Ricky Schroder has involuntarily made headlines. In 2019, he was accused of domestic violence twice within a year. The court later dropped the case, but Schroder was “convicted in the media court,” he complained in a 2020 interview with the New York Post. “My reputation has been destroyed.”
He gave the interview in connection with the trial of the then 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot two people during the protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Schroder participated in the $2 million bail to spare the suspect from custody. It made him angry to see the teenager being slandered in the press, Schroder justified his commitment. The case reminded him of his own. Rittenhouse was later acquitted and the shots were ruled self-defense.
In 2021, Ricky Schroder caused a stir again when he complained about the mask requirement in a US wholesale chain. In a heartbroken video on Instagram, he apologized to an employee he had previously berated for trying to enforce the store’s face mask policy. The then 51-year-old actor was denied entry to a California Costco the previous weekend for not wearing a mask. Schroder had filmed himself yelling angrily at the employee. He also uploaded this video to Instagram.
