Richard Schickel

Richard Warren Schickel (1933 – 2017) was an American film historian, journalist, author, screenwriter, documentarian, and film critic. He worked for several well-known magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Time, and directed documentaries such as Eastwood on Eastwood, The Harryhausen Chronicles, and Shooting War.

Schickel was born on February 10, 1933, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Helen (née Hendricks) and Edward John Schickel.

He attended University of Wisconsin at Madison and graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science in 1955. While in college, he wrote for the school paper and for a variety of magazines including the New Republic and the Progressive.

After graduation, in 1956-57, Schickel worked as a reporter at Sports Illustrated in New York. He then worked as a senior editor at Look, New York, from 1957 to 1960, and at Show, New York, from 1960-62.
From 1965 to 2010, he was a film critic for Time magazine.

In his career, he directed and produced several documentaries with celebrated artists. The list of documentaries includes such successful ones as:

• The Men Who Made the Movies (1973) - a documentary on Alfred Hitchcock's movies
• Making Star Wars (1977) - with William Conrad, Anthony Daniels, and George Lucas
• Minnelli on Minnelli (1987) - a tribute to Vincente Minnelli by his daughter Liza Minnelli
• Eastwood on Eastwood (1997) - an autobiography of Clint Eastwood
• The Harryhausen Chronicles (1998) - a documentary on Ray Harryhausen
• Shooting War (2000) - a World War II documentary directed by Steven Spielberg and presented by Tom Hanks.

He was a member of National Society of Film Critics, Writers Guild of America, Directors Guild of America, and New York Film Critics.

Schickel was married to Julia Carroll Whedon until 1976, and to Carol Rubenstein from 1985 until her death in 1991.

He died on 18 February 2017 in Los Angeles after suffering from multiple strokes.