Other Richards

A long time ago, my special lady lady friend and I were trying to think up all the famous people who had my name (Richard). We came up with dozens, but never bothered to write them down. I’m sure there’s a wikipedia disambiguation page for people named such as I (Richard), but that feels like cheating. So, in the spirit or conversations of yore, I’m going to do this off the top of my head…

Musical Richards

  • Richard Ashcroft (singer for the Verve)
  • Richard Berry (songwriter—“Louie Louie”, for example)
  • Richard Butler (singer for the Psychedelic Furs)
  • Richard Carpenter (songwriter)
  • Richard Cheese (comedic lounge singer)
  • Richard Evans (singer/songwriter)
  • Richard Fairbrass (the “singer” for Right Said Fred)
  • Richard Hartley (composer)
  • Richard Hell (punk rok dood)
  • Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin)
  • Richard Lloyd (guitarist for Television)
  • Richard Marsh (aka Sky Saxon)
  • Richard Marx (80s singer)
  • Richard Anthony Monsour (aka Dick Dale, god of surf guitar)
  • Richard Page (singer/bassist for Mr. Mister)
  • Richard Patrick (singer for Filter, brother of the T-1000)
  • “Little” Richard Penniman (the Architect of rock and/or roll)
  • Richard Ploog (former drummer for the Church)
  • Richard Quitevis (aka DJ Q-Bert)
  • Richard Starkey (former Beatle)
  • Richard Strauss (composer)
  • Richard Thompson (musician)
  • Richard Valentin (singer for Poster Children)
  • Richard Wagner (composer)
  • Richard Wright (keyboardist for Pink Floyd)

Showbiz Richards

  • Richard Dean Anderson (actor)
  • Richard Attenborough (actor, director, producer, entrepreneur)
  • Richard Belzer (actor)
  • Richard Benjamin (actor, director)
  • Richard Burton (actor)
  • Richard Chamberlain (actor)
  • Richard Crenna (actor)
  • Richard Dawson (actor, game show host)
  • Richard Donner (director)
  • Richard Dreyfuss (actor)
  • Richard Edson (actor, also first drummer for Sonic Youth)
  • Richard Gere (actor, professional Buddhist)
  • Richard Grieco (actor)
  • Richard Harris (actor)
  • Richard Hatch (actor)
  • Richard Jenkins (actor, also birth name of R. Burton)
  • Richard Karn (actor)
  • Richard Kelly (director, writer)
  • Richard Kiel (actor of unusual size)
  • Richard Kind (actor)
  • Richard Lester (director)
  • Richard Lewis (comedian, supposedly)
  • Richard Linklater (director, screenwriter)
  • Richard D. Masur (actor)
  • Richard Moll (actor of unusual size)
  • Richard Pryor (comedian)
  • Richard Roundtree (Shaft? Damn right!)
  • Richard Sakai (producer)
  • Richard C. Sarafian (director)
  • Richard Stanley (director)
  • Richard D. Zanuck (producer)

Writing Richards

  • Richard Adams (Watership Down)
  • Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
  • Richard Bachman (pseudonym of Stephen King)
  • Richard Brautigan (poet type)
  • Richard Corliss (movie critic)
  • Richard Meltzer (music critic)
  • Richard Powers (author)
  • Richard Roeper (movie critic, author)
  • Richard Russo (best author ever)
  • Richard Scarry (children’s author/illustrator)
  • Richard Schickel (ANOTHER movie critic—do they need their own section?)
  • Richard Wright (not the Pink Floyd keyboardist)
  • Richard Yates (novelist)

Arts Richards

  • Richard Avedon (photographer)
  • Richard Corben (fantasy art illustrator)
  • Richard Kern (naughty photographer)
  • Richard McGuire (illustrator, comics artist)
  • Richard M. Powers (science fiction illustrator)
  • Richard Prince ([re]photographer)
  • Richard Serra (sculptor, video artist)

Science Richards

  • Richard Dawkins (evolutionary biologist, professional atheist)
  • Richard Feynman (physicist)
  • Richard Leakey (paleontologist with unfortunate last name)
  • Richard Owen (paleontologist, coined the word “dinosaur”)
  • Richard Wallace (computer scientist, inventor of ALICE chat-bot)

Misc. Richards

  • Richard Alpert (former Harvard professor, current spiritualist nut—aka “Ram Dass”)
  • Richard Branson (billionaire, space travel enthusiast)
  • Richard Byrd (polar explorer, “dreaded rear admiral”)
  • Richard Desmond (British publisher)
  • Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman (singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician, everything else)
  • Richard J. Gatling (inventor of multi-barreled machine gun)
  • Richard Hatch (Survivor winner, not 70s Apollo/00s Zarek)
  • Richard Jewell (guy who did NOT try to blow up the 96 Olympics)
  • Richard the Lion-Hearted (king of yore, not so lion-hearted actually)
  • Richard Loving (plaintiff in Supreme Court case that legalized mixed marriages, most appropriate last name ever)
  • Richard McDonald (one of those McDonalds…)
  • Richard Parsons (Time Warner exec)
  • Richard Petty (race car driver)
  • Richard Quest (incredibly British news anchor)
  • Richard Simmons (fitness expert)
  • Richard Sorge (WWII Russian spy)
  • Richard Stallman (haxx0r, software activist)
  • Richard Trickle (race car driver with unfortunate last name)
  • Richard Woodruff (as a tubby child, he inspired the “Big Boy” logo)

Fictitious Richards

  • Richard Adar (President of the Colonies before the Cylon attack in “Battlestar Galactica”)
  • Richard Alpert (I don’t know, some dude in “Lost”)
  • Richard Bucket (Hyacinth’s husband in “Keeping up Appearances”)
  • Richard Cunningham (from “Happy Days”)
  • Richard Feder (Fort Lee, NJ, resident who wrote letters read by Roseanne Roseannadanna of “Weekend Update”)
  • Richard Gilmore (the father/granfather of the Gilmore Girls)
  • Richard Hayden (David Spade’s character in “Tommy Boy”)
  • Richard Kimble (main character in “The Fugitive”)
  • Richard Mayhew (the main character in Neverwhere)
  • Richard Sherman (the husband in “The Seven Year Itch”)
  • Richard Stabone (aka “Boner” on Growing Pains tv show)
  • Richard Wharfinger (wrote Jacobean revenge play in The Crying of Lot 49)
  • Richard Woolsey (character on Stargate Atlantis)
  • Richard M. Zhlubb (a dude at the end of Gravity’s Rainbow)

Mayors of Chicago with the name of Richard

  • Richard J. Daley (1955–1976)
  • Richard M. Daley (1989–2011)

Politicians and other criminals who sully the good name of Richard

  • Richard Cheney (vice president, evildoer)
  • Richard Nixon (a president)
  • Richard Perle (prince of darkness, Iraq fucker-upper)
  • Richard Ramirez (serial killer)
  • Richard Reid (the reason we have to take off our shoes at the airport, that dickass)
  • Richard Speck (nurse killer)