About Richard

I guess I better start at the beginning. I was born on Feburary 22, 1947 in Oakland, California. My father (Richard Edgar Fox from Washington) was on the Oakland police force and my mother (Ellamae Margret Funk from Kentucky) was a housewife (that is what women did back then). We later moved to L.A. where my father got a job on the Beverly Hills force (yes, a Beverly Hills Cop). 21 month is after I was born my mother had another baby (Randy, who was hit by a car and killed when he was 3). When I was in the 2nd grade we moved to Louisville, Kentucky to take care of my mother's aunts, who raised her. When I was in the 6th grade my father was killed in a truck accident. My mother and I stayed in Kentucky where she remarried (an old boyfriend who I did not like). In about 1960 my mother anounced that they were getting a devorce and that we would be moving to Florida, where it was warm, and that I would be going to militery school (my dad always wanted me to go to militery school). I started attending Florida Military School in Deland, Florida, in 1961,and went there for 4 years, graduating in 1965. In 1963 we officily moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, because we had family friends living there.

After high school I attended St. Petersburg Junior College as an art major (I had always been good in art) and received my first exposure to theatre. After 3 years at SPJC I joined the Army, because the Draft was breathing down my neck because of the Viet-Nam War. In the Army I was trained as a finance clerk (typical military - I wasn't very good in math) and sent to Viet-Nam for a year. After Nam I was supost to go to Texas, but I got my assingment changed to Frankfurt, Germany. In Frankfurt I heard of a group called the V-Corp Training Road Show, that presented plays to fulfill the Army's training requirements, and that they needed a costume designer. I got the job, I can say that I was a costume designer for the very first repotory company in the military, in history. I was with the Road Show for about 10 months traveling around Germany presenting our plays.

The director of the show became a mentor to me for theatre and helped me get into Carnegie-Mellon University on my discharge. I attended CMU for 3 years and graduated with a B.F.A. in Theatre Design in 1975. For my Master's degree I went to Montclair State Teachers College in Montclair, New Jersey, and had my first exposure to The Big Apple, receiving an M.A. in 1977.

My first theatre job was in New York for Michael-Jon Studio and later for Brooks-Van Horn Costume Company. New York was, also, my first gay sexual expierence (what a place to come out of the closet and before AIDS) and it was right.

In 1980 Brooks was closeing so it seemed like a good opportunity to get out of the city. I applied for some teaching jobs and was hired by Ohio University to teach costume history and design in theatre undergraduate and graduate degree programs. I enjoyed teaching. I met Bill while there and we bought a house in the country. Things were fine execpt for the cold weather, so we decided to move south. I started looking for teaching jobs where it was warm. I got a one-year appointment at Florida State University, and moved to Tallahassee, Bill was to come later. However, Bill's mother died and he decided he didn't want to move (I think that there were other reasons). So, single again, which was O.K. because I had grown a lot in my Self and I got interested in Metaphisics. I found myself manageing an alterations shop and attending a one-year seminary to become a non-denominational ordained minister.

For financial reasons I moved back to St. Petersburg with my mother and got a job working for 7-11. I started giving psychic readings on the phone line, also. One Sunday morning in July I was working on the phone line and a man from Vancover, Washington called for a reading. I told him that he was going to meet someone new and was going to be making a trip. Little did I know that I was the someone and that at the end of September he would be coming to Florida for a visit. It was the beginning of a long distance relationship that ended in Feburary with Jack moving to Florida. Jack and I have been happy together, it's as if we have been together our whole lives, but we realize that if it wasn't for our past relationships and sorrows we would not be who we are today. My mother died that July. For about four years I designed and build displays for a display/event company. While there I designed the Christmas decorations for Disney's Town of Celebration and The St. Petersburg Pier.