Poet, painter, actor, and art critic Rene Ricard grew up in Massachusetts. He moved to New York City when he was 18 after seeing an Andy Warhol painting. Ricard told Interview magazine, “I completely planned out my life looking at that painting.” In New York, Ricard became part of the Warhol Factory scene, appearing in Warhol’s films Kitchen (1965), Chelsea Girls (1966), and, as Warhol himself, in The Andy Warhol Story (1967). He later acted in the neo-punk film Underground U.S.A. (1980).
