David Schickele

David Schickele
Born(1937-03-20)March 20, 1937
Ames, Iowa, U.S.
DiedOctober 31, 1999(1999-10-31) (aged 62)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Musician, film director, actor
Instrument(s)Violin, viola

David Schickele (March 20, 1937 – October 31, 1999) was an American musician, film director, and actor.

Early life

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He was born in Ames, Iowa to Alsatian immigrant parents. His father, Rainer, was the son of writer René Schickele. His brother Peter Schickele was a musician and parodist.[1] He grew up in Fargo, North Dakota and Washington, DC, and then studied English literature at Swarthmore College, graduating in 1958 (following his elder brother there, musician Peter Schickele).[2]

Career

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From 1958-61 he played at Radio City Music Hall in New York City as a free-lance violist and recorded and toured the nation with the Robert Shaw Chorale.[3] In 1961, he joined the Peace Corps and taught English language at University of Nigeria Nsukka through 1963.[4] In an essay "When the Right Hand Washes the Left" published in the Swarthmore College Bulletin in 1963, he reflected on the his Peace Corps experience:

"This to me is the meaning of the Peace Corps as a new frontier. It is the call to go, not where man has never been before, but where he has lived differently; the call to experience firsthand the intricacies of a different culture; to understand from the inside rather than the outside; and to test the limits of one’s own way of life against another in the same manner as the original pioneer tested the limits of his endurance against the elements."[5]

When he returned to the U.S., he made the first major film about the Peace Corps related to his experiences in Nigeria titled Give Me a Riddle (1966).[6] I In 1971, he directed his second film Bushman, which was restored and released in 2024.[7] The film won numerous awards, including Best First Feature at the Chicago International Film Festival. It was also accepted by the Pacific Film Archive at UC-Berkeley, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York for their archives. In 1992, his last film Tuscarora was released.

In 1978, he contributed some music to Northern Lights, a film by Rob Nilsson whom he met during his time in Nigeria.[8] He later starred in two of his films, Signal Seven and Heat and Sunlight. He also starred in seven movies directed by Bobby Roth – Dead Solid Perfect (1988), Keeper of the City (1991), The Switch (1992), Judgment Day: The John List Story (1993), Ride with the Wind (1993), Kidnapped: In the Line of Duty (1995), and Naomi & Wynonna: Love Can Build a Bridge (1995). In 1979, he received the Guggenheim Fellowship.[9]

He died in San Francisco at the age of 62.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b Kozinn, Allan (November 11, 1999). "David Schickele, 62, Filmmaker And, With Brother, a Parodist". The New York Times.
  2. ^ Swarthmore College Bulletin, "Swarthmore's First Music Major: The Comic Underside of Music Convention," by Paul Wachter, September 2007.
  3. ^ "David Schickele". SFGATE. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  4. ^ Busch, David S. (October 12, 2018). "Service Learning: The Peace Corps, American Higher Education, and the Limits of Modernist Ideas of Development and Citizenship". History of Education Quarterly. 58 (4): 475–505. doi:10.1017/heq.2018.28. ISSN 0018-2680. S2CID 149819944.
  5. ^ ""When the Right Hand Washes the Left" by David Schickele (Nigeria) – Peace Corps Worldwide". peacecorpsworldwide.org. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  6. ^ Pesselnick, Jill (December 17, 1999). "David Schickele". Variety.com.
  7. ^ ""Bushman" To Be Released From The Archives". The Nollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  8. ^ "Eriksmoen: 15-year-old Fargo orchestra conductor became a movie actor, director". Inforum.com. September 7, 2019.
  9. ^ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | David Schickele". Gf.org. Retrieved October 28, 2021.
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