David Schickele
American musician and film director
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Schickele (March 20, 1937 – October 31, 1999) was an American musician, film director, and actor.
David Schickele | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 20, 1937 Ames, Iowa, U.S. |
| Died | October 31, 1999 (aged 62) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Occupations | Musician, film director, actor |
| Instruments | Violin, viola |
Early life
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
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 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] 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]