Rick Walters was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 5, 1945.[3][4] He grew up in Hawthorne, California.[3]
In 1959, he went to the Pike, an amusement zone in Long Beach, California, and got a tattoo on his leg.[3] He found work as a machinist and welder after high school.[3] In his off time, he went to the Pike and learned tattooing under Bob Shaw, Owen Jensen, and Hong Kong Tom.[3]
From 1978 to 2002, Walters worked as the manager of Bert Grimm's World Famous Tattoo, the oldest continuously operated tattoo shop in the United States.[3][5] After the closing of the shop, he retired for several months, but after having a heart attack, he went back to tattooing.[2] In the 2010s, he opened a tattoo shop, Rick Walters' World Famous Tattoo Parlor, in Sunset Beach, California.[3]
He taught multiple tattoo artists in Southern California the rules and rites of American traditional tattooing.[6]
He died at the age of 73 on March 4, 2019.[7] He had been battling health issues after doctors found blood clots in his lungs to add to myriad other ailments.[4]