Richard Partlow

Richard Partlow
Role:	Foley artist
BSG Universe:	Re-imagined Series and Blood and Chrome
Date of Birth:	February 13, 1948
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month! ,
Age:	77
Nationality:	USA
[ Official Site]
IMDb profile

Richard VanDervort "Rick" Partlow (born February 13, 1948, Kansas City, Kansas) is an American foley artist and actor who worked extensively on the Re-imagined Series, Caprica, and Blood & Chrome. Partlow has had a distinguished career in sound editing and foley artistry spanning several decades.

Career

Early Life and Entry into Entertainment

Partlow was born in 1948 as the youngest of two sons to Norma Jane VanDervort and James Edwin Partlow. His mother was a graduate of Ohio University who worked as an artist, singer, poet, lyricist, author, and reporter, while his father was a North Carolina State University graduate who served as a Captain in the Army Signal Corps Intelligence Division during World War II before becoming a corporate businessman.

The family relocated several times during Partlow's childhood, moving from Kansas City to Oakland, California when he was one year old, then to Houston, Texas when he was three, where he was first exposed to science fiction through Saturday morning serials featuring characters like Buck Rogers and Commander Cody. At age nine, the family settled on a ten-acre farm in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, where Partlow graduated from Downingtown High School in 1966.

After high school, Partlow attended Valley Forge Military Academy Jr. College, followed by a year at the University of Miami and a semester at Villanova University before joining the Marines. Following his military service, he worked various jobs in Philadelphia, including bartender, bank teller, and retail sales. While working as a flagman on a road crew for a detective agency, Partlow was approached by a couple who invited him to audition for a community theater production. He landed the lead role of Tom Lee in "Tea and Sympathy," which sparked his interest in performing. During the show's limited run, a producer from a local CBS children's show saw him perform and signed him to a one-year contract, where he portrayed historical characters such as young Ben Franklin and young Thomas Edison.

Transition to Foley Artistry

Partlow worked as a successful actor until the 1988 Writers Guild strike significantly impacted the industry. Following the strike, approximately eighty percent of production work moved to Canada, substantially reducing Partlow's income as an actor. After a year of diminished work opportunities, he needed to find alternative employment to support his family.

While considering various career options, including purchasing a pool cleaning service, Partlow encountered an old friend at a party who had transitioned from music mixing to foley mixing after losing her job. She asked if he had done foley work before, and though he had only helped with horse and camel hooves for one day, he expressed interest when she offered weekend animation work at forty dollars per hour. Lenise Bent, a former foley mixer, gave Partlow his first opportunity in the field, and he discovered he had both the ability and aptitude for the work. His first union job was at Universal Studios.

Professional Approach and Technique

By 2009, Partlow was employed at Warner Bros. Studios, where he worked with partner Shelley Roden on numerous productions. In a Motion Picture Editors Guild interview, Partlow described his approach to foley artistry as requiring him to convincingly become the actor for whom he and Roden were synching effects, creating sounds that production recording missed. He emphasized that the work involved more than creating footsteps—it required capturing the attitude and emotion of each movement. According to Partlow, a depressed character's footsteps must sound depressing, and a beer mug being slammed down on a table has a different sonic quality than one being gently set down by a waitress.

Partlow noted that foley artistry can take approximately five years to master, even with natural ability, and aspiring artists should be prepared to spend several years learning the craft, often without pay, if they can even find someone willing to teach them.

Sound Work and Notable Projects

Partlow's career includes work on major motion pictures and television productions. His notable film credits include Boogie Nights, Jeepers Creepers, Brotherhood of the Wolf, The World Is Not Enough, Crossroads, and Air Bud.

In his 2009 interview, Partlow identified Chain Reaction (1996) as a particularly proud achievement in theatrical work, as the production provided sufficient time and budget to create multiple layers of sound, including numerous tracks for effects such as vibrating and shaking underground elevator cages and falling scaffolding.

Partlow also recalled Air Bud as one of the most enjoyable projects of his career, working with Marnie Moore at the Foley stage at Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley. The production allowed them adequate time to create detailed Golden Retriever footstep sounds on various surfaces.

Working on horror films presented unique challenges. For Jeepers Creepers, Partlow had to devise sounds for graphic violence, using one-inch by four-inch pieces of wood for bone-cracking effects when skulls were bitten, and creating layered sounds from watermelon rinds, celery stalks, shammies, and other materials to simulate muscle and flesh being torn. For the film Bugs, which featured three-foot-long roaches, Partlow had the manager at Red Lobster save lobster shells nightly, which he bleached, dried, stacked, and glued together in different configurations, then wiggled back and forth to create insect sounds for hundreds of effects.

In the early 1990s, Partlow worked on sound restoration for portions of the old MGM library, an experience he valued because it allowed him to create quality sound that respectfully blended with the production sound of that era.

Retirement and Legacy

Upon his retirement from active foley work, Partlow passed on treasured props to his former partner Shelley Roden. Among these was a copper towel bar from his mother's apartment, which featured koi fish on each end that, when twisted, produced a distinctive screech resembling a startled cat. Roden praised the prop as irreplaceable, noting that the unique squeak was one of a kind and that she would never find anything comparable.

Battlestar Galactica Franchise Work

Re-imagined Series

Partlow served as a foley artist on the Re-imagined Series from 2005 through 2009, working on 26 episodes throughout the show's run. His work on the series' sound editing team contributed to the show's distinctive audio landscape, which was widely praised for its immersive quality and realistic sound design.

In 2009, Partlow won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series for his work on the series finale "Daybreak, Part II." The Emmy-winning sound editing team included supervising sound editors Daniel Colman and Jack Levy, sound effects editor Sam C. Lewis, dialogue/ADR editor Vince Balunas, music editor Michael Baber, and fellow foley artist Doug Madick. This Emmy Award represented one of the series' most significant technical achievements and recognized the sound team's exceptional contribution to the show's final episode.

Partlow identified Battlestar Galactica as one of the projects that made him most proud, noting that he received two MPSE Golden Reel Award nominations for the series before winning in 2009.

The Plan

Partlow continued his work with the franchise on the television film The Plan (2009), which aired as a feature-length special exploring events from the Cylon perspective.

Caprica

Partlow served as foley artist on the prequel series Caprica during its 2010 run, contributing to the sound design of the series set 58 years before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

Blood & Chrome

In 2013, Partlow received another Emmy nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or Special for his work on Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, the web series and television film set during the First Cylon War. The sound editing team for this production included Daniel Colman, Jack Levy, Sam C. Lewis, Vince Balunas, Greg Stacy, Michael Baber, Doug Madick, and Sara Bencivenga.

Awards and Recognition

Partlow has received multiple Emmy nominations and wins throughout his career. According to his IMDb profile, he has won two Primetime Emmy Awards with a total of six wins and 17 nominations across various projects.

His Emmy nominations and wins include:

• 2001: Winner of Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or Special for 61*, directed by Billy Crystal (alongside Wayne Griffin, Robert Grieve, Ellen Heuer, Kimberly Harris, Scott M. Silvey, Meg Taylor, and Stephanie Lowry)
• 2009: Winner of Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series for Battlestar Galactica ("Daybreak, Part II")
• 2010: Nominated for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series for Fringe ("White Tulip") (alongside Paul Curtis, Rick Norman, Bruce Tanis, Paul Apelgren, and Shelley Roden)
• 2013: Nominated for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or Special for Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome

In July 2009, Partlow was featured as a member spotlight by the Motion Picture Editors Guild, highlighting his work as a foley artist.

Other Notable Work

Beyond the Battlestar Galactica franchise, Partlow has worked on numerous high-profile television series and films. By 2009, his Warner Bros. projects included pilots for Limelight and The Vampire Diaries, along with ongoing work on series such as The Mentalist, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Smallville, Supernatural, The Unit, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

His television credits also include work on Fringe, Chuck, Hawaii Five-0, The Good Wife, Gossip Girl, The Office, and Outlander.

His film work includes notable productions such as Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987), Jagged Edge (1985), and Last Knights (2015).

Partlow cited two industry professionals as his mentors: David Fein at Warner Bros. and Ellen Heuer at Skywalker Sound. His favorite television programs included NCIS, The Mentalist, and Numbers, expressing a particular fondness for the mystery genre.

Personal Life

Partlow has been married three times. His first marriage was to artist Christine Rosamond Presco in 1976, and the couple purchased Mickey Rooney's former house in Woodland Hills. He later married Deborah Kurtz on April 4, 1982, and subsequently married Kathleen Countryman on April 3, 2010.

During his high school and college years, Partlow played guitar and wrote music with partner Jim Richards, performing primarily in coffee houses and cafés in Philadelphia and on the Jersey Shore.

In his 2009 Motion Picture Editors Guild interview, Partlow expressed his love for old movies from the 1930s and 1940s, and stated that at age 61, he hoped to retire in Tampa, Florida within five years.

References