Schroder's personal project

The former child actor wrote and directed a movie about a A Navajo boxer story captured the actor's imagination.
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL
Although today's TV fans might think of Rick Schroder as one of the stars of "NYPD Blue," the 34-year-old Staten Island-born actor has been in front of cameras since age 7, when he made his movie debut opposite Jon Voight in "The Champ."
Now Schroder, one of the few child actors to make a successful transition to adult star, has gone behind the camera as well. He wrote and directed "Black Cloud," the story of a promising young Navajo boxer.
Schroder met with reporters in the Mohegan Sun's Cabaret Theatre in Uncasville, Conn., where the film had its regional premiere last week, along with others who worked on the film, including boxing trainer Jimmy Gambia.
Gambia choreographed "Black Cloud's" fight scenes and has a career that goes back 50 years, including training Voight for "The Champ," when he first met Schroder.
It was the culmination of what Schroder calls a long, hard road to the screen. He began doing research for "Black Cloud" in 2000 "when I began investigating Indian kids' boxing" after he'd heard about a real-life Navajo boxing coach and his son.
Schroder, a father of four who owns a Colorado ranch, was drawn to the idea of giving his script an American Indian setting because of his lifelong love of Westerns. He grew up watching John Wayne movies on TV, although as he got older he realized that "the stereotype Hollywood perpetrated around the world was not real. 'Black Cloud' is, in my small way, an attempt to correct past mistakes in movies and to show how Indians really are today."
It was his passion for the subject that eventually interested the Mohegan tribe members. Although they didn't put up money for "Black Cloud" when Schroder first called, they jumped at the chance to help market the film.
Distribution efforts
Schroder had shot the film in 2003 on the Navajo reservation and at a Golden Gloves boxing meet in Las Vegas, then spent months "cutting 100 hours of footage down to 90 minutes. At the end of it I expected to turn it over to a distributor and walk away."
His hopes were dashed when his big plan -- for showing the film at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, where he dreamed "Black Cloud" would be picked up by a distributor -- was shot down. Sundance, he said, "never returned my call. I was somewhat devastated. I had a plan. And the plan was Sundance."
But Schroder persisted. He entered "Black Cloud" in smaller festivals. It won the audience award for best picture at the 2004 Phoenix Film Festival, and the best-picture award from the 2004 Native American Film Festival. Schroder himself took awards at the San Diego and Nashville festivals for his directing.
"After Sundance I had a choice," said the still-boyishly-blond Schroder. "Either I could sell it as a video movie or do this. It took me two minutes to decide."
Last October, "Black Cloud" opened in theaters in Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico, where Schroder said it played three months. It's now getting showings in a limited number of Northeast theaters. Then, who knows?
Career ups and downs
But Schroder understands the many ups and downs of show business and seems prepared for whatever comes. "I've been working since I was 7. I don't remember a time in my life before 'The Champ.' People say to me, 'You're down to earth' and 'normal.' Well, this is normal for me because I never knew anything else.
"But there were periods of no work, too. One that lasted 18 months, when I wondered whether I would ever get another job. But I've found joys in other things in life besides acting."
He loved writing "because I could take characters where I wanted. I was just limited by my imagination. And I really liked being on the set and working with actors."
He even plays a pivotal role in "Black Cloud" -- a mean rodeo rider who returns to town and shakes up the other characters. He laughed when asked why he saw himself as such an ornery character. "I didn't write it for me," he protested. "I wrote it for a real rodeo cowboy, but he froze in front of the camera, so I had to jump in at the last minute."
Schroder just joined the cast of the show "Strong Medicine" on the Lifetime Channel and has plans to produce and direct a film called "The Principal Wife."