Richard W. Pirodsky

Richard Wayne Pirodsky was born on August 10, 1955, in the town of Freeport on New York’s Long Island. As a youngster he served as an acolyte in the Episcopal church, enjoyed playing baseball, and was a member of the Civil Air Patrol. He graduated from Freeport High School in 1973, where he performed leading roles in school musicals, and went on to study drama in BFA programs at Carnegie Mellon and New York University. As a professional actor, he performed at the Gateway Playhouse on Long Island and at the Mansfield Summer Theatre in Pennsylvania. Shifting to a career in public media management, Richard served as director of video production at Glendale College in California, and general manager of public and college radio stations on Long Island, in Kansas City, Missouri, and in Decorah, Iowa, before becoming the general manager of the Pacifica radio stations in both Berkeley and Los Angeles. Richard worked as a researcher/writer for a Kansas City-based video production company, most notably penning the script for a documentary about President Harry Truman for the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award Foundation. Richard is the author of The Demigod, an historical novel based on the life of the demagogical radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, and has written essays and opinion pieces for New York’s Newsday. An avid fan of Old-Time Radio and member of SPERDVAC, Richard collected thousands of audio recordings and donated them to the Marr Sound Archives at the University of Missouri at Kansas City where they are housed as the Richard Pirodsky Collection. Richard’s favorite pastime was cheering for the New York Yankees. He died on April 7, 2016, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Richard W. Pirodsky, please visit our flower store.