Bob Nick Shields was born in New York City, in 1943, as World War II was being fought “over there.” At age six, his parents took to him to see Walt Disney’s So Dear To My Heart, a movie that mixed animation and live action. Little Robert saw that there existed a world where anything could happen. A world that was ‘over there.” But he wanted in.
He grew up in Larchmont, a suburb near New York City, which provided a lovely setting for lower/middle-class veterans and the well-to-do. The family didn’t live on the wrong side of the tracks, but they were close enough to hear the trains go by.
As a young man in Manhattan, in the 1960s, he was an in-demand actor in the Off-Off Broadway scene, leading to his being one of the founding members of The Circle Repertory Company. Not being a fan of the politics required to make a creative endeavor a successful creative endeavor, he left the group and got a job as a Copy Boy at Time magazine. While there, he was cast in the role of Senator Palantine’s aide in Martin Scorsese’s classic Taxi Driver.
After a relatively successful career acting in film, TV and theater in Los Angeles, he worked in the corporate world as an Operations officer for a cosmetics firm. He is currently at work on his next novel.
