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Not Quite Bond
No, Rick Ott has not been cast as James Bond. However, as a member of the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Rick has appeared in movies, television shows, and commercials. He also does voiceovers for commercials and demo videos. |
Rick Ott may not have invented the internet, but he did predict it (along with QVC and HSN, it turns out).
It was October of 1969. Rick was a freshman at Michigan State University. In Communication 100 class, the assignment was to write a paper describing what communication will be like in the year 2000. Rick titled his paper "1969+31," and here's the key exerpt:
"In the year 2000, communication devices will be used to perform tasks like using the television to shop and credit cards to purchase. Instead of looking something up in a set of encyclopedias, the family of 2000 A.D. will look it up on the computer . . . current information being fed into computers daily from a remote location, perhaps one computer programming center in each city linked to each computer in that city."
Rick comments today: "Guess I was smart enough to see the future . . . but if I was really smart I would have spearheaded that movement as others ended up doing. Instead, I was preoccupied with campus radio and dating girls. Back then, changing how the world communicates just wasn't calling out for my attention."