He was born on July 23, 1946 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was raised in Acushnet. At age eighteen, he became a protégé of Andy Warhol. He appeared in the Warhol movies "Kitchen" (1965), "Chelsea Girls" (1966), and "The Andy Warhol Story" (1966). In the 1980s, he wrote a series of influential essays for "Artforum" magazine. Ricard was openly gay. At the time of his death, he was living at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City with his partner, Rita Barros, a Portuguese artist and photographer.