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From brother, Anthony Rice, on Facebook:
After a long battle with multiple medical issues, Phillip passed away last evening, June 28, 2020. Many of you know that his body was failing and he was in much pain. We are thankful that he is no longer suffering.
Phillip, age 63, was the son of Richard and Virginia Rice.
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Randy Martens (1976)
Truly sorry to hear about Phil's passing – and my sincerest sympathies go out to Phil's family, both immediate and extended.
I attended AC out in Pasadena with Phil back in the late 1970s, and fondly recall a time when Phil, Ray Epperson, Raphael Ricci and myself spent an entire day down at the Universal Studios Prop Storage area in order to rent various items we needed for an upcoming dance - the infamous Shipwreck Dance of 1977! (I'm guessing this thing must have cost a small fortune!)
Nowadays the prop/costume area is housed in a new building all above ground, but back in the '70s it was in a deep multi-story underground complex that had a series of floors containing all manner of props used in past motion pictures and TV shows. Floor by floor, we'd sort through decades worth of various items, select the ones we wanted, then load them onto a huge industrial-sized elevator as big as a two-car garage, and haul them up to the large stake-bed truck we borrowed from the Transportation Department.
And this took us a good portion of the day, mainly because there were so many cool things down there to look at! We had a great time!
This would have been back in the spring of 1977 - over 43 years ago now. Phil was the lead, and we all had a hilarious time riding down there, looking through and choosing various props, loading them into the truck, and then driving back to Pasadena.
Near the end of the day, I remember we stopped off at a Wienerschnitzel's fast food joint for something to eat. After a busy day down in the rat-infested bowels of Universal's underground prop storage area, we were absolutely famished! People must have wondered what these idiots were doing with a truckload of artificial palm trees, treasure chests loaded with gold doubloons and shiny jewels, assorted pirate paraphernalia like black hats, peg-legs, beards, and stuffed parrots!
But then again, it was Hollywood, where weirdness is a fairly common occurrence!
Some great memories, for sure! I remember everyone joking and laughing with each other. One of the most unique days of my life - and honestly, Phil was one of those folks I really enjoyed doing something like this together with!