Updated: February, 2015

Ritchie (Richie) Stern passed away in February, 2015.
Ritchie Stern was different man than who is (drummer) Richie (Reinhardt) Ramone. Tommy Ramone (RIP July 11, 2014) was last surviving founding member for the Ramones and years ago I asked from him truth of Ritchie Stern. Tommy tells pretty extensively of Stern on page 15 in my book Ramones: Soundtrack Of Our Lives (2009).

Here are some lines what Tommy told me.
Tommy Ramone: "Dee Dee was there from the beginning, and Dee Dee wanted to play guitar not bass; but Ritchie Stern could not play the bass so Dee Dee had to and then became the bass player. Ritchie gave up right away he never played with the Ramones at all. Ritchie was not capable of playing a musical instrument.", tells Tommy Ramone in Ramones: Soundtrack Of Our Lives (2009).


Johnny Ramone tells this in his book Commando: The Autobiography Of Johnny Ramone.
Johnny Ramone: "Tommy Ramone kept telling us that he would be our manager and producer, saying "Don't worry, I'll show you how to do this.. So we thought, "Okay, who else should be in the band?" We were friends with Joey and we knew he played drums, and we had another friend named Richie Stern who was into the Stooges, and Richie would do his Iggy imitations for us.
Dee Dee and I started the band practising in the living room of my Forest Hills apartment. Both of us were playing guitar, and we were going to teach Richie how to play bass. Joey would play drums, and Dee Dee was going to sing. But after a few days, we realized Richie just wasn't going to get it. He had no sense of timing or rhythm. I was still terrible, but getting better and better each day. I realized I wanted to be the only guitar player in the band, so we got rid of Richie and moved Dee Dee over to bass.", tells Johnny in his book.


Dee Dee tells in the Ramones: End Of The Century movie:
Dee Dee Ramone: "We had one friend, Ritchie Stern, and he was the leader of The Stooges fans. Through him, we would like hang out and sniff glue or smoke pot. And listen to our..., we had a live Stooges tape we would always play."