Bronson Pinchot

Pinchot was born in New York City and bears the name of a 19th-century social reformer. His mother, Rosina (née Asta) was an Italian American and a typist, and his father, Henry (originally Poncharavsky) was of Russian descent and a bookbinder, who was born in New York and raised in Paris.[3][4][5] His younger brother Justin is also an actor. Pinchot was raised in Southern California where he graduated from South Pasadena High School at the top of his class and was appointed valedictorian. He earned a full scholarship to Yale University where he studied fine art in Morse College, graduating magna cum laude. After he was cast in a college play a casting director discovered him, which led to his film debut, Risky Business.

In the 1970s, Pinchot often organized Winkie (west) conventions of The International Wizard of Oz Club.

In 1999 Pinchot spent a great deal of time in Harford, Pennsylvania, restoring the circa 1839 mansion built by Joab Tyler, father of the historian William Seymour Tyler. The house had later been inhabited by former Pennsylvania state Senator Edward E. Jones.[6] Pinchot purchased six properties in the small rural town of 1,300 residents[7] "in an effort to revive the town's 19th-century aesthetic." In 2015 he filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, claiming liabilities between $100,000 and $500,000.[8] All of his properties in Harford were subsequently put up for sale.[9] Bronson told The Citizen's Voice, "I have two skills: I can make old houses beautiful and I can make people laugh. Other than that I'm a waste of space. Well, I'm a dedicated son and brother but I have no head for businesses." [10]

Pinchot at the 39th Primetime Emmy Awards, 1987

Pinchot appeared in several feature films, such as Risky Business, Beverly Hills Cop, The First Wives Club, True Romance, Courage Under Fire and It's My Party. He also played Dennis Kemper in the short-lived NBC sitcom Sara.[11] Pinchot was hired to replace Fisher Stevens as Ben Jabituya in the 1986 film Short Circuit, but Pinchot eventually left the production in order to begin work on Perfect Strangers, and Stevens was subsequently rehired for the role.[12]

Starting in 1986, Pinchot played Balki Bartokomous on the long-running ABC sitcom Perfect Strangers. When the show concluded filming its eight-season run in September 1992 (with the condensed final season airing during the summer of 1993), Pinchot immediately secured the starring role on a new sitcom for CBS, entitled The Trouble with Larry. The series premiered just three weeks after ABC's Perfect Strangers finale in August 1993, and one episode (which never aired) was directed by Mark Linn-Baker, Pinchot's co-star on Strangers. After three weeks of dismal ratings and poor reviews, The Trouble with Larry was canceled. Pinchot would subsequently get rehired by Perfect Strangers producers Tom Miller and Bob Boyett for roles on two more of their sitcoms: Step By Step, where he played French hairdresser Jean-Luc Rieupeyroux in early 1997, and, that fall, on Meego, where he played an alien who crash-landed on Earth and took up residence with an American family.

In 2008, Pinchot read for the audio version of The Learners, author Chip Kidd's followup to The Cheese Monkeys. He also voiced Max, the fully restored Black 1964 VW Beetle, in the 2009 Volkswagen "Das Auto" campaign.[13] Between 2009 and 2014, Pinchot narrated over 100 audiobooks, for which he won a number of awards.[14] In 2010, Pinchot read the audio version of the novels Matterhorn and Blood Oath. For the Blackstone Audio collection Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories, he provided a reading of several stories, including Highsmith's novel Strangers on a Train. Pinchot recently narrated for Christopher Healy's children's series, The Hero's Guide. He was chosen by Audible.com as their 2010 Narrator of the Year.[15] On February 12, 2012, Pinchot starred in a home restoration show on DIY Network titled The Bronson Pinchot Project. The program is based on his hobby of restoring old homes using salvaged materials.[16]

On March 8, 2018, it was announced that Pinchot would play George Hawthorne, the villainous, puritanical principal of Baxter High, who regularly clashes with Sabrina Spellman and her friends in the Netflix series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.[17] The series premiered in October 2018.[18]

• Bronson Pinchot at IMDb
• Bronson Pinchot at AllMovie