Bronson Pinchot

American actorTemplate:SHORTDESC:American actor[[Category:**Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Pagetype/config' not found.**s with short description]]
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**Bronson Alcott Pinchot** (born May 20, 1959) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Balki Bartokomous on the ABC sitcom *Perfect Strangers* (1986–93). He also performed in films, such as *Risky Business* (1983), *Beverly Hills Cop* (1984), *True Romance* (1993), *Beverly Hills Cop III* (1994), *Stephen King's The Langoliers* (1995), *It's My Party* (1996), *Courage Under Fire* (1996) and *The First Wives Club* (1996), as well as on television series, such as *Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman* and *Chilling Adventures of Sabrina*. In 2012, he starred in his own reality series, *The Bronson Pinchot Project* on the DIY Network.

Pinchot has worked extensively as an audiobook narrator, with over 100 recordings as of 2014. *AudioFile* magazine recognized him as Best Voice in Fiction & Classics for his 2010 renderings of Flannery O'Connor's *Everything That Rises Must Converge* (1965), Karl Marlantes's *Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War* (2009) and David Vann's *Caribou Island* (2011).

## Personal life

Pinchot was born in New York CityTemplate:Citation needed 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. His younger brother Justin is also an actor.Template:Citation needed Pinchot was raised in Southern California where he graduated from South Pasadena High School at the top of his class and was appointed valedictorian.Template:Citation needed He earned a full scholarship to Yale University where he studied fine art in Morse College, graduating *magna cum laude*.Template:Citation needed After he was cast in a college play a casting director discovered him, which led to his film debut, *Risky Business*.Template:Citation needed

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

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. Pinchot purchased six properties in the small rural town of 1,300 residents "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. All of his properties in Harford were subsequently put up for sale. 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."

## Career

 File:Bronson Pinchot at the 39th Emmy Awards cropped.jpg  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*. 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.

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. Between 2009 and 2014, Pinchot narrated over 100 audiobooks, for which he won a number of awards. 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. 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.

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*. The series premiered in October 2018.

## References

1. ↑ Jeff VanderMeer (2014). This Is the Best 5,453-Word Interview With Bronson Pinchot About Audiobooks You Will Ever Read, 22 July 2015; URL accessed 13 November 2015
2. ↑ "Narrator Profile: Bronson Pinchot". *audiofilemagazine.com*. http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/gvpages/A2558.shtml.
3. ↑ Brewster, Ted. "Harford's Bronson Pinchot", *Susquehanna County Transcript*.
4. ↑ "Perfect Strangers". http://www.perfectstrangers.tv/usmagazine090886.htm.
5. ↑ Endelman, Michael. "We admit it: We love Bronson Pinchot".
6. ↑ Brewster, Ted. "A Harford Work in Progress", *Susquehanna County Transcript*.
7. ↑ "Harford, Pennsylvania PA, township profile (Susquehanna County)". ePodunk. http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=60770.
8. ↑ Falchek, David (April 30, 2015). "Bankruptcy halts Bronson Pinchot property sale", *The Times-Tribune*.
9. ↑ Lepard, Clay (February 18, 2016). "Bronson Pinchot's Harford Mansion Up For Sale", *WNEP.com*.
10. ↑ Falchek, David (August 24, 2014). "Debts mounting, Bronson Pinchot can't be found", *The Citizen's Voice*.
11. ↑ The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946–Present, Eighth Edition, Ballantine Books, Template:ISBN
12. ↑ Rabin, Nathan (2009-08-19). "Fisher Stevens", *A.V. Club*.
13. ↑ Howard, Theresa (April 18, 2008). "Ad Track: Introducing Max the Love Bug", *USA Today*.
14. ↑ VanderMeer, Jeff (July 22, 2014). "This Is the Best 5,453-Word Interview With Bronson Pinchot About Audiobooks You Will Ever Read". *Vulture*. https://www.vulture.com/2014/07/bronson-pinchot-jeff-vandermeer-audiobooks-transcript.html.
15. ↑ "Audible's Narrator of the Year". Bronson Pinchot. http://bronsonpinchot.org/?p=336.
16. ↑ ""The Bronson Pinchot Project" shows actor's renovation talents to DIY Network audience". *channelguidemag.com*. http://www.channelguidemagblog.com/index.php/2012/02/09/the-bronson-pinchot-project-shows-actors-renovation-talents-to-diy-network-audience/.
17. ↑ Petski, Denise (9 March 2018). "Bronson Pinchot Joins Netflix's Sabrina Series As Recurring". https://deadline.com/2018/03/bronson-pinchot-netflix-sabrina-series-recurring-1202320876/.
18. ↑ Lutes, Alicia (October 26, 2018). "Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Season 1 Review". *IGN*. https://au.ign.com/articles/2018/10/26/netflixs-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina-season-1-review.

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