Richard Bischoff

Richard Bischoff was born in Cambridge, MA, raised in Canton, MA, where he caught the acting bug playing the dreidel in his elementary school's Christmas/Hanukka show, back when public schools could do that sort of thing, and before other religions and ethnic groups existed in the suburbs. This was an auspicious acting debut for a Catholic kid with Irish-German heritage. After graduating Canton High School, he attended Emerson College in Boston and majored in Mass Communications/Film with a minor in Communications Studies. Did he study acting there? No...he acted for fun in student TV productions, did radio DJ'ing and news, played hockey, and wrote stuff. After Emerson, he worked in TV production on news and corporate gigs. He ran cameras, tape decks, audio, helped with lighting, and got a great education in how a set works behind the camera. He then went into the corporate marketing world, and worked for a financial software company as a marketing writer. He knew nothing about financial software, wrote stuff, and worked with great creative people. When the company had a conference in San Francisco, he was selected as the main writer, probably since so many people were about to be laid off due to a merger. But...he got to go to San Francisco, stay at the St. Francis Hotel for free, and check the place out and write stuff. Six months later, he moved from Boston to San Francisco for a high-tech PR job. Thirty minutes into his first day of work, he realized that he was going to suck at corporate PR. But...he learned how to work phones, deal with stubborn journalists, and he wrote stuff. But, layoffs were coming, and besides, he'd started to study acting with Dennis Sakamoto at Stage One Theatre Company. When the layoff notice arrived, he made the mature, adult decision to dive into the acting world. This happened at a great time, as Stage One was starting to produce numerous shows in the style of "Off-Off Broadway." Bischoff appeared numerous shows, and directed a couple of one-act plays, and generally had the time of his life. He was also broke a lot, and at one point basically commuted to and fro around the Bay Area on a Honda CM400E, and didn't die. He also had more than his share of starving actor gigs: just a few months after being laid off from his big-time, high-tech PR gig, he worked as a clown in Union Square, San Francisco; he also worked as a temp worker, substitute teacher, and autism resource specialist in various schools in San Francisco School System (where he worked with great teachers, great kids, was never stabbed, and never lost a single kid. His time working phones as a PR guy was very helpful as he began the search for a talent agent during a recession. An agent was gotten, auditions started to happen, and one fine day, he was cast in a Sears Commercial that paid actual residuals for over three years! During this time, he also worked as a features writer for Film/Tape World Magazine in San Francisco, and started a website writing and design company. Hey, every actor needs a day job. Early in his acting career, he found himself being cast as the "young father/businessman" type. Now he finds himself auditioning for parts as the middle-aged businessman, father of teenagers (in real life, he's the father of a teenager), and pretty much anything that requires a middle-aged guy with gray hair. Unlike other middle-aged actors, he's chosen not to dye his hair, since, as the father of a teenage daughter, he's earned every single one of those damned gray hairs. But, there's some hair color in his "actor's tool box" just in case. Bischoff cut his teeth in feature films as Tom Arnold's lighting double on "Nine Months, Sean Connery's lighting double on " The Rock," Clancy Brown's lighting double on "Flubber," and also worked on "The Rainmaker." In doing so, he worked with other amazing talents such as Robin Williams, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, Ted Levine, Joan Cusack, Julianne Moore, Danny DeVito, Matt Damon, and Frances Ford Coppola, and Will Smith, and learned some valuable lessons, such as: being on time means being early, a good attitude goes a long way, and being nice gets you more respect than being a stiff. Some folks in the industry tend to think that working as a lighting double is somewhat less prestigious than working as, say, a day player on a feature. For Bischoff, it was the opportunity to be paid to attend master classes in film acting. How many people can say they were paid to watch Sean Connery act? It was after working on "The Rock," that Bischoff was cast in "America's Most Wanted" as a really bad financial guy who was probably the Bernie Maddoff of Marin County. Bischoff's portrayal was so good that Bickerstaff turned himself in before the film was developed. So, no TV exposure, no residuals. But it was three days of paid, professional acting work, and that is pretty damned cool. Bischoff has also appeared in "The Pursuit of Happiness," has worked as a perverted reverend in the independent film "American Rebels," and was a drug-addled fake zombie in "Life Coach," at AddictionBrainStory.org. Bischoff is married to the amazing Yuko-Suzuki Bischoff, is the always-amazed father of the very talented Mari-Frances. Like a lot of actors, he's spent time behind a bar; in his case, slinging wine at a Northern California winery, and working with his wife's wine & spirits import, export and marketing company. In this capacity, he gets to travel regularly to Japan & Hong Kong where he gets to talk about wine, whisky, sake, and other adult beverages, meet really nice people, and eat really good food. He is a Certified Sake Professional, a Wine & Spirits (WSET) L3 Sake Specialist Candidate, and has a Level 2 WSET Certification in Wine & Sprits.