John Rainone

John Rainone is an actor, musician and wine connoisseur who has made his home in Dallas since attending Clown College (SMU) in 1972 from which he earned a BFA (Better Find Alternate) Degree. It was there that he met and performed with such notable classmates and later friends as Beth Henley, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Kathy Bates. He has performed in variety shows for Mark Wilson Magic in Hollywood, toured throughout the Midwest for a Chicago booking agency, and traveled nationwide for Paul Osborne Magic & Illusion in Dallas. He has appeared on stage at Theatre Three, The Dallas Theater Center, Stage # 1 (now defunct), The Shakespeare Festival of Dallas, Stage West, The Barn Theater in Connecticut, and the Lortell Theater in New York as well as films and commercials produced in Dallas. Some of the stage productions included leading roles in American Buffalo, Loose Ends, K-2, Waiting for Godot, Galileo, The Tempest, Getting Out, Season's Greetings, and a Kabuki version of Shakespeare entitled Shogun MacBeth. John has played sing-along piano bars including Alley Cats, Gator's, Billy Bob's Texas and West Side Stories, and served as musical director for several stage productions. He performs in a Marx Brothers tribute band - The Coconuts - as Chico, and a Rat Pack cover band called The Fratelli Brothers (the word "fratelli" in Italian means "brothers.") He can be seen as a visiting consultant with Corporate Comedy Works! (Four Out Of Five Doctors) an improv comedy troupe. From 1988 - 1991 he and his ex-partner/ex-wife appeared as Bonkers and Poppy the Clowns on a daily children's TV show: Club 27, on KDFI Channel 27. Other characters John has performed and/or created over the years include: Super Irv for Irving Mall, The Burger King for the restaurant chain of the same name, Mr. Mime for Seventeen Magazine, Captain Crud for The Ft Worth Dept. of Sanitation, and Mr. See It for Texas State Optical for which he was co-winner of a Bronze Quill Award for Excellence in Public Relations Programs. He has also been named Top Clown by the Dallas Times Herald in 1990, Entertainer of the Year by Alex Burton on KRLD, and voted "Best Birthday Party Clown" an unprecedented three times by Dallas Child Magazine Readers. He got back into film acting at the urge of his godson, Frank Mosley, who recruited his comedic chops for one of his student films at UTA. Mosley has called Rainone a good luck charm, and has since tried to put his favorite actor in every film he's made. John's very first paid performing job was playing piano at age 15 in a French restaurant in Ft. Worth for $12/night and all the onion soup he could eat. To this day he still likes onion soup.