Herbie J Pilato was born October 9th to Herbie Pompeii and Frances
Mary Turri Pilato in Rochester, New York on Erie Street across from where
now stands the city's famous Frontier Field, home of the popular
Rochester Red Wings baseball team. An entertainment enthusiast his
entire life, Herbie J starting dancing to Chubby Checker's The Twist
when he was all but three years old and made his theatrical stage
debut at 6 playing Judas in an elementary school production of The Last
Supper (at Rochester's esteemed Peter and Paul's School).
From there Herbie J appeared in other school productions of You're A
Good Man, Charlie Brown (as Snoopy) and The Story of Santa Claus
(Rudolph). After graduating from Aquinas Insitute of Rochester, he
received a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Nazareth College of Pittsford, New
York, and studied in TV and Film at U.C.L.A.
Herbie J later returned to the stage with lead roles in productions
such as Leonard Melfi's Birdbath, Christopher Fry's A Phoenix Too
Frequent and Pfieffer's People, all of which were performed at the
Nazareth Arts Center in Pittsford. From 1984-1985, he served his
Internship in Television at NBC-TV in Burbank, California, and soon
acted on TV shows like Highway to Heaven, The Golden Girls, General
Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful.
In 1992, Dell Publishing released Herbie J's first publication, The
Bewitched Book, which was followed by The Kung Fu Book of Caine and The
Kung Fu Book of Wisdom (both published by Tuttle in the mid-90s),
Bewitched Forever (Tapestry Press, 2005), and The Bionic Book, Life
Story - The Book of Life Goes On, and NBC & ME: My Life As A Page In A
Book (all recently released by BearManor Media). Herbie J has also been
published in magazines like Sci-Fi Entertainment, Sci-Fi Universe,
Starlog, Retro Vision, Remember and Classic TV, while he served as the
website editor for PAXTV.com and MoviePlace.com.
Herbie J began serving as an on-screen cultural
commentator for TV documentaries such as A&E's Biography of Elizabeth
Montgomery and Lee Majors, as well as for Bewitched: The E! True
Hollywood Story (which became the 7th highest rated True Hollywood
Story in E!'s history). He then started working as a consultant and
producer on shows like David Carradine: The E! True Hollywood Story,
TLC's Behind the Fame specials (on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob
Newhart Show, L.A. Law, and Hill Street Blues), Bravo's hit five-part
series, The 100 Greatest TV Characters, the TV Guide Network's 100
Greatest Television Moments, and the Syfy Channel's short-lived but
highly-regarded Sciography series.
Herbie J has also served as a cultural commentator and
consulting producer for the DVD releases of Bewitched, Kung Fu, CHiPs
and the heralded five-season box set for The Six Million Dollar Man.
In 2010, he founded The Classic TV Preservation Group, a group that
seeks to close the gap between popular culture and education.
He also presides over Television, Ink. (a television and film
production company geared toward family-oriented projects), and
All-Creative Consultants (an entertainment/publishing consulting firm).
Some of Herbie J's other books include the newly-published Mary:
The Mary Tyler Moore Story (Jacobs Brown Press, 2019),
Twitch Upon A Star: The Bewitched Life and Career of Elizabeth
Montgomery which, based on his exclusive interviews with the iconic
actress, became the best-selling new title in Taylor Trade's history, and
The Essential Elizabeth Montgomery: A Guide To Her
Magical Performances (Taylor Trade, 2013).
Herbie J's upcoming new TV talk show, Then Again with Herbie J Pilato,
will focus on and feature classic TV shows and stars.
