Brian Tochi

Caption	Tochi pic, 1993
Birthdate	May 02, 1963
Birthplace	Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Brian Keith Tochi (born May 2, 1963 in Los Angeles, California), better known as Brian Tochi, is an American actor, screenwriter, movie director and producer. He was widely recognized as the most popular Asian American child actor working in television during the late 1960s through much of the 1970s having appeared in various TV series and nearly 100 television commercials. He is best known for his more famous characters Takashi from the Revenge of the Nerds film franchise, as Cadet (later Officer) Elvis Nogata from the third and fourth films in the Police Academy film series, and as the voice of Leonardo in the first three live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie franchise.

Early life

Tochi was born Brian Keith Tochihara in Los Angeles, California, the son of Joe Isao Tochihara (a/k/a ‘Tochi’), a well known Beverly Hills celebrity hair salon owner, and Jane Yaeko (née Harada), both of Japanese American decent, and former detainees (along with thousands of other Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans) of Japanese American Internment camps during World War II. While Brian was still young, the family moved from Los Angeles to Orange County, California, where he divided his education between local public schools and studio tutors (for child actors) on movie studio lots. After graduation from high school, Tochi also attended USC, UCLA and UCI.

Career

Of Asian ancestry, Tochi frequently plays characters who are Japanese, Chinese, or of other Asiatic origin, adopting the appropriate accent as needed. (His primary language is English, and his offstage speech is "fluent American".) Early in his professional life, being one of the only Asian faces in television, many credit him with breaking the barriers and opening doors for Asians in entertainment, and advancing the perception that “Oriental” actors have the ability to portray more “mainstream” roles.

Brian’s introduction into the entertainment industry came as a toddler. His father’s beauty salon, Tochi Coiffure of Beverly Hills, was a popular haunt for many famous clients, including Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Petula Clark and Patty Duke. One of his father’s customers, a top child agent, spotted the young Tochi running around the salon, and quickly signed to represent him.

A beginning role for Tochi was a guest-starring appearance in the short-lived television series He & She (1967-68, with real-life married couple Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss) as their newly adopted son. Produced by Leonard Stern and co-written by Chris Hayward and Allan Burns, it also starred Jack Cassidy as an egomaniacal actor, Kenneth Mars and Hamilton Camp. That same year saw Tochi appearing in "And the Children Shall Lead", a classic third-season episode of . Other roles followed, including guest appearances on such popular shows as The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and Adam-12.

Tochi’s debut as a TV series regular was as Yul Brynner’s oldest son and heir, Crown Prince Chulalongkorn, in Anna and the King on CBS, it was based on the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I and also starred Samantha Eggar and Keye Luke. Although the series was short lived, Tochi and Brynner remained friends until his death in 1985. Concurrent with the series, Brian was cast with fellow actor Luke in his first animated television series The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, also in the series was a young Jodie Foster, who played his sister.

After both series ended, guest-starring roles followed, including The Streets of San Francisco with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas; and Kung Fu, with David Carradine, who made his directing debut on the episode, “The Demon God” (which was Brian's largest guest role of three Kung Fu episodes he appeared in). Tochi also played an undercover informant, and was ultimately beaten and killed in a gritty two-part episode of Police Story on NBC; and nearly died on the Robert Young medical drama Marcus Welby, M.D. until the show's heroic James Brolin and new best friend Vincent Van Patten came to his rescue.

During the mid-70’s, Tochi spent time in the theatre, this time reprising his role as Crown Prince Chulalongkorn in the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera’s revival of the musical The King and I at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. There he co-starred with the renowned Latin Lover, Ricardo Montalbán, as the King of Siam, to which they would later accompany the show as it went on tour. When the show ended its run, the two remained dear to one another, with Tochi and Montalbán rendezvousing regularly for lunch during the run of Fantasy Island.

Tochi returned to star in another TV series Space Academy (1977-1979) with veteran actor Jonathan Harris (best remembered as Dr. Smith from Lost in Space). This Academy brought together the world’s best young minds, and those with special skills, to learn and prepare for the unknown, as Earth people continued to branch out into space. His character, Tee Gar Soom, had super-strength and continued the martial arts traditions of his Asian ancestors. During hiatus of the show, Brian was asked to shoot a 20 minute promotional “behind-the-scenes” visit to the Space Academy for a popular daytime series, Razzmatazz, on CBS. It starred Barry Bostwick, who opted to leave the show for a career in features, to capitalize on his recently released cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Searching for a new host, the television network persuaded Tochi to accept their offer of his own daytime show, which aired on the network for 4 more years into the early 1980’s.

Other appearances include a guest stint on Wonder Woman, a recurring character in the tropically set Hawaii Five-O, starring actor Jack Lord, a 2 hour TV movie “We’re Fighting Back” (with Ellen Barkin and Stephen Lang), and regular television roles in the TV dramas St. Elsewhere and Santa Barbara. He later played featured characters in episodes of (making him one of only a handful of living actors to ever have appeared in the Original Star Trek series and a subsequent spin-off), and "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium," the ninth episode from the first season of the television series The New Twilight Zone. The episode is based on the short story "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", by William F. Wu, first published in Amazing Stories. This episode was stretched into a half-hour run time for syndication, as recently shown on the Chiller TV network.

In the short lived ABC TV series The Renegades, he starred with his friend, Patrick Swayze, as the martial arts expert and former gang leader known as Dragon. Then, exercising his journalistic prowess, Tochi later became part of the core team that created and developed the cutting edge educational news program Channel One News. During his two-and-a-half-year association, his responsibilities grew to include Hosting and Narrating duties, utilizing his talents as a writer, producer and segment director. He was later named Chief Foreign correspondent for the show.

Other Work

In 2004, Tochi co-wrote, produced and directed "Tales of a Fly on the Wall", a live action comedy casting several of his friends in lead roles, it included fellow actors Roscoe Lee Browne, Revenge of the Nerds co-star Curtis Armstrong and co-star Leslie Easterbrook. In 2005, he was one of the winners of the Hollywood Film Festival’s Hollywood Screenplay Awards, taking home top honors for co-writing the screenplay, “In the Heat of the Light.” He continues with his directing, producing, and screenwriting careers.

Voice Acting

As a voice actor, Tochi has provided voices for numerous animated films, computer games and animated cartoon series, including the Bionic Six (all 65 episodes), Challenge of the GoBots, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, What's New, Scooby-Doo?, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and (as its main star Liu Kang). He performed the voice of Leonardo in the first three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of movies in the early 1990s, he also is the voice of the Chinese soldier who runs the Great Wall in Disney's Mulan, and more recently had recurring roles in Batman Beyond, As Told by Ginger, Kim Possible, Johnny Bravo, Static Shock, Family Guy and on Nickelodeon.

Personal Life

For decades, Tochi has dedicated much of his time helping to facilitate and support humanitarian and charitable endeavors predominantly aimed at various children’s causes.

Like so many in the film industry, he had been a victim of a fraudulent investment fund manager. He spent years in court attempting to recover some of his losses.

He is a devoted environmental advocate, pursuing projects meant to benefit the needs of the planet and the world around us. He is diligently working toward solutions for third world countries to sustain and preserve life.

External links

Category:1963 births Category:Actors from California Category:American child actors Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American film producers Category:American screenwriters Category:American television actors Category:American television journalists Category:American voice actors Category:American film directors of Japanese descent Category:American actors of Japanese descent Category:Living people Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:American people of Japanese descent Category:American actors of Asian descent