Herbie J Pilato was born October 9th to Herbie Pompeii and Frances 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. A 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 renown St. Peter and Paul's School).
From there he went on to appear in other school productions of
You're A Good Man, Charlie (playing
Snoopy),
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (as
Rudolph). And after graduating from Aquinas Insitute of Rochester, Herbie J received a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Nazareth College of Pittsford, New York, and became a Visiting Student in TV and film at U.C.L.A.
He went on to appear in lead roles for other stage productions, including Leonard Melfi's
Birdbath, Christopher Fry's
A Phoenix Too Frequent, and
Pfieffer's People. From 1984-1985, Herbie J served his Internship in Television at NBC-TV in Burbank, California, and went on to make appearances on TV shows like
Highway to Heaven,
The Golden Girls,
General Hospital and The
Bold and the Beautiful.
In 1992, Dell Publishing published Herbie J's first book,
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. His recent books include
Twitch Upon A Star: The Bewitched Life and Career of Elizabeth Montgomery,
The Essential Elizabeth Montgomery: A Guide To Her Magical Performances, and
Glamour, Gidgets and the Girl Next Door: Television's Iconic Women from the 50s, 60s and 70s, all three of which were published by Taylor Trade/Rowman & Littlefield.
Into this mix, Herbie J started appearing on TV documentaries, such as A&E
Biography of Elizabeth Montgomery and Lee Majors, as well as
Bewitched: The E! True Hollywood Story (which became the 7th highest rated
True Hollywood Story in E!'s history). He then started serving 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, and the TV Guide Network's
100 Greatest Television Moments, and the Syfy Channel's short-lived
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 Six Million Dollar Man., and presently serves as a Contributing Editor to Larry Brody's prestigious site, www.TVWriter.net.
In 2010, he founded The Classic TV Preservation Society, a nonprofit organization that seeks to close the gap between popular culture and education (which see
www.classictvps.blogspot.com), He is also the President & CEO Television, Ink. (a television, film and literary production company geared toward family-oriented projects (
www.televisionink.blogspot.com), and presides over the consulting firm, Pop-Culture Consultants (www.pop-cultureconsultants.blogspot.com).
