Robert Pastorelli

Robert Pastorelli was an American actor who came to the profession through the theater scene in New York City during the late 1970s, after training at the Actors Studio, and who made his stage debut in 1977 in Rebel Without a Cause. Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he went to Los Angeles in 1982 and spent his first years there in small television parts, settling into streetwise character roles and supporting turns in Outrageous Fortune (1987) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). His first substantial film role came in Dances with Wolves (1990), while his big television break was the house painter Eldin Bernecky on Murphy Brown, a part he played for seven seasons, from 1988 until 1994. Further credits included Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), Striking Distance (1993), Eraser (1996), Michael (1996) and Modern Vampires (1998), and his last screen appearance was in Be Cool (2005).