Bronson Pinchot charmed audiences with his “Dance of Joy” on the beloved 1980s sitcom “Perfect Strangers” — but behind the scenes his life was filled with anything but euphoria.
The performer tells Page Six in a new interview that he was “very unhappy,” “hyper-sensitive” and “depressed” while playing the wacky comic character Balki Bartokomous on the classic sitcom.
Pinchot’s angst during the height of his success was made all the worse because he was in an unhappy relationship with someone who barely seemed to care for him.
“I would go home and my then girlfriend wouldn’t even look up from the TV,” he recounted. “I would go home from people screaming and police barricades and then I would go home and my girlfriend at the time wouldn’t even look up.
“I would crash and I would say how is it possible that they had to hold people back and I just want one person to … and I guess I’ll just have to wait for commercial. It was extreme, it was what it was.”
Sadly fear and shame kept him from seeking help.
“I clearly needed a therapist and I didn’t have one because I didn’t want to stir the pot,” he explained. “So when I was all done, I went to a psychotherapist and the guy said, ‘I cannot believe you even lasted this long. I’m shocked that you actually survived this long.’ By that time I was in my mid-30s.”
Pinchot, who was born in New York in 1959, calls the experience “very sad and very lonely. I was afraid, well maybe, accessing all that sadness makes me a better actor but I was wrong because I have a broader emotional range now than I ever had.”
The actor, who has never been married, admits that he did have hordes of women throwing themselves at him while the comedy hit was on top — but promises that he never took them up on their offers.
He said the worst of the would-be groupies were the ones who would get a “zany look in their eyes.”
“I didn’t like it and I didn’t fancy it,” he said. “It was very clear to me, there was a slight dilation in the eyes that meant you’re on my screen and so I must have you.”
He starred opposite Mark Linn-Baker on “Perfect Strangers” from 1986 to 1993. Featuring the story of Balki, an out-of-touch immigrant from the fictional island of “Mypos” living in Chicago with his uptight cousin, it was known for the recurring “Dance of Joy” gag and was nominated for three Emmy Awards, including one for Pinchot for Best Lead Actor in a Comedy.
Pinchot first became famous for a scene-stealing appearance in 1984’s “Beverly Hills Cop,” in which he played an art dealer named Serge. He remembers a friend telling him about a rave review in Newsweek magazine praising his less than two-minute scene, but being too poor to purchase a copy.
He read the review in a supermarket and was later almost run down by a group of excited teens who had just seen the film and recognized him. Other movie roles included “Risky Business,” “The First Wives Club” and “Courage Under Fire.”
In the late ’90s Pinchot began spending chunks of time in Hartford, Pennsylvania, restoring properties in the small rural town while indulging his serious passion for design and renovation.
He even starred in a home-makeover reality show called “The Bronson Pinchot Project” for the DYI Channel, which followed his quest to refurnish 19th-Century homes using salvaged materials.
The show ran for two seasons and was unceremoniously canceled when new management came in and told him, “The sponsors say your work is too beautiful and you’re too smart so they can’t sell peel and stick floors so we’re discontinuing it,” he said.
Pinchot, who is based in Los Angeles, has worked steadily, most recently appearing as the villainous George Hawthorne in the “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” but what he spends much of his time doing is recording audio books.
The Yale grad has voiced over 100 audiobooks and won a a slew of awards for his artful way of reading.
And he retains a healthy outlook on showbiz.
“Hollywood is like the foyer,” he explained. “The real building that you want to get into is storytelling and guiding people’s emotions. Hollywood is not that, Hollywood is the vestibule that you have to go through. It’s the glitzy part you have to go through.”