Randall Berger

Biography

Randall Berger grew up in Santa Barbara, California, doing a lot of work with local theatre companies, namely Youth Theatre Productions (1967-72) and Alechama Productions (1972). In 1973, wunderlust got the better of him and he emigrated to Australia at age 19 (Best buddy actor Lance Strauss had emigrated with his family in 1971). Following the course set in his early teens, Randall went into professional theatre, namely music theatre in original Australian casts of Broadway and West End shows. He married in 1977 and settled in Melbourne, beginning a parallel career as a professisonal writer in radio, multimedia and advertising, as well as taking extras work and small roles in local TV productions. In 1983, the first film role of note was as a reporter in the film Phar Lap (1983). As a "portly" character actor and an American, roles were few and far between. While only doing a couple of roles a year, Randall still had the opportunity to share some celluloid with a lot of incredible people, notably James Coburn, Reb Brown, Anthony Hopkins, Ron Leibman, Heather Thomas, Joe Bottoms (an old Santa Barbara chum), Barry Bostwick, John Savage, Steven Berkoff, Art Malik, Noah Taylor, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Laura Brannigan, Peter Graves, Paul Hogan, Cuba Gooding Jr. and so on, not to mention the amazing range of directors and DOPs. The highest profile role is one of the most recent, as violinist Isaac Stern in the 1996 film Shine (1996).