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Brian Tochi

Brian Tochi has built the kind of wide-ranging screen career that can connect classic television, Saturday-morning adventure, live-action comedy and animation. Born in Los Angeles on May 2, 1963, he entered entertainment as a toddler after a child agent spotted him at his father’s Beverly Hills hair salon. His parents, Joe Isao Tochihara and Jane Yaeko Harada, were Japanese Americans who had been forcibly interned during World War II. Tochi’s early work placed him alongside some familiar television institutions. He appeared in He & She and the original Star Trek episode “And the Children Shall Lead,” followed by guest roles on The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and Adam-12. His first regular series role was Crown Prince Chulalongkorn in Anna and the King, opposite Yul Brynner. He later reprised the part onstage in a Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production of The King and I with Ricardo Montalbán. That early start developed into a career marked by versatility. Tochi starred as Tee Gar Soom in Space Academy and became the host of the CBS daytime program Razzmatazz. Further television work included Hawaii Five-O, St. Elsewhere, Santa Barbara, The Renegades and the title role in The Twilight Zone episode “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium.” His appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Night Terrors” also gave him roles in both the original series and a later spin-off. His voice work has been just as substantial. Tochi voiced Leonardo in the first three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films and Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm. His animation credits also include Bionic Six, Batman Beyond, Kim Possible, Static Shock, Family Guy and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Beyond acting, Tochi has worked as a journalist, host, writer, producer and director. He helped create and develop Channel One News, later serving as its chief foreign correspondent, and co-wrote, produced and directed the 2004 comedy Tales of a Fly on the Wall. It is a career shaped less by one fixed lane than by an ease in moving between performance, storytelling and production.