For some families, becoming a Hollywood actor is just going into the family business. That was certainly the case for Chris Pine. The popular actor has starred in everything from Star Trek to Wonder Woman but he inherited his impressive skills in front of the camera from his parents, Robert Pine and Gwynne Gilford. Robert Pine has led an incredibly lengthy television career over the years in addition to appearing in countless films like The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, Independence Day, Red Eye, Gunpoint, and Small Town Saturday Night (opposite his son!).
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Robert Pine (originally called Granville Whitelaw Pine) was born in New York City but moved to Los Angeles in 1964. His first gig in the business was under contract with Universal Studios. "When I first started, I had no background at all in movies, television, or on the stage. My contract work was the first job I ever got, and that lasted three years," Pine explained to StarTrek.com.
As a result of his contract work, Pine learned to ride horses and was regularly featured in some of the most popular western TV shows of the time -- The Virginian, The Wild Wild West, Bonanza, The High Chaparral, The Guns of Will Sonnett, Pistols 'n' Petticoats, and Gunsmoke. He's led an incredibly impressive TV career and has appeared in over 400 episodes. Some of his notable appearances include playing Magnum's father in a flashback episode of Magnum, P.I., Charlie's Angels, playing the role of Stephen Logan on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, Murder, She Wrote, Grey's Anatomy, Six Feet Under, and Lost In Space. The man even played John F. Kennedy in the miniseries Hoover vs. The Kennedys.
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But perhaps the role that Pine will always be best known for, is playing Sgt. Joseph Getraer on the NBC television series, CHiPs. The popular series followed Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada as two California Highway Patrol motor officers. Pine starred as their fatherly but gruff supervisor in the series, which ran from 1977-1983, as well as the TV movie reunion which aired in 1998. His real-life wife, actress Gwynne Gilford, even appeared on the show as his wife in a few episodes. Initially, Pine really didn't think that the show was going to go anywhere he explained to Classic TV History.
"Rick Rosner, who created it, had seen a pilot I did called Incident on a Dark Street, which didn't sell. David Canary and another actor who was new at the time and I would have been the regulars. It was in 1974, I believe, and it was about the attorney general's office, and 1974 was the year that John Mitchell, the attorney general, was sent to jail or whatever because of Watergate. So they weren't buying anything about the attorney general's office. Too bad, because it was a good pilot.
Anyway, he had me in to read for the part, and I told my agent, "This isn't gonna go. There have been so many cop shows." And I said that to Rosner when he cast me in it, and he said, "This gonna go. This is gonna go." "Well, okay, man." Of course, he was right and it went, much to my surprise, for six years."
Funny enough, it also seems like appearing in Star Trek was part of the family business. Before Chris landed the lead role of James T. Kirk in the movie reboots, his father had already appeared in guest roles on Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Voyager. At this point, Pine is still actively appearing in TV shows though not as many as before. Chris is definitely the busy actor in the family.
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