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Steven J. Klaszky
Biography:
Born on July 13, 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Frances and Rudolph Klaszky, Steve Klaszky (pronounced "CLASS-key") lives in southern New Jersey with his wife, Debi. His older brother, Michael, is a career educator. He has two grown children - Christian and Shanna; graduated in 1968 from Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill, NJ; earned a BA in Sociology in 1972 from St. Francis University, Loretto, PA; is a retired New Jersey State Police Trooper; has been a licensed Private Invest... more
Born on July 13, 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Frances and Rudolph Klaszky, Steve Klaszky (pronounced "CLASS-key") lives in southern New Jersey with his wife, Debi. His older brother, Michael, is a career educator. He has two grown children - Christian and Shanna; graduated in 1968 from Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill, NJ; earned a BA in Sociology in 1972 from St. Francis University, Loretto, PA; is a retired New Jersey State Police Trooper; has been a licensed Private Investigator since 1999; is a certified computer systems expert and repair technician; sold Amway products during the mid-1980's; and is an on-again, off-again professional photographer. He began his acting career in 2004.Steve spent the first 14 years of his 25 year police career working undercover in the New Jersey liquor industry. In 1985 he was involved in a major barroom brawl in Wildwood, NJ, during which his partner was seriously injured when he was hit on the head with a heavy whiskey bottle. "The bottle didn't shatter like prop bottles do in films. It opened a huge gash on Kurt's head and knocked him out cold. Can you believe it? The person who hit him was a 64 year old woman," he says. "She was very lucky that I didn't shoot her. She pretty much crapped herself when we locked her up. Paybacks are a bitch!" Later, he transferred to the computer crimes unit where he investigated serious computer crimes like child pornography and identity theft.Immediately after retiring Steve opened a small consulting firm named 'Computer Paramedic' which provided tech support to residential and small business clients. Computer Paramedic ended its run in 2005.Steve has been a musician since the age of 9, playing the accordion and later, the guitar. In high school he played rhythm guitar in The Pawns, a rock band which he says was pretty awful. "We played lots of wedding receptions and one member of the band would be completely drunk before our sound check was even completed. Then he'd piss off a member of the bridal party and they'd go fight it out between sets. We'd start the next set and someone would ask, 'Where's Gary?' and I'd say, 'Oh he's out in the parking lot having a fist fight with the groom. What's our first number?' We'd play most of the night without Gary, who usually got his ass kicked fairly early in the show." He recalls, "In retrospect, it was pretty funny. At the age of 16 I actually had to fire someone." In college Steve co-founded another rock band named "Quiet Country" which was "neither quiet, nor country", but was inspired by the Beatles, CSNY, Three Dog Night, Guess Who and other great vocal bands of the era. In 2004, after a lengthy hiatus from music performance, Steve returned to the stage as lead singer and rhythm guitarist in a classic rock tribute band called Anthem, which was "just too cantankerous for its own good." Anthem had a complete meltdown in 2005.Steve began his acting career in 2004 at the age of 54. He said, "I saw a film where this cop sits in a diner slugging down donuts and coffee and I thought, 'Wow, that's not all that different from police work. How do I get that job?'" After taking an acting class in Atlantic City, then landing a speaking role in his very first film audition, Steve was completely bitten by the acting bug.In September 2006 Steve was hired to represent the Dell Computer company on QVC-TV as an on-air computer expert. This role, he says, is a collision of his two major interests - acting and technology, and is a perfect fit for his background and expertise. "QVC is always live and completely unscripted, so you've gotta be pretty good with improv. Talking intelligently about computers really adds to the complexity of my appearance, especially at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. I really sucked at it initially." He adds: "It's a special skill to be able to talk to the camera lens as if it is a real person, and I really admire the QVC hosts who do it so effortlessly."In 2008 Steve played one of seven train conductors in The Happening (2008), directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Mark Wahlberg. "It was an amazing experience to work with a major film director and an actor of Mark's caliber. I considered it to be an acting lesson that they paid me to take. It doesn't get any better than that!" Steve commutes regularly to New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore to work in principal and supporting roles for both film and television projects whenever possible.
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