Bert Hinchman (1946–2020): The Character Actor Who Brought the Hinchman Name to Hollywood

Character actors are the invisible backbone of American film and television — the men and women who appear in episode after episode of beloved shows, playing landlords, security guards, detectives, and mayors, whose faces are familiar even when their names are not. Bert Hinchman (March 22, 1946 – May 16, 2020) was one of those actors, a working professional whose career in Hollywood spanned more than three decades and whose credits include some of the most iconic productions of his era.

Born in Murphysboro, Illinois — a small city in the southern part of the state, in the heart of the Illinois coal country that borders Kentucky and Missouri — Bert Hinchman eventually made his way to Hollywood, where he built a steady career as a character actor working primarily in television.

A Career in Television

Bert's acting credits span from the late 1970s through the early 2010s, encompassing an extraordinary range of television programs that defined multiple eras of American entertainment:

• B.J. and the Bear (1981, 2 episodes) — the popular NBC trucking adventure series
• The Greatest American Hero (1981–1983, 3 episodes) — playing a Security Guard, Guard, and Bus Driver in the acclaimed superhero series
• Hill Street Blues (1981) — one of the most critically acclaimed dramas in television history, winner of multiple Emmy Awards
• Stingray (1978) — his best-known role, as Tony
• Stewardess School (1986)
• Dragnet (1987) — the theatrical film reboot starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks, playing a Night Watchman
• Freddy's Nightmares (1989) — the Nightmare on Elm Street television anthology
• Matlock (1989) — the long-running Andy Griffith legal drama
• 976-EVIL (1988) — the horror film directed by Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger himself)
• The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery (1995) — the acclaimed Sierra On-Line video game, playing Mayor Ernest Habermas
• Eagleheart (2012) — the Adult Swim comedy series

The breadth of his credits — from network crime dramas to horror films to video games — reflects the adaptability of a working character actor who brought professionalism and craft to every role, however large or small.

A Hinchman on Screen

Character actors like Bert Hinchman rarely receive the historical attention that leading men and women do, yet they are essential to the texture of the films and television shows that define our cultural memory. When you watch Dragnet (1987) or Hill Street Blues — works that still hold up as accomplished pieces of American storytelling — Bert Hinchman is there, doing his part.

He died on May 16, 2020, in Murphysboro, Illinois — the same city where he was born 74 years earlier. He carried the Hinchman name into a medium that his ancestors could never have imagined: the moving image, the screen, the world of mass entertainment. Like so many Hinchmans before and after him, he showed up, did the work, and made the name mean something.