Here is the biography:
Born in New Rochelle, New York, to Arthur and Barbara Scolari, he was raised in Scarsdale alongside an older sister and two younger brothers. His father, of Italian descent, played semi-professional baseball before becoming a lawyer, while his mother, a singer, worked with the Alcohol Rehabilitation arm of the Tidewater Psychiatric Institute in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
At the age of 13, Scolari started doing animation voice acting work and performed in plays while attending Edgemont High School in Scarsdale. At 16, he starred as Finch in a high school production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, realizing he wanted to be an actor professionally.
In 1972, he enrolled at Occidental College in Los Angeles as a theater arts major, but left a year later and returned to New York after his father's death. He joined the Colonnades Theater Lab, a repertory theater in Manhattan, working with actors such as Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Jeff Goldblum, and Michael O'Keefe. He appeared in multiple off-Broadway plays, met Finnish actor Paavo Tammim, who taught him to juggle, and studied mime and learned to ride a unicycle.
In 1974, he performed in a production of "Reflections," receiving a rave review from The New York Times. In 1979, he returned to Los Angeles.
