I had an incredibly rewarding shooting this film in a cemetery in the Bronx for nine days. Yitz Brilliant wrote and directed it as his film thesis for Columbia University, and I played the lead role of Edgar. It’s a comedy with some wonderful twists and turns, and it debuted at the Palm Beach International Film Festival in April 2010, where it won the audience award for best short film. From there, it went on to win awards in Milan, Long Island and LA. You can watch it now on Vimeo. Through my career, I never really saw myself as a leading man, but as a character actor, and one of the major things that makes me really proud of The Cemetery Club is that I carried it — I was the lead and I was so believable that watching it, I don’t see myself. I just see Edgar. Not only is it a terrific script, but we had a group of fantastic actors who were absolutely wonderful to work with. Everything about it, the script, the actors — watching it, it’s something I can be proud of.
Bernard Rachelle began his professional career at George Hamids's Steel Pier in Atlantic City with his idol Johnny Ray, whom he impersonated. That summer he appeared on Ted Mack's amateur hour and made a subsequent appearance two years later.
In 1959 Bernard introduced rock and roll to Israel and appeared opposite Topol in the comedy feature film "I Like Mike".
Soap fans will recall his role as photographer/pornographer Stu Samuels opposite Sylvia Miles and Kim Delaney on "All My Children".
He is most proud of his work on Arthur Miller's "Incident at Vichy". The first New York City revival that Mr. Miller attended was in 1981. Years later Mr. Miller graced 4 staged readings with "Bernie", along with varying casts featuring Richard Dreyfuss, Fritz Weaver, Peter Weller, Austin Pendelton, F. Murray Abraham and Barry Primus.
While his film career spans 3 decades including "Fort Apache, The Bronx", "Rollover", "Blowout", "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "The Yards", in 2006 Bernard co-starred as Chaim opposite Denzel Washington and Clive Owen in Spike Lee's "Inside Man".
Recently, Bernard played the lead, Edgar, in the short film "The Cemetery Club", winner of the Palm Beach International Film Festival, and Schleimann in the Vlad Nikolic cult film "Zenith". In 2013 he appeared as Judge Glaser in the feature film "Rob the Mob." "Courier X," released in 2016, saw him play a diamond examiner.
On the small screen, Bernard currently appears in an Emblem Health Insurance commercial.
Bernard has written and will soon perform his one man show "Abe & Lillian's Bungalow Colony", a take-off on the Catskills Mountains, set in 1977.
Bernard is a proud member of ARTC - American Renaissance Theatre.
