Graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1984, he served in the U.S. Army as an air defense artillery officer, then became an entertainment reporter and film critic, including stints at News12 in Norwalk, Connecticut, the "New York Daily News", "Premiere", "Movieline", "Entertainment Weekly", "Los Angeles", and talk radio shows at KMPC and KABC, where his tactical on-air bets with Martin Landau, Mel Gibson and James Cameron that they would win the Oscar resulted in them having to pay up at the Academy Awards ceremony by publicly thanking him in their acceptance speeches.