Starke attended Marquette University on the Liberace Foundation Scholarship for Performance, where he won a screen role playing quadriplegic teenager Dean Conroy in the CBS Movie of the Week, First Steps.
Starke's first feature film was Nothing in Common with Jackie Gleason and Tom Hanks, playing the part of Cameron.
While at Marquette, Starke worked with the Pabst Theater and the Wisconsin Shakespeare Company, appearing in a range of plays spanning classic, modern and musical.
[citation needed] In 1987, Starke played frat president and resident bully Russ in the movie 18 Again!.
Starke played Truman-Lodge in the James Bond film Licence to Kill in 1989, Chad Finletter in Return of the Killer Tomatoes in 1988, and a U.S. Embassy consultant in the 2007 NCIS episode "Designated Target".