Before Tom Wilson's life started running at 88 mph, he was an asthmatic tuba player, bullied by classmates ("I was George McFly in school," he told Orange County Register in 1989) and aspiring to follow in his father's footsteps as a lawyer. To polish up on public speaking, the Philly area teen joined the debate team, and since his adviser was also a drama teacher it led him to the stage. After a disillusioned year at Arizona State University, he left school to follow his new passion. Professional theater training in New York was followed by a leap to Hollywood, where his first gig was being overly excited about KFC's new biscuits.
Actual acting jobs were hard to come by, but density (um, destiny) came calling after seven or so auditions for the role of Biff in "Back to the Future." During his final callback, he lost his cool, channeled the people that bullied him, and dragged and tossed Crispin Glover all over the room in front of the judging eyes of Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. He thought he blew it, but he got the role.
Meatier action and endless make-up came calling for Wilson in "Back to the Future Part II," playing 1955 Biff, the voice of Biff's grandmother Gertrude, Biff's future grandson Griff, crotchety old man Biff, and super bad alternate universe Biff (writer Bob Gale said he was modeled after Donald Trump, but Wilson said his performance was not). It was the third time's a charm for "Part III," Wilson's favorite as he said in 2015, "because who doesn't want to come into a saloon with those doors, and just because you walk in like everyone just falls silent, chairs and tables clear out, just because you're standing there, that's pretty cool. So I had a lot of fun with that."
For the record, Wilson doesn't "even fit in a Delorean," nor does he care that the Cubs won the World Series as the films predicted.
