{"id":569324,"date":"2026-03-28T05:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T05:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/569324\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T05:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T05:18:10","slug":"back-to-the-future-star-james-tolkan-dead-at-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/569324\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Back to the Future&#8217; Star James Tolkan Dead at 94"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/people\/james-tolkan\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Tolkan<\/a>, the actor best known for his work in the &#8220;Back to the Future&#8221; trilogy, has died, TMZ can confirm.<\/p>\n<p>Bob Gale, who, along with director Robert Zemeckis, created the franchise, tells TMZ &#8230; Tolkan died Friday, peacefully at his Lake Placid home. His cause of death was not revealed.<\/p>\n<p>                  <a class=\"js-click-image js-track-link image-lightbox-preview\" data-node-ref=\"tmz:image-asset:image_jpg_20260327_00c802d8046e4f56b4b07290ee7ca031\" data-container-ref=\"tmz:article:7154fbb5-79d1-49b8-bf78-301f575372c2\" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p>                          <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/00c802d8046e4f56b4b07290ee7ca031_md.jpg\" alt=\"JAMES TOLKAN, MICHAEL J. FOX, CLAUDIA WELLS, BACK TO THE FUTURE, 1985 alamy\" width=\"728\" height=\"546\" class=\"img-fluid image-block__img-fluid img-aspect-auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>The beloved hard-nosed character actor appeared in several classic &#8217;80s films, such as &#8220;Top Gun&#8221; and &#8220;War Games&#8221; &#8230; but he was best known as Vice Principal Strickland\u00a0in the &#8216;BTTF&#8217; films, always giving Marty McFly a hard time about being a slacker.<\/p>\n<p>His agent, John Alcantar, tells TMZ &#8230; James loved the &#8216;BTTF&#8217; fandom and got a kick out of being at conventions. Despite playing hard-asses on screen &#8230; Tolkan was a total sweetheart of a man.<\/p>\n<p>He is survived by his wife, Parmelee.<\/p>\n<p>Tolkan was 94.<\/p>\n<p>RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Tolkan, the actor best known for his work in the &#8220;Back to the Future&#8221; trilogy, has died,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":["post-569324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}