{"id":368600,"date":"2025-12-25T02:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T02:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368600\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T02:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T02:17:08","slug":"melora-hardin-recalls-she-burst-into-tears-after-back-to-the-future-dismissal-a-huge-disappointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368600\/","title":{"rendered":"Melora Hardin Recalls She \u201cBurst Into Tears\u201d After \u2018Back to the Future\u2019 Dismissal: \u201cA Huge Disappointment\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 40 years, Melora Hardin<\/a> doesn\u2019t need a time machine to remember how it felt being fired from Back to the Future<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following Micheal J. Fox<\/a>\u2018s account of her dismissal from the role of his romantic lead Jennifer Parker, the actress admitted she \u201cburst into tears\u201d when she was cut from the 1985 movie for being taller than Fox\u2019s Marty McFly.<\/p>\n

More from Deadline<\/p>\n

\u201cBack to the Future was a huge disappointment,\u201d she told Entertainment Weekly<\/a>. \u201cI was 17, you know. I burst into tears. It was very sad. There were quite a few of those that I remember, you know, things that never really got made. But that I remember being very tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hardin explained, \u201cTo be where I am, you have to have failed more than you\u2019ve succeeded. I think people don\u2019t realize that when they look at it from the outside \u2014 you have to really be somebody who\u2019s comfortable with failure, and with putting yourself on the line all the time. That failure doesn\u2019t mean anything about you. You just have to fail better, and keep failing better \u2026 to be able to really weather this career choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his recent memoir Future Boy, Fox explained that when he replaced leading man Eric Stoltz as the time-traveling teen, some felt co-star Hardin was suddenly too tall to play the character\u2019s girlfriend in the franchise\u2019s first installment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Noting that his height \u201cworked in my favor when I was a teenage actor playing a younger kid,\u201d Fox wrote that being short \u201cturned against me as an adult, when I went up for romantic leads opposite taller actresses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox continued, \u201cI regret that this prejudice inadvertently affected another cast member in Back to the Future \u2013 Melora Hardin, the talented actress who had played Marty\u2019s girlfriend, Jennifer, opposite the perfectly tall Eric Stoltz.<\/p>\n

\u201cMelora, several inches taller than me, was replaced in the movie after I took over as Marty,\u201d he added. \u201cInitially, Bob Zemeckis thought perhaps the audience could look past our height difference, but when he quickly surveyed the female members of the crew, they assured him that the tall pretty girl in high school rarely picks the cute short guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one asked for my opinion, but I would have risen to Melora\u2019s defense,\u201d added Fox.<\/p>\n

After Claudia Wells stepped in to play Jennifer in Robert Zemeckis\u2019 1985 time-travel comedy, Elisabeth Shue took over the role in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Part III (1990).<\/p>\n

Best of Deadline<\/p>\n

Sign up for Deadline’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 40 years, Melora Hardin doesn\u2019t need a time machine to remember how it felt being fired from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[121436,180919,88,121437,180918,22376,165295,180920,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-368600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-back-to-the-future","9":"tag-burst-into-tears","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-eric-stoltz","12":"tag-jennifer-parker","13":"tag-marty-mcfly","14":"tag-melora-hardin","15":"tag-micheal-j-fox","16":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}