James Tolkan, the character actor who expressed a disdain for “slackers” in the Back to the Future trilogy and portrayed Tom Cruise’s no-nonsense commanding officer in Top Gun, has died. He was 94.
Tolkan died Thursday in Saranac Lake, New York, Michael Klastorin, a unit publicist on the second and third Back to the Future films, announced.
Tolkan also played Napoleon and his look-alike in Woody Allen’s Love and Death (1975) and was the crooked accountant known as Numbers who works for Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino) in Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990).
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He appeared in three movies directed by Sidney Lumet: as a cop in the Pacino-starring Serpico (1973), as a determined D.A. in Prince of the City (1981) and as a judge in Family Business (1989).
On Broadway, Tolkan portrayed salesman Dave Moss in the original 1984-85 production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. (Ed Harris played
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