On being Biff

You know the face right? Sure, it looks a little older than when you first saw it. But still, your mind instantly knows exactly who it is. And why you recognize him.

Isn’t that right, butthead?

Along with Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort, Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates and Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch just to name a few, Tom Wilson is in the unique and rarified position of having been one of the screen’s most iconic villains, Biff Tannen, in the wildly successful Back To The Future series.

As Tom points out in his revealing new YouTube documentary, Humbly Super Famous, being Biff is both a blessing and a curse.

In the film, Tom takes us on his journey to getting cast in the role, which he initially didn't want, and how surprisingly close it was to his own experience growing up.

Not being the bully, but being the victim of bullying on almost a daily basis.

There are sweet moments in the film, like fans tearfully talking about how BTTF changed their lives, and how much the film means to them. There are also surreal moments as well, like when a hospital employee wants to talk about the movie and Tom’s role while his mom is in her last moments. It’s those encounters that leave you shaking your head.

Another story about how Tom, fresh off his second hip replacement surgery, has a fan encounter in a restaurant while he’s eating, and despite the excruciating pain of standing up, does it without complaint to accommodate the fan’s request.

In the film we also meet Tom’s beautiful family, his son and daughters. His wife Caroline appears, though only in photographs, and with a label covering her face that says “wife.”

Full disclosure: I know Tom. We met through our mutual friend Ned when he was shooting BTTF. And while I wouldn’t call us close friends, we’ve run into each other several times over the years at different events—bar mitzvahs, a wedding, another wedding, out by the Korean BBQ truck—and every time, Tom is a funny, giving, gregarious, inclusive and a joyful instigator of fun. My kids and my wife adore him. When they know Tom's going to be somewhere we are, they prepare themselves to have their sides hurt from laughing and ask me to drive there faster.

Even if I didn't know him, I'd tell you to do yourself a favor and watch Humbly Super Famous. You’ll see why Tom is really nothing like Biff.

Now go on, make like a tree and get out of here.

Your outside voice

I recently wrote a post that dealt with a kind of phone I thought had disappeared but hadn't. Today's post is about a phone I know has been vanishing for some time now.

That urban American cultural icon, and improvised Superman dressing room, the pay phone.

Not a surprise really. With the proliferation of cell phones, the pay phone and phone booth were on borrowed time.

I always felt there was a class system when it came to pay phones. There were the thick wooden phone booths, like the ones you can still find at Philippe's downtown, or Musso's in Hollywood. Then there were the metal ones, filled with graffiti and wreaking of urine, that you'd find on the corner of every gas station.

There are any number of movies where someone is on the pay phone, in a phone booth, at night, in the rain. The romance of those shots rarely matched the reality of trying to hold the receiver a few inches away from your face in case some of the nastier germs decided to make the leap.

Despite the inherent risk of using them, I miss pay phones. Not half-booth ones like above that got such a huge laugh in Superman II, but real ones.

When I'm at a place like the restaurants I named, I make it a point to call someone. I love the feeling of ducking into the booth, closing the door and shutting out the world.

Barring finding out I actually came from another planet, which many people I work with believe, the phone booth is probably as close to being Superman as I'm going to get.

The romance of the phone booth was also captured in the song Operator by Jim Croce. In it, he has a conversation with a pay phone operator, asking her to connect him to a lost love. It's a song I always loved, maybe because it reminds me of nights before cell phones, when I was on a pay phone trying to get back together with someone.

Or maybe I'm just a sap. It could be that too.