James Stewart Tolkan (June 20, 1931 â March 26, 2026) was an American character actor. He was best known for portraying the strict high school viceâÂÂprincipal Mr. Strickland in Back to the Future (1985) and Back to the Future Part II (1989), and the character's ancestor, Marshal James Strickland, in Back to the Future Part III (1990). His other notable film credits included Serpico (1973), Love and Death (1975), Prince of the City (1981), Top Gun (1986), Masters of the Universe (1987), Viper (1988), Dick Tracy (1990), and Problem Child 2 (1991).
James Stewart Tolkan was born on June 20, 1931, in Calumet, Michigan, to Dale Nichols and Ralph M. Tolkan, a cattle dealer. He graduated from Amphitheater High School in Tucson, Arizona, in 1949, where he played on the football team. Tolkan attended Eastern Arizona College on a football scholarship before leaving to join the United States Navy during the Korean War, serving aboard the . He was discharged within a year due to a heart condition, and in 1956 he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama from the University of Iowa.
Tolkan made his film debut in The Three Sisters, an independently produced 1966 Actors Studio adaptation of Anton Chekov's play Three Sisters. The film featured an ensemble cast that included Geraldine Page, Sandy Dennis, Kim Stanley, Shelley Winters, Kevin McCarthy, Robert Loggia, and James Olson.
He was widely known for portraying the strict Hill Valley High School vice principal Gerald Strickland in Back to the Future (1985), in which the character derisively refers to Marty McFly, George McFly, and Biff Tannen as "slackers". Tolkan reprised the role in Back to the Future Part II (1989) appearing in a dystopian 1985 sequence in which unnamed gang members attack him; he again uses the term "slackers" as he returns fire. In Back to the Future Part III (1990), he played Chief Marshal James Strickland, the character's grandfather. He later voiced an unnamed Civil Defense Warden in a 1992 episode of the animated spin-off series.
Tolkan's other notable film roles included an FBI agent in WarGames (1983); Stinger, the commanding officer of 's Carrier Air Wing, in Top Gun (1986); Big Boy Caprice's accountant, Numbers, in Dick Tracy (1990); and Mr. Thorn in Problem Child 2 (1991). He appeared in Serpico (1973) as a policeman who falsely accuses the title character of a homosexual encounter in a men's room. In Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975), he played both Napoleon Bonaparte and a look-alike. He portrayed District Attorney Polito in Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City (1981), the union treasurer Lou Brackman in Armed and Dangerous (1986), and Detective Lubic in Masters of the Universe (1987). He also had a rare leading role as Colonel William Tansey in the action thriller Viper (1988).
On television, Tolkan made guest appearances on numerous series, including The Hat Squad, Naked City, Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, Miami Vice, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Wonder Years, Early Edition, and The Pretender. As a member of the repertory cast of Nero Wolfe (2001âÂÂ02), he played more than a dozen roles and directed two episodes.
Tolkan met his wife, Parmelee, while working on the 1971 offâÂÂBroadway play Pinkville, where she was employed as a prop girl, and they married later that year. He died on March 26, 2026, at his home in Lake Placid, New York, at the age of 94.