Thomas F. Wilson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Francis Wilson, Jr. (born April 15, 1959 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American character actor, comedian, musician, painter, and voice-over artist. He studied international politics at Arizona State University.
While attending Radnor High School, he was involved in dramatic arts, president of the debate team, and tuba player in the high school band. Wilson's first 'real' stage experience was as a standup comedian while studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He is a contributor to the Bob and Tom Show and is part of their comedy tour.
His breakthrough role was as a bully named Biff Tannen in the movie Back to the Future (1985). Wilson's talents as a comedian and an actor combined to make Biff a character people loved to hate. When Back to the Future became a trilogy, he was naturally asked to perform in these sequels again as Biff's grandson Griff and Biff's great-grandfather Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen. He reprised his role as Biff and voiced various Tannen relatives in the franchise's animated series.
In 1992 he voiced gangster Tony Zucco in the critically acclaimed Batman: the animated series .He later went to co-star in a CD-ROM computer game with Mark Hamill titled: Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994). It was the third chapter in the Wing Commander series and was extremely popular at the time. The game character played by Wilson is Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall, a fellow starfighter pilot of Hamill's character. Much like Biff from Back to the Future "Maniac" Marshall shares a very common unpopularity. Wilson also starred in the following Wing Commander games Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1996), which was even hailed more than its predecessor and is considered by some to be a classic computer game, and Wing Commander: Prophecy (1997). Wilson played McKinley High School's Coach Ben Fredricks in the 1999-2000 NBC dramedy Freaks and Geeks; Fredricks dated Bill Haverchuck's mother.
In 2003, Wilson appeared on the screen in a mockumentary movie called Trial and Error: The Making of Sequestered.
Wilson has often lent his voice to animated productions such as Batman: The Animated Series (1993), The New Batman Adventures (1998), Disney's Atlantis: Milo's Return (2003), and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004). As well as the animated roles, he has continued to voice characters in computer and video games. His latest roles are supporting characters in the film Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector and on the TV drama Ghost Whisperer.
In 2005, Wilson released his comedy album entitled Tom Wilson Is Funny!
Wilson has transitioned into a career as a comic and musician and has recorded a song called "Biff's Question Song".
Wilson is also an accomplished painter. In 2006, he was selected to join the California Featured Artist Series at Disneyland.
Although Wilson is currently heard on SpongeBob SquarePants, some people think that his voice is lent to Kosh in an animated television series The Land Before Time, which is based on The Land Before Time films, but realized that Pete Sepenuk actually provides Kosh's voice.
