Thomas F. Wilson

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Thomas Francis Wilson, Jr. (born April 15, 1959 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American voice-over artist, character actor, and comedian. 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 experiences were 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.

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 it 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.