Character actor James Tolkan, best known for playing no-nonsense authority figures who chewed out Michael J. Fox and Tom Cruise, respectively, in Back to the Future and Top Gun, died Thursday at age 94.
Tolkan played Stanford S. Strickland, the stern principal of Hill Valley High, in Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II. He returned for Back to the Future Part III as Strickland’s ancestor James Strickland, the Marshal of Hill Valley in 1885.
In the 1985 original, Strickland famously went nose-to-nose with Fox’s Marty McFly after issuing him a detention slip and warning him to stay away from Doc Brown.





