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Dr. Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown was the inventor of the DeLorean time machine. He was born in 1920, in Hill Valley, California. A scientist by trade, Doc was a "student of all sciences" who spent much of his time inventing. He usually had a pet dog – in 1955, his dog was named Copernicus after Nicolaus Copernicus, the third in a line of pets named after famous scientists[1], and by 1985 his dog was named Einstein after Albert Einstein. Doc's role models were scientists, as evidenced by the names of his dogs and the portraits of Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein found in his laboratory (which were on his fireplace mantle in 1955).
Doc could be absent-minded at times, and was regarded by many of Hill Valley's townsfolk as strange or as a crazy mad scientist. As such, he had few friends (the only known friends were his dog, Marty McFly, and Marty's girlfriend Jennifer Parker). Because of this, Doc was often seen as a loner. However, Doc cared about the people he was close to. Doc did not believe in "love at first sight" until he ended up meeting his future wife Clara Clayton in 1885, since he did not see how such a feeling worked.
Doc often worked through the night on his inventions and could become obsessed with little things. He would always try to use a big word rather than a small one if one is available – for example, he refered to a dance as a "rhythmic ceremonial ritual". He also liked jazz music, Jules Verne and Westerns. Green was his favorite color, one that he found soothing.[2] Although he had a perchance to gamble, he would never use time travel for that reason. Doc did not usually drink alcoholic beverages, since he had a tendency to pass out after just one drink. He was allergic to all synthetic fabrics.
He cheated Libyan terrorists out of an unspecified amount of plutonium, and would have died as a result had Marty not intervened. He referred to the time machine as a time machine in public, leading Biff Tannen to use it without Doc's knowledge in an attempt to alter history. In 1985, he flew land-based vehicles with hover conversions during the daytime, with no consideration of the possibility of people seeing him.
Pre-1955
His mother was called Sarah Lathrop, which would explain his middle initial "L". Also she had a brother named Abraham and carried a rag doll she named Emma, suggesting she named her son after her doll. His mother's side of the family had lived in Hill Valley since around the 1880s, while his father's side of the family arrived in Hill Valley in 1908, when they were known as the Von Brauns – they changed their name to Brown during World War I. It has been speculated that the fictional Doc is supposed to be a relative of the real scientist Wernher von Braun. Doc's family was presumably from the German Empire or Austria-Hungary. According to the animated series, Doc had an uncle Oliver who lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and young Emmett would go to visit him in the summer.
Around 1931, at age 11, Doc discovered the works of his favorite author, Jules Verne. From that point, he decided to dedicate his life to science. A draft script suggests he got into science when he stuck his finger in an electrical socket. Around 1932, one year later, Doc tried digging to the center of the Earth, inspired by the 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. Robert Zemeckis, co-writer/director of the films, has suggested that during the early 1940s Doc worked on the Manhattan Project, though this is never mentioned on screen.
During the 1950s, Doc worked as a professor of physics at Hill Valley University[citation needed]. Interestingly, a first draft of the third film said that Doc once dated a woman named Jill Wooster, the Dean's daughter. From Doc we learn that she apparently liked Jules Verne and they both went to Pismo Beach. One day Dean Wooster and his cohorts Cooper and Mintz told him that he must participate in one of three projects: the Edsel car, chemical warfare, or Xerox (which Doc pronounced "X-rox"). Doc however had no interest in any of them and refused to do so. The Dean threatened that his relationship with his daughter would be damaged unless he cooperated with them. The next day, Jill tells him to do it for her, but Doc still refused. Then, Jill angrily walked out of his life, adding that she never liked Jules Verne. Heartbroken, Doc trashed all his photos of himself with Jill.
Doc's family had amassed a large fortune that Doc had inherited by the 1950s. It allowed him to finance his projects and afford his lavish mansion on Riverside Drive.
Birth of a time machine
On November 5, 1955, Doc came up with the idea of the flux capacitor (which is what made time travel possible) after slipping off his toilet while standing on it to hang a clock and bumping his head. Doc invented the brain-wave analyzer sometime before he created the flux capacitor, and tested it on Marty McFly the same day. The idea came to him in a vision he had after being knocked out. The time machine project suffered a setback on August 1, 1962 when Doc's mansion at 1640 Riverside Drive burnt down. After the fire, Doc moved into his former garage (which had been detached from the mansion and as such had survived the fire). There were rumors that he had deliberately burnt it down to claim the insurance money to fund the time machine. Whether or not that was the case, Doc still had to use up most of his family's fortune to fund the creation of his time machine. Doc moved to his garage and sold the rest of his estate to developers, but he was soon back on track. On May 23, 1983, he was commended and won an award for unspecified reasons.
Doc finally finished installing his time machine into a DeLorean sports car in 1985, using plutonium to power it, and was killed by a group of Libyan terrorists who had given it to him. In return they had wanted a nuclear weapon. Doc had made a fake (non-functioning) one out of used pinball machine parts.
Doc posing as Marty's uncle.
Fortunately, Marty, who had witnessed the first time travel experiment, was accidentally sent back to 1955, where he tried to warn the 1955 version of Doc about the terrorists. Over the course of the week, Doc posed at Marty's uncle and avoided any discussions with Marty about his own future. Just minutes before the Hill Valley Thunderstorm reached downtown on November 12, 1955, he came across the warning letter Marty had written him. Doc ripped it up just as lightning struck down a tree on top of the cable. After a race to reconnect the cable, Doc successfully sent Marty back to the future by harnessing the energy from a bolt of lightning as it struck the clocktower at 10:04pm. Sometime after these events, Doc decided to take the risk, taped together Marty's warning letter and discovered the truth about that night in 1985. When 1985 rolled around again, Doc wore a bulletproof vest for protection.
After dropping Marty home, Doc went 30 years into the future. While it is known that he visited October 2015, it is not known exactly how long or during which days he was there for. While there, he got an "all natural overhaul" to his body which added 30 or 40 years to his life, and made him look younger. He also got the DeLorean hover-converted, and installed a "Mr. Fusion". The Mr. Fusion reactor eliminated the need for plutonium, and allowed the time machine to operate off of ordinary household garbage. Afterwards, Doc returned to 1985 to pick up Marty (and Jennifer, who happened to be there) to take them to 2015.
Changing the future
Doc warns Marty about Griff Tannen.
Doc had discovered that Marty's son, Marty Jr, was to go to jail for committing a crime, an event which would end up destroying the McFly family. Doc devises a plan for Marty to pose as Marty Jr (since the father-son resemblance was uncanny), as well as to prevent the crime from occurring. Doc then discovered that Marty had bought a sports almanac to take back to 1985 with him. Doc lectured Marty about how he had not invented the time machine for financial gain. Unknown to Doc or Marty, Biff Tannen overheard the conversation and later stole the DeLorean and the Almanac while Doc and Marty were rescuing the Jennifer from 1985 from the future McFly family house.
Doc, Marty, & Jennifer arrived back in 1985 only to discover that history had been altered. Biff had taken the time machine back to 1955 and given the sports almanac to his younger self, who then became a millionaire by placing bets on the chronicled sporting events. As a result, Biff's wealth had led to a total alteration of Hill Valley to Biff's wishes and supposed alterations to the entire world's history (such as Richard Nixon still being in office and the Vietnam War still being fought in 1985). In this version of history, Doc has been committed to an insane asylum since 1983 (he was committed on the same day he won his award in the "proper" history). It is speculated that since Biff was warned by his older self upon delivery of the almanac that a "crazy, wild-eyed old scientist" would ask about it someday, Biff was the one who had Doc committed, but no concrete evidence is provided in the film. Biff also married Marty's mother Lorraine in a sham marriage after Biff killed Marty's father George McFly, of which Biff was never convicted due to corruption in Hill Valley's police force (where Biff literally "owned" the police due to his wealth and/or powerful influence).
Doc and Marty headed back to 1955 to correct the timeline, and while Marty tracked down Biff to get the almanac from him, Doc attempted to make repairs to the time circuits, which kept resetting the Destination Time setting to January 1, 1885. Their mission of stealing the almanac and setting history straight was accomplished. However this success was quickly followed by Doc, in the DeLorean, being sent back to 1885 when a bolt of lightning struck the DeLorean. Once in 1885, Doc set himself up as a blacksmith while trying to fix the DeLorean, but had to give up as suitable parts to repair the DeLorean's destroyed microchip would not be invented until 1947 (this matches the real-life date of the invention of the transistor.) He buried the DeLorean in the abandoned Delgado Mine on the outskirts of town and wrote a letter to Marty to be delivered just minutes after the DeLorean was struck by lightning. The letter was held by Western Union for the next 70 years, given to Marty in 1955.
It also appears that Doc has made other travels to different time periods before coming back for Marty in 1985 because he has a suitcase full of money for, as he calls it, all monetary possibilities.
In the Old West
Doc and Marty in the Old West hear someone in trouble.
Marty received the letter and ran to 1955 Doc, who had just sent the younger Marty back to the future. Marty and Doc uncovered the DeLorean and repaired it, but Marty discovered that in 1885, Doc would be murdered by Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen, ancestor of Biff. Marty headed back to September 2, 1885, the day after Doc wrote the letter and five days before Doc's death, to save his friend (Doc, strangely enough, is not aware of his impending death even when he had witnessed his own tombstone in a photograph in 1955).
Marty located Doc, and once again Doc had to make repairs to the time machine after it ran out of gas (hard to come by in 1885). While making a plan to use a train to push the DeLorean to 88 mph, Doc saved a woman, Clara Clayton, from falling over a ravine after a snake spooked her horses. The ravine was, in the proper timeline, called Clayton Ravine after Clara fell into it. They fell in love at first sight, much to the despair of Marty who saw Clara as a distraction. Doc and Clara danced at the town festival on September 5, where Marty managed to save Doc from being shot by Buford Tannen. Doc and Clara spent the rest of the night looking at the stars with her telescope and discovered that they both loved Jules Verne. They then had their first kiss that night.
Doc and Clara talk about Jules Verne under the stars.
Later, Doc realized he would have to leave Clara behind when he went back to the future with Marty on Monday. He said goodbye to her and told her the truth about where he came from. Naturally, she did not believe him and slapped him. Broken-hearted, Doc went to have a shot at the Palace Saloon, where Marty found him next morning (Monday) with the same shot. After drinking the shot, he immediately fell down drunk. Marty and Chester the bartender managed to revive Doc with an extremely spicy concoction called wake-up juice which included tabasco sauce, and afterwards Doc and Marty hijacked a train to use to push the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour. Clara reappeared, having seen everything and realized Doc was telling the truth, but nearly fell off the train. Doc managed to save her, with help from Marty's hoverboard (a piece of technology from 2015), but got left behind with Clara in 1885. Marty managed to get home, but the time machine was destroyed less than a minute after his arrival, meaning he could not go back to rescue Doc and Clara from the past.
Over the next 10 years, Doc and Clara married and had two sons, Jules and Verne, named after their favorite author. Doc also built a new time machine, this time using a steam locomotive. The Brown family took off to visit the future (to get the train hover converted) and then back to 1985 to visit Marty and Jennifer before heading off to times unknown. Doc's parting advice to them was "Your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one, both of you." Emmett Brown had come a long way from the time when he believed that "no man should know too much about his own destiny".
1990s
The Brown family eventually moved back to the 20th century and by 1991, Doc had set up the Institute of Future Technology. He also invented an 8-seater DeLorean, which came in handy after Biff stole the time machine again, and visitors to the Institute, sitting in one of these 8-seaters, had to help Doc chase Biff through time. (Back to the Future: The Ride)
Also by 1991, Doc, Clara, Jules and Verne lived in a farmhouse outside Hill Valley with Einstein. The family, along with Marty, traveled through time in both the Jules Verne train time machine and the new DeLorean (which from the outside looked identical to the old one, but was drastically different inside). (Back to the Future: The Animated Series)
Behind the scenes
Doc illustrating one of his more antic moments.
- Doc's first name Emmett comes from the word "time", spelled backwards and pronounced as syllables (em-it). His middle name Lathrop spelled backwards (without the h) spells "portal."
- The novelization states him to be 65 in 1985, although an episode of the animated series claims he was born in 1922.
- "Christopher Lloyd says that his model for creating the character was actually the conductor Leopold Stokowski, with the hair that way, and the big, broad gestures. Doc Brown walks around like he's conducting the orchestra of the world." - Bob Gale
- In addition Albert Einstein was an influence to the character.
- The exterior of Doc Brown's 1955 house at the beginning of the film is actually the Gamble House in Pasadena, California.
- The interior of Doc Brown's 1955 Mansion is the Blacker House. It was built by architects Charles Greene and Henry Greene; the same architects that built the Gamble House.
- Back to the Future: The Ride is now only at Universal Studios Japan. One half of the ride at Universal Studios Florida closed on September 10, 2006. The Universal Studios Florida version had a confirmed close on October 1, 2006 to make way for another attraction.
- See List of references to Back to the Future