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Jeffrey Weissman portrayed George McFly in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III, after Crispin Glover refused to return reportedly due to salary disputes.
Biography[]
Born on October 2, 1958, Weissman first worked for Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale in their film I Wanna Hold Your Hand, where he appeared, without on-screen credit, as a fan of Ringo Starr in the riot scene outside the Beatles' NYC hotel.
Bearing little resemblance to Crispin Glover, Weissman received heavy makeup and facial prosthetics in order to portray George McFly, then was filmed hanging upside-down in an anti-gravity Ortho-lev in the McFly residence in 2015. He also was required to recreate the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance and fight with Biff in the Hill Valley High School parking lot scenes, from the first Back to the Future.
Weissman played George D. McFly ages 17 & 77 in Back to the Future part 2, and George age 47 in Back to the Future part 3. He endured hanging upside down for the scenes in the McFly 2015 household for over a week, with some days going 19, 21 and up to 26 hour long shoot days.
Originally Weissman was told that he was to be Glover's 'stand in/photo double, and when Weissman learned that Crispin was not returning to reprise the role, and that Jeffrey was going to play George, he couldn't imagine how production was going to do it. He figured that Crispin, (who he worked with in 1983 on another film at AFI), had a conflict with the Back to the Future shooting schedule, and thus couldn't do the film.
As the shoot went on, Weissman learned the reasons why Mr Glover didn't reprise the role, that he demanded a million dollars and script approval. And learned that Mr Glover's behavior was problematic and unprofessional during the first film shoot.
The Paradox script has several versions of these scene because production didn't know if they had a George McFly. Weissman notes that in one version, Marty is hanging upside down in the ortho-lev. The writers & director 'The Bobs' maintain that they needed Crispin Glover to hit his marks for camera, which he often under or over hit during production of the first Back to the Future film, and to keep him on his marks, they wrote in the ortho-lev device, which they could control his movements. During production, a crew member told Mr Weissman that al the hanging upside down torture was meant for Crispin. During the shoot, Steven Spielberg came up to Mr weissman and said, "So Crippin, I see your got your million dollars after all." Weissman was required to wear prosthetic makeups that were based on Glover's lifemask, and when he learned that Crispin didn't give his permission, nor had the studio licensed his likeness for use in his makeups, Weissman was not happy. Jeffrey was required to imitate Glover's voice as well in portraying George. However, he was not well received by the cast - the first time Michael J. Fox saw him in the make-up of young George, he had commented: "Crispin isn't going to like this." He recalled hearing from Billy Zane that Lea Thompson had grown to be quite fond of Glover and thus felt uncomfortable at the thought of having to kiss him in the prosthetics, and didn't bother to learn his name — referring to him as "the guy playing Crispin" to her Mother when meeting Mr Weissman at Universal Studios Tour.[1][2] Subsequently, Glover filed a lawsuit against Universal for unauthorized use of his likeness, as well as their having reused footage of him from Back to the Future without either his permission or his receiving any payment. A settlement resulted in a change in the rules of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) to prohibit its members from unauthorized mimicking of other SAG members.
Weissman recalled that after Glover contacted him when he was filing a lawsuit against Universal, much of their conversation was used as a fuel and as a result, he was blacklisted by Universal.[2] Weissman was deposed for 17 hours by Glover's and Universal's attorneys, and shortly thereafter Mr Glover received an out of court settlement of over 3/4 a million dollars.
Interestingly, George McFly is not the only person portrayed by both Jeffrey Weissman and Crispin Glover. In the 1991 film The Doors, Glover played the role of artist Andy Warhol. Weissman played the role of Andy Warhol in a 2000 television movie, The 70s. Jeffrey was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth child to Dr. Wallace and Kate Weissman. Jeffrey's father, nicknamed Wally, was a retired psychotherapist and counselor, now both deceased.
Jeffrey has appeared in over 80 film and television roles. He was also cast in Clint Eastwood's return to westerns, Pale Rider when actor Chris Penn, originally cast as Eddy Conway wanted a meaner role of a bad guy, and Clint moved him from the role of Eddy Conway to the role of Josh LaHood. Chuck LaFont, originally set to play Teddy, was then moved to play Eddy Conway, and Jeffrey took over as Teddy Conway. Jeffrey continues to act, write, direct, produce and teach talent.
Weissman married his Junior High School sweetheart, the former Kimball Jackson on April 10, 2004. after courting for nine years. They have two children, sons Spencer and Nicholas, and they reside in Hollywood. In 1995, they reunited after they had dated for a year in 1972-73 when they worked together in Children's Theater while attending junior high school together in Santa Monica.