By Paul Freeman

Not all actors are in it for the fame and fortune. Some simply love the craft and relish any opportunity to entertain.

Such an artist is Jeffrey Weissman. Check out www.imdb.com and you’ll see that he’s had a steady stream of credits since 1977.

Weissman, a Sonoma County, California resident, is fondly remembered for his portrayal of George McFly in the “Back to the Future” sequels. He was also seen in “Twilight Zone: The Movie.”

But an actor’s life is one of struggle. Between screen appearances Weissman didn’t sit around, waiting for the phone to ring. He constantly plied his trade, whether that meant playing Stan Laurel on the Universal Studio Tour or bringing to life a colorful Victorian character for the Dickens Christmas Fair.

“The Dickens Fair is like a time travel,” Weissman said. “It takes you out of the high-tech or television-saturated culture that we’re submerged in.”

From childhood, Weissman realized that pursuing an acting career meant hanging on through all of its twists and turns. He grew up in Los Angeles, where his grandfather had owned interests in studios commissaries. His father ran private clubs, partnered with industry heavyweights.

Breaking into the business isn’t easy. Weissman found extra work in “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” “The Rose” and “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

After Weissman studied at A.C.T. and San Francisco State, he headed back to Southern California, where he landed the McFly role in “Back To The Future” parts two and three.

He also appeared in such films as “Johnny Dangerously” and the Clint Eastwood western “Pale Rider.” He came close to landing the leads in “War Games” and “Ladyhawke,” but both roles eventually went to Matthew Broderick.

His TV credits include “Max Headroom,” “Saved By The Bell,” “Dallas,” “Scarecrow and Mrs. King,” and “Diagnosis Murder.”

Weissman, 52, keeps busy in innumerable facets of the business. He starred in student films directed by Greg Araki and Catherine Hardwicke. He has founded improv troupes and directed shows for cruise lines and for the Universal Theme Park in Osaka. He teaches and coaches acting and presents a seminar called “The Art of Making It As An Actor.” This spring he’ll be seen playing an obsessive-compulsive winemaker in a low-budget mockumentary titled “Corked!”

Other recent indie efforts include ““Chateau Meroux” with Christopher Lloyd and “The Stranger In Us,” a gay-themed drama, in which Weissman provides comic relief.

Pop Culture Classics enjoyed chatting with this dedicated practitioner of the dramatic arts.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
You grew up on the periphery of the film business?

JEFFREY

WEISSMAN:

My grandfather owned interests in the RKO and MGM studios’ commissaries. My father ran private clubs, partnered with people like Lorne Greene. Members included Omar Shariff, Don Adams and Mike Frankovich.

PCC:
So did your family encourage your aspirations?

WEISSMAN:
My folks never wanted me to go into acting. They saw what a struggle it was and didn’t care for the lifestyle. My grandmother was the only one in my family who really encouraged me early on.

I guess, like my mother, I’m very stubborn. And I was determined to make a go of it. I heeded the warnings, but was still determined, because I couldn’t get it out of my system. I had always been sort of a natural ham, starting as the class clown.

I had a crush on my babysitter. I remember going to meet Omar Shariff at my Dad’s club before we went to see him in the premier of a film. And watching my babysitter flip out over Omar Shariff and then seeing him up on the big screen. And seeing Steve McQueen and the various stars of that day getting that adoration. I was like, ‘Oh, I’d like to get that, too’ So there were selfish interests of wanting to impress the women, I suppose. Deep-seated stuff [Laughs] But I really felt it as my calling early on.

PCC:
Breaking into the business can be quite a challenge.

WEISSMAN:
I got background work on “The Rose” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” where I got brainwashed by Alice Cooper.

I could have joined SAG at that time. It would have been 350 bucks. But I couldn’t afford to pay my rent. I was probably 18, 19 years old. But I had Helen Hunt’s dad, Gordon Hunt, the artistic director of the Mark Taper, who loved my talent and my audition went well. But he did say, ‘To be taken seriously, you’ve got to get good training.’ He recommended Julliard and A.C.T. I set my sights on A.C.T., which ironically, I found out much later that my third-cousin, Cyril Magnin, brought to San Francisco. I hadn’t met that side of my family until three years ago.

PCC:
You almost landed a breakthrough role early on?

WEISSMAN:
Martin Brest, who directed ‘Beverly Hills” Cop’ and ‘Scent of a Woman’ liked me from an open call and gave me a screen test for a film that was eventually titled ‘War Games.’ I was the only one to get a screen test from the open calls they’d had in five cities. The other guys that tested the day I tested were Dana Carvey and Eric Stoltz, among a handful of others. And, of course, none of us got it. Matthew Broderick ended up getting the role. And Marty Brest actually got fired and John Badham ended up getting the director credit.

PCC:
And you had a shot at another role that went to Matthew Broderick, the lead in ‘Ladyhawke’?

WEISSMAN:
That was about a year later. I actually recently ran into Michelle Pfeiffer and I forgot to mention that to her, that I came close to costarring with her. I was just gobsmacked. She’s so pretty. I just ran into her at a Farmer’s Market.

PCC:
The extra work, was that fun or frustrating?

WEISSMAN:
It was really both. I had worked hard to get on the big sets and that filled that need. But at the same time, it was very frustrating, because there was no meat to walking through a scene or being part of a crowd scene. One of the first things I worked on was Robert Zemeckis’ first film, ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ And it was these crowd scenes outside the hotel in New York, where The Beatles were staying. And we’re shooting in 100-degree weather in the backlot at Burbank. It’s supposed to be below freezing in New York. And literally the extras were dropping like flies from heat prostration.

I remember, I guess Zemeckis’ confidence wasn’t high enough for directing the large crowd scenes, so, actually Spielberg came in and directed them. That was quite a buzz.

But ultimately, it was unfulfilling doing extra work. You’re not really treated like a real human being. And it’s even gotten worse for extras, I think. It’s kind of demeaning.

PCC:
Was that your link to later working with Zemeckis or just a coincidence?

WEISSMAN:
No, just a coincidence. And when I worked with him on ‘Back To The Future,’ I never brought it up. It would have been nice to have that tidbit. When I see him next, I’ll remind him.

PCC:
How did you land that George McFly role?

WEISSMAN:
I had been working at Universal Studios on the tour. I fell into an opportunity to have regular work, playing Stan Laurel, in between film and TV gigs. and then I developed playing Charlie Chaplin and later Groucho Marx. I played those three characters for 17 years on the tour.

PCC:
Did you enjoy that?

WEISSMAN:
It was really great. What was so rewarding about that job was not necessarily the management there, but more the people from around the world that instantly recognize Laurel and Hardy or Charlie Chaplin and, often, Groucho, as well. And making them laugh with doing very little. I do have a pretty deep pocketful of gags and physical things I can do. And I can greet in 15 languages. And I suppose my photo is on refrigerators around the world, from people’s trips to Universal.

The agent who helped me get that job had been contacted by the production company Amblin, for the sequels to ‘Back To The Future.’ And the agency had provided them a Michael J. Fox photo double and they asked him if they had anyone close to Crispin Glover. At that point, the agent called me and asked if I knew who Crispin was and if I was about the same height.

I had done a film at AFI with Crispin years before. I said, ‘No, actually, he’s taller than me. What is this for? Is it the ‘Back To The Future’ sequel? Let me get a shot at it.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m not at liberty to say.’ It was all very hush-hush and secretive, because they didn’t want people knowing the project so they could ask for better money.

So I went in, I met with the assistant directors, then I went through makeup process and a screen test to make sure that the makeup was working. And, unfortunately, I was told all along the line that I’d be a photo double and a stand-in, as opposed to playing the role, until really the eleventh hour, just before we started to shoot, which, unfortunately, handicapped my agent.

PCC:
So you didn’t even know Crispin was not doing the picture?

WEISSMAN:
I had called him when I was up for it and left a message saying, ‘I’m up for being your photo double and if you say a good word for me, I could use the work. My wife's about to have our second kid.’ I didn’t hear back from him until he wanted to sue.

PCC:
sue Universal?

WEISSMAN:
Yeah, Crispin sued Universal and finally settled out of court, because they made me up to look like him and used some footage of him from the first film without really negotiating a good price that he was happy with. So he got, I think, a little over three-quarters of a million dollars.

PCC:
Was the actual filming a happy experience for you?

WEISSMAN:
While shooting, the actual filming was delightful. It was really great. Everybody from Robert Zemeckis to Billy Zane to Lea Thompson. Michael J. Fox and I got along really great. It was a really nice working community and family.

Then, when the legal stuff happened, it got icky. I was sort of in the middle of this whole battle and used as a pawn by both sides. It was kind of ugly.

PCC:
The fact that the films have had such a long life and received renewed attention with the Blu-Ray release, that must be gratifying to be part of all that.

WEISSMAN:
Oh, yes. Ultimately the fans and the films stand up and make it wonderful. There’s fallout from some of the excessive fans who hate me, because I’m not Crispin and he was their favorite in that film. He was actually my favorite. I loved his work in the first film. I was devastated to hear he wasn’t coming back. At the same time, I was cuffed by not being able to add things to the script, business. I did add a few things, improvised, as we did rehearsals. But I was sort of an outsider coming in. And also, the whole Spielberg and Zemeckis trying to get around Crispin by making another actor up to look like him was kind of shifty.

And the actors actually drew up a law that’s now on the books, that a producer cannot do that to an actor.

PCC:
His not being used in the sequels, was that just a money thing? Personality clash?

WEISSMAN:
I heard a couple different things. It was Crispin asking for at least a million dollars. I heard at one time, he wanted the same money as Fox. And then, I had also heard he wanted some script approval. And also that he was a pain on the first film. He would disappear without notice. And flipped out when someone tried to cut his hair when he was asleep in his chair. Plus all the demands that he made. He’s an eccentric artist. But there are others, I’m sure, that he is outshined by.[chuckles]. But, ultimately, he is a good actor and it’s all history. It was just a little rough during the early ‘90s when the court case was going on.

PCC:
‘Max Headroom’ is also among your credits.

WEISSMAN:
That was just a co-star role on one episode. It was ironic, because I was in the news office that Jeffrey Tambor runs and Max works for. Jeffrey was a graduate of San Francisco State, where I studied, as well. And we both had the same head acting teacher, Tom Tyrell, a great, great professor. And so did the line producer. And at one point, we had come back from lunch and the three of us were doing our impressions of this bigger-than-life professor. And, we didn’t realize it but we’d been holding up shooting and the whole cast and crew were standing around watching us do these impressions, laughing about it. It’s a really nice memory.

PCC:
And what about your experience on “Pale Rider,” being directed by Clint Eastwood?

WEISSMAN:
Oh, it was lovely. Clint’s a charming man, a very, very hard worker. I think he learned from Don Siegel, who directed him in the first ‘Dirty Harry’ film, how to be really over-organized. Shoot the rehearsals.

In fact, my heaviest scene, where Daddy’s just been shot and I’m crying over his body, the actor playing my brother didn’t hit his mark. I had to take his mark. And things were kind of astray on the rehearsal. And when Clint said, ‘Cut,’ on the rehearsal and said, ‘Let’s move on,’ I came up and said, ‘Clint, Chuck didn’t hit his mark. and I could be better with what I’m doing.’ And he said, ‘No, it’s fine. We’ll just cut from your face.’ I wasn’t going to argue with Clint.

But he was a gracious man. We had like blizzards shut down shooting and complications with caterers that didn’t make him happy and the next day we were having steak and lobster in the middle of a blizzard, on location. It was really a remarkable shoot. There were a lot of problems. That’s the key to a great director, the ability to be a troubleshooter. I saw Zemeckis do it time and again on the ‘Back to the Future’ movies. And Clint on ‘Pale Rider,’ whether the weather didn’t work out or an actor threw a fit or Chris Penn, at one point, fell off the wagon and got into lots of trouble. And Clint just quietly cleaned up the mess. [Chuckles] and got everyone back to work.

Michael Moriarty, in one of his first scenes, is in this fight with the roughneck. And one of the guys didn’t follow the choreography and Michael ended up breaking three fingers and left the film. This was like the second week of shooting. And Michael is a composer. He was in the midst of composing a symphony or something that he was commissioned to write. It took three days, but Clint got him back on the film. He’s just a great troubleshooter, fixing problems.

PCC:
‘Twilight Zone: The Movie’ was memorable for a number of reasons.

WEISSMAN:
Yeah, it was shocking to me that I even got the audition for that. The audition came three months after the accident. What had happened was that the accident took place on just about the last day of shooting on the Vic Morrow tragedy. And Spielberg decided he was going to finish the film and finance the completion of this movie. And my audition for that was based more on my relationship. The director, George Miller, who directed ‘Babe’ and ‘Road Warrior,’ ‘the Mad Max movies, ‘Lorenzo’s Oil,’ he asked me to come in and tell a joke, because he didn’t really have anything scripted for the role yet. And so my research for the audition was, I called up my grandfather, who was a jokester, asked him to give me his best jokes, called friends and asked for their best jokes. I practiced a few jokes and went in and basically, the jokes were superfluous. It was just the rapport with the director, talking about the beautiful babes on the Warner Brothers lot. They were walking around and the construction workers were gawking at them. It was just a conversation and we hit it off so well that I was cast immediately. That’s really a good part of the biz. People say, ‘Oh, your acting has to be so right on’ and cry on cue and so forth. But a lot of it is, you’re going to spend months, perhaps 20 hours a day with these people and they just want to make sure that they like you and that you’ll get along.

On ‘Back to the Future,’ I remember one day, we went 26 hours shooting. And when everyone’s tired and bleary-eyed, keeping a sense of humor and camaraderie and teamwork is key.

PCC:
What do you recall about ‘Saved By The Bell’?

WEISSMAN:
That was pretty funny. I had this part of the High Geek, Screech’s guru. And it’s ironic, because it’s run like a hundred times. I still get like five bucks or something. And, on that one, I came in with some crooked teeth to wear and wore my hair straight up, covered with a fez, so I could do a reveal and such. Unfortunately, Casey Kasem, who was on that episode, forced the producers to not let me use the fez, because he’s Muslim and he thought it was offensive. But it still worked. And it was very silly. It was what it was. I enjoyed working on it, though... Like I say, it runs continuously.

PCC:
Any other favorite TV appearances?

WEISSMAN:
I really enjoyed spending the day on Dick Van Dyke’s “Diagnosis Murder,” because he was a good friend of Stan Laurel’s. And Ironically, I had, back in the early ‘80s, found at a thrift store, an alpaca sweater with the Dick Van Dyke label in it. I brought it to the set and that sort of broke the ice, because Dick had forgotten that he’d even loaned his name to those people back in the early ‘60s. That broke the ice and then we started talking about Stanley and also Dick’s first meeting with Buster Keaton’s widow Eleanor, who was a friend of mine, too. So that was a nice connection. Dick told me a lot of great stories. In fact, we held up shooting a few times [Laughs]. He’s a great raconteur and a very, very gracious man.

And I think that’s one of the best things for me, also, those kinds of interactions. Dick was my hero, just seeing ‘Mary Poppins’ as a kid. And hearing some of his stories about , for example, he did a film called ‘The Comic,’ which was loosely based on Buster Keaton’s career. And Dick swears that there must be hours of silent film footage that they shot for that film in Carl Reiner’s warehouse somewhere, that’s yet to be released. To see them reminisce and have a good time with the stars, that’s very rewarding.

I once ran into an extra who was shooting at that Mayfair Music Hall, on the promenade, He was taking a break and his mustache was coming off. I pointed that out and told him I was an actor. He said, ‘Really? You want to meet Mel Brooks?’ And he took me onto the set where the ‘Puttin On The Ritz’ number was being shot. I met Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman and watched some of the shooting. And it was a real thrill, for me as a young, aspiring actor.

PCC:
Did you sense there was magic happening there?

WEISSMAN:
Oh, yeah. When I saw Peter Boyle’s makeup as the monster, it was all these different shades of green and he looked amazing. When it came out in black-and-white, I was like, ‘What? Wait! The makeup!’

PCC:
It seems you’ve maintained a fascination and reverence for the lore of movies

WEISSMAN:
I’m drawn to it. I have communities on Facebook and elsewhere, where i’ve been, for example, friends with Stan Laurel’s daughter Lois, and have been given permission to go through his private scrapbooks. And I’m thrilled at some of the things I’ve seen. And some of the things from, say, the Marx Brothers family. And just rubbing elbows with a lot of really talented people and the camaraderie, that’s been the real pay for me. I seriously haven’t made a great living at it, financially. But the riches in culture and for my performer family, it’s really exciting for me.

PCC:
What are the other elements that have kept you at it through the years? You’ve always found something to work at, be it Universal Studios tour or improv troupes.

WEISSMAN:
It’s in my nature. I’m compelled to do this. When I’m starving, I still have to perform, it seems. Improv has always been a part of it. I helped form Los Angeles Theater Sports a year after Bay Area Theater Sports started. They actually came down and trained us. And out of those ranks came most of the guys you see on ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway?’ I’m friends with Wayne Brady and Brad Sherwood and Michael McClain. Those are all old friends of mine. Even saw Greg Proops the other night and got a hug.

I have been artistic director of various improv companies. We use improv all the time in the environmental theater stuff, the Renaissance and Dickens fairs.

PCC:
How do you handle it , when a big break seems to come and then doesn’t pan out, like ‘Legmen,’ in which you were cast, but the show was canceled before you began your run?

WEISSMAN:
Oh, it’s pretty painful. There were the screen tests for ‘War Games’ and ‘Ladyhawke.’ That’s one thing. But then when you’re told that you’ve got the part... ‘’All The Right Moves,’ an early Tom Cruise vehicle, I was cast as his best friend, a stoner guy. And checking back in, a couple weeks later, the agent said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, they wrote the part out.’

‘Legmen,’ I was cast and told I would work starting with the third episode. And then pushed to fourth and then the fifth, And by the time the second episode aired, the series got canceled. Another one I remember was George Clooney’s first film, I was cast as the assistant director on a film-within-the-film, a classic called ‘Return to Horror High.’ And I went to the pre-shooting gathering at the director’s house in Malibu and everything was good. And the next Monday, the producer called and said, ‘Your agent’s got it wrong. I need you on a daily contract, not a weekly.’ I said, ‘That sound fine. Just call my agent and work it out.’ And ‘he said, ‘No, she won’t have any of it. Either you take my terms or I’m going to my second choice.’ I said, ‘Well, let me call my agent.’ And he goes, ‘No, that’s it.’ And hung up. And I lost that role. But ironically, because of the agreement my agent had negotiated with the casting director, I got paid six months later as if I had shot the film.

Unfortunately, it’s the nature of the beast. It’s often a very frustrating business. And you have to accept rejection as part of it. But if you keep your business mind set, you’ll get farther, quicker.

You have to keep your business sense about you, protocol, always working on your craft, authenticity, teamwork, and marketing yourself, keeping in touch with those that you see who are driven.

The key is staying in touch, making sure that you’re not too aggressive, but that you’re assertive enough to ask if you can stay in touch. and let them know about other projects, it’s just good business sense to keep checking in. You don’t want to be heavy-handed. You have to be respectful and respect protocol.

PCC:
You’ve explored so many different areas of the acting arena.

WEISSMAN:
I try to diversify. I’ve got to, if I want to make a living

I’ve played a medieval fool at a Napa winery. I’ve played a lobster at a pirate festival. I’ve played a hot dog for the all-star game. Silly live gigs will sometimes pay the bills, when I’m working on a low-budget independent feature that may ever see the light of day. But if it does, people will hopefully enjoy my work.

See more of Weissman at www.jeffreyweissman.com.