Portrayed by actors
Crispin Glover and
Jeffrey Weissman, George McFly is the father of
Marty McFly in the
Back to the Future universe. Born in 1938, George McFly grew up into a nebbish
nerd of a man, a
human doorstop who did whatever he was told by anyone and offered no resistance to unreasonable demands. In November 1955 at the age of 17 he was hiding in a tree across the street from
Lorraine Baines's house and peeping into her window with a set of
binoculars. He fell from the tree, however, and landed in the street just in time to be struck by her father's car. George, unconscious, was brought inside and
Lorraine quickly fell in love with him (an example of the
Florence Nightingale Syndrome). The two went to the
Enchantment Under the Sea Dance soon after, kissed for the first time on the dance floor, and were eventually married. They had three children:
Dave,
Linda, and
Marty McFly. However, the entire
McFly family lived under the tyranny of bully
Biff Tannen, a man who had dumped his homework (and, by 1985, office work) on George.
Everything changed, however, when Marty was accidentially sent back to 1955 in Doc Brown's DeLorean time machine. As a result of some unintentional meddling, Marty interfered with George and Lorraine's first meeting. In this new timeline George had no interest in his future wife until Darth Vader (an extra-terrestrial from the planet Vulcan) appeared to George one evening and told him that the Supreme Klingon was ordering him to go to the dance with Lorraine. The science fiction fan accepted this and began his campaign to win the lady's heart.
With some help from Marty, Cupid's arrow struck right on target (and so did George's fist when he punched out Biff, forever changing their "friendship"). Marty returned to 1985 and found the future changed for the better: George was now a famous novelist and had just published his first book (which, coincidentally, was about an alien coming to Earth to play matchmaker). Biff had gone from supervisor to auto detailer and often waxed George's cars.
Actor Crispin Glover portrayed George in the first film in the Back to the Future Trilogy, however when he was asked to be in the next two films he made some outrageous demands and was dumped from the franchise. For the next two films George was played by actor Jeffrey Weissman, however George was only seen in the background or out of focus in these shots. Crispin did appear as George in the rest of the trilogy because of reused footage from the first film. Crispin Glover's absence from Back to the Future II explains why in Biff's 1985-A reality George is dead. Apparently in March 1973 a wealthy Biff Tannen shot and killed George (who was on his way to an anti-BiffCo rally) so that he could marry Lorraine (SEE: 1985-A). Luckily Marty and Doc Brown repaired the timeline, restoring it to the proper version of 1985. Beyond this not much else was done with the character of George McFly, as the producers/writers wanted to keep him in the background since he was no longer played by the same actor.