He told Marty McFly to “make like a tree and get out of here” and bullied George McFly to the point of violence. As played by actor Thomas F. Wilson, Biff Tannen was the overbearing, malaprop-dropping hulk who audiences loved to hate in the “Back to the Future” films, but his character’s inspiration was a bit closer to earth than the time-traveling universe.
In an interview with the Daily Beast, trilogy co-writer Bob Gale revealed that the surly Biff was inspired by real estate mogul and Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.
“Yeah, that’s what we were thinking about,” Mr. Gale said, the Daily Beast reported.
In fact, in “Part II,” Marty and Doc Brown return from the future — Oct. 21, 2015, to be precise — back to 1985, only to discover that the timeline has been altered by 2015 Biff, who went back in time to 1955 in the DeLorean to hand his younger self a sports almanac with results from the future, thus allowing Biff to attain a fortune via gambling on results he already knew.
In the alternate 1985, Biff is a self-obsessed billionaire who builds a 27-story casino in the heart of Hill Valley. The entire community around it has descended into hell.
“You watch ’Part II’ again, and there’s a scene where Marty confronts Biff in his office and there’s a huge portrait of Biff on the wall behind Biff,” Mr. Gale said, “and there’s one moment where Biff kind of stands up, and he takes exactly the same pose as the portrait.”
Mr. Trump, currently the GOP front-runner, is well known for his self-aggrandizing persona, shoot-from-the-hip style of speaking and, of course, his enormous fortune.
• Eric Althoff can be reached at twt@washingtontimes.com.
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