James Tolkan

Overview

Known for
Acting
Gender
Other
Birthday
Jun 20, 1931 (93 years old)

James Tolkan

Known For

Val
1h 49m
Movie 2021

Val

For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.

Bone Tomahawk
2h 13m
Movie 2015

Bone Tomahawk

During a shootout in a saloon, Sheriff Hunt injures a suspicious stranger. The doctor's assistant, wife of the local foreman, tends to him in prison. That night, the town is attacked and they both disappear—only the arrow of a cannibal tribe is found. Hunt and a few of his men go in search of the prisoner and the foreman's wife.

Back in Time
1h 35m
Movie 2015

Back in Time

Cast, crew and fans explore the 'Back to the Future' time-travel trilogy's resonance throughout our culture—30 years after Marty McFly went back in time.

Phil Spector
1h 32m
Movie 2013

Phil Spector

A drama centered on the relationship between Phil Spector and defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden while the music business legend was on trial for the murder of Lana Clarkson.

Cobra
0h 44m
TV Show 1993

Cobra

Cobra is an American television action/adventure series starring Michael Dudikoff. It ran for just one season in syndication.

The Hat Squad
0h 48m
TV Show 1992

The Hat Squad

The Hat Squad is a crime drama television series that ran for only one season on CBS, during the 1992–1993 season. 13 episodes were made, but only 11 of them aired.

Ministry of Vengeance
1h 36m
Movie 1989

Ministry of Vengeance

David Miller is a Vietnam vet who renounced violence and became a minister after he was forced to blow up a Viet Cong kid in self defense, but years later, when David's wife Gail and daughter Kim are killed by a group of terrorists led by Ali Aboud, in a massacre at an airport in Rome, Italy, David is devastated. Going against his faith, David sets out to find and kill Ali Aboud.

True Blood
1h 40m
Movie 1989

True Blood

Teenager Ray Trueblood is wrongfully accused of murdering a police officer after his fellow gang member Billy Masters does the deed. Hoping to elude the police, he flees Brooklyn, NY and joins the U.S. Marines. Returning 10 years later, Trueblood is dismayed to learn that his younger brother Donny is now running with a gang led by Masters. Trueblood soon finds himself depending on his military training & experience to protect his friends and family from the ruthless Masters.

Question of Faith
1h 37m
Movie 1988

Question of Faith

A woman struck down by terminal cancer shuns conventional medical techniques at her husband's insistence and turns to alternative treatment to combat the disease.

Weekend War
1h 30m
Movie 1988

Weekend War

A group of reservists ("weekend warriors") are sent to Honduras to build a runway. Shortly after arriving an engineering group is sent to a small village to repair a bridge as a favor for the US Ambassador; at this point Captain John Deason begins to question who he is really building the bridge for...

Biography

Fiery, forceful and intimidating character actor James Tolkan has carved out a nice little niche for himself in both movies and television alike as a formidable portrayer of fierce and flinty hard-boiled tough guy types. James Stewart Tolkan was born on June 20, 1931 in Calumet, Michigan. His father, Ralph M. Tolkan, was a cattle dealer. James attended the University of Iowa, Coe College and Eastern Arizona College. After serving a year-long stint in the United States Navy, Tolkan went to New York and studied acting with both Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler at the Actors Studio. Short and bald, with beady, intense eyes, a wiry, compact, muscular build, a gruff, jarring, high-decibel voice, and an aggressive, confrontational, blunt-as-a-battle-ax, rough-around-the-edges demeanor, Tolkan has been often cast as rugged, cynical no-nonsense cops, mean, domineering authority figures, and various ruthless and dangerous criminals. Tolkan first began acting in movies in the late 1960s and was highly effective in two pictures for Sidney Lumet: He was a rabidly homophobic police lieutenant in the superbly gritty Serpico (1973) and a sneaky district attorney in the equally excellent Prince of the City (1981). Best known as the obnoxiously overzealous high school principal Gerard Strickland in the Back to the Future films, Tolkan's other most memorable roles include Napolean in Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975), a ramrod army officer in WarGames (1983), mayor Robert Culp's mordant, wisecracking assistant in Turk 182 (1985), the hard-nosed Stinger in Top Gun (1986), the choleric Detective Lubric in Masters of the Universe (1987), meek mob accountant Numbers in Dick Tracy (1990), and Wesley Snipes' bullish superior in Boiling Point (1993).

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