After moving to Los Angeles, he was accepted as a regular at the world famous “Comedy Store,” performing with the “Comedy Store Players,” improvising onstage with Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, and Jim Carrey when he was 21 years old. He was soon cast in episodic television shows, commercials, and eventually was cast as “Biff,” Michael J. Fox’s beefy nemesis, in the classic Back To The Future trilogy of films. A long string of movie roles followed, with the opportunity to work with legendary directors such as John Frankenheimer, Stuart Rosenberg, Taylor Hackford, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, and Steve Oedekerk. He has appeared as a recurring guest star on the television series Ed, Do Over, Freaks and Geeks, Titus, Fired Up, and Maggie, as well as Boston Public, Two and a Half Men, and many, many others.
As a writer, his fiction has been published in the literary magazines Amelia, West Word, Ipsissima verba, and nonfiction and editorial writing have appeared in The New Yorker, Envoy, Us, P.C. Games, and on the PBS.com website as part of the “Frontline” series. He’s been a development writer under contract at Disney, Universal, and Film Roman studios, and his writing recently appeared in the anthology, Sacred Passages, by Bert Ghezzi, published by Doubleday.
Tom Wilson’s paintings can best be described by the reactions they receive — a moment of joyful surprise, and happy longing. After studying fine art photography at U.C.L.A., he followed the path from photography, to mixed media works, until he finally found a home in color and canvas. Tom studied drawing and painting at the Art Academy of Los Angeles, as well as the California Art Institute, followed by extensive study in painting with the noted abstract painter Rene Amitai, as well as the renown California impressionist Arthur Bjorn Egeli. His career in the arts began on the stage, as an actor, comedian, and writer who has shared the stage and screen with a who’s who of the entertainment industry, making hundreds of television appearances around the world, including The Today Show, Good Morning, America, CBS This Morning, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with David Letterman, Good Morning, Great Britain, and Tonight Live in Australia, as well as a televised royal premiere for the benefit of the Prince’s Trust, where he was received and congratulated by Princess Diana herself.