James Tolkan, who played the slacker-hating Mr. Strickland in the Back to the Future films, the carrier air group commanding officer “Stinger” Jardian in Top Gun and who was part of the original Broadway cast of Glengarry Glen Ross during a 55-year film, TV and stage career, died Thursday in Saranac Lake, NY. He was 94.

The news was announced on the official Back to the Future website, which noted that Tolkan passed away peacefully but did not provide a cause.

Born on June 20, 1931, in Calumet, MI, Tolkan did a short stint in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War before going to acting school in New York City. He started out in local theater and eventually would appear in nine Broadway shows, notably playing salesman Dave Moss in the original cast of Glengarry Glen Ross in 1984-85.

Tolkan’s first screen credits were guest turns in such 1960s TV series as Naked City and N.Y.P.D. along with films including The Three Sisters and Stiletto. He was working regularly by the 1970s, appearing with Al Pacino in Sidney Lumet’s 1973 cop drama Serpico and then playing a dual role as Napoleon and a lookalike opposite Diane Keaton and Allen in the filmmaker’s 1975 Russian lit satire Love and Death. He was a coroner in 1979’s The Amityville Horror.

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Tolkan also had roles in such 1980s films as Wolfen, Prince of the City, Author! Author! — again with Pacino — and WarGames before landing his signature mid-’80s roles.

He was cast in Robert Zemeckis’ wildly popular 1985 action comedy Back to the Future as Mr. Strickland, the Hill Valley High School vice principal with a noted spite for “slackers,” as he called George McFly (Crispin Glover) and later Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox). He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel Back to the Future II and Strickland’s Wild West ancestor in Back to the Future III the following year.

Then came another role for which Tolkan would be widely recognized. He played Tom “Stinger” Jardian, Commander of the USS Enterprise Carrier Air Group, who barks at Maverick (Tom Cruise) and Goose (Anthony Edwards) early in the 1986 Tony Scott-directed blockbuster. Stinger later briefs the recently graduated Top Gun pilots on their first mission. Late in the movie, he gives Maverick his choice of duty and feigns horror with the pilot tells him he wants to be a Top Gun instructor. “God help us,” Stinger replies.

Around that time, Tolkan landed his first series-regular TV role, playing the possibly mobbed-up fiance of star Mary Tyler Moore’s neighbor in the CBS sitcom Mary. It only lasted one season in 1985-86. His next regular role was as Captain Mike Ragland in CBS cop drama The Hat Squad. He was a career cop who raised three foster children who eventually also became police officers, and Ragland was their captain. It also aired just a single season in 1992-93.

Tolkan later had two more major TV roles, playing a number of characters as part of a repertory cast in the 2001-02 A&E period drama Nero Wolfe — also directing two episodes — and as a series regular on the syndicated adventure series Cobra. In the latter, he played Dallas Cassel, boss of ex-Navy SEAL “Scandal” Jackson (Michael Dudikoff) in the ultrasecret Cobra, which aided crime victims who were wronged by the system. The series aired 22 episodes in 1993-94.

Along the way, Tolkan continued to guest on TV in such popular series as Hill Street Blues, American Playhouse, Miami Vice, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Tales from the Crypt, The Wonder Years, Early Edition and The Equalizer. He also had big-screen roles in dozens of films ranging from Prince of the City, Masters of the Universe and Iceman to Family Business, Opportunity Knocks and playing Numbers in Warren Beatty’s 1990 Dick Tracy.

Tolkan’s final screen roles came in the 2013 TV movie Phil Spector, playing the judge in the disgraced Wall of Sound producer’s murder trial, and a pianist in the 2015 Kurt Russell Western Bone Tomahawk.

Tolkan is survived by his wife of 54 years, Parmele; and three nieces. His family asked that donations in his memory be made to a local animal shelter, animal rescue organization or Humane Society chapter.