Read Online We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy by Caseen Gaines - Free Book Online Page A

that came with the Stoltz decision. It’s hard to imagine anyone unhappier to hear about Stoltz’s ousting than Melora Hardin, who was cast as Jennifer Parker, Marty’s girlfriend. Hardin, now best known for playing Jan Levinson on NBC’s American version of
The Office
, had yet to shoot a frame of footage for
Future
before she found herself on the losing side of a lesson in causality. The Bobs realized that her height—five foot five—might appear awkward to the audience next to Fox, who is an inch shorter. Initially, they thought they might have been overthinking the matter. What’s an inch? Plenty of guys had girlfriends who were taller than them. But just to be sure, they decided to poll the crew. As it turned out, women feltstrongly that Jennifer shouldn’t tower over her boyfriend in physical stature, which was enough to convince them to recast.
    Months before Bob Z made that announcement in the mall parking lot, Hardin, who had starred in the forgettable 1977–1978 NBC series
Thunder
, and had guest roles in a number of unforgettable shows such as
The Love Boat
,
Diff’rent Strokes
, and
Little House on the Prairie
, was brought in to audition for
Back to the Future
. A callback followed, which included a “chemistry read,” a process by which two actors are put together to see how well they interact and look together on-screen. With Stoltz already hired, Hardin and two or three other finalists took turns reading short excerpts from the script—known in the industry as “sides”—doing their best to show that they had what it took to play the part of Marty’s love interest.
    While hardly new to the acting world, the young actress, who had just celebrated her eighteenth birthday a few weeks earlier, felt that this audition was special. Hardin was ecstatic when she learned she would be sharing the silver screen with Stoltz. In the weeks following her hiring, production began. When Stoltz and Crispin Glover were filming the scene in Hill Valley High cafeteria where Marty first tries to convince George to ask Lorraine to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, Hardin was called to the set. Photographs were taken of her that were later to be developed into a pocket-size print for Marty to carry around in his wallet. “I remember being at the school where they were filming,” she says. “I said hello to everybody. Everyone was like, ‘We’re so happy to have you on the set! We’re so happy you’re in the movie!’ They were very warm and sweet, and meanwhile it was all falling apart and I didn’t even know it.”
    The state of things became apparent when she received a large bouquet of flowers and a conference call at home with bothBobs on the line. “They called me together and said that they were so sorry,” she says. “It had nothing to do with me, but that they had to recast Eric. I was just too tall for Michael J. Fox, but they had loved me and promised we would work together again in the future.” The actress burst into tears, prompting her newly former bosses to console her over the phone. “It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do,” Bob Gale says. “I have no problem firing someone for cause, but having to let her go because she was three inches too tall was a very tough conversation.”
    “Bob Gale and I have had lunch a couple times over the years—just recently, in fact—and talked more about it,” Hardin says. “I can only imagine how horrible that was on their end of it. It’s hard to do those things. But they would have had to have Michael J. Fox standing on a box every time he shared a scene with me. That would have been a little weird.”
    The Jennifer Parker vacancy caused by the second casting shake-up led the production team to offer the role to eighteen-year-old Claudia Wells—for the second time. In the summer of 1984, during the initial casting of the role, Wells was offered the part; however, a funny thing happened on the way to Hill Valley. ABC picked