WTF Happened to Crispin Glover?

Last Updated on June 2, 2023

Crispin Glover is one strange dude, but that’s what we love about him. First bursting onto the scene dancing his butt off in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, and hitting the big time playing Marty McFly’s nerdy father, George, in Back to the Future, Glover could have gone on to a perfectly serviceable career as an inoffensive character actor, but to say he had other ideas is putting things mildly. The very next year, 1986, featured Glover in two memorably eccentric supporting roles: opposite Sean Penn in At Close Range and the other opposite Keanu Reeves in the cult classic River’s Edge. In 1989, Glover did the impossible; he crossed Steven Spielberg when he refused to return for the Back to the Future sequels and even sued when they reused footage of him from the first film.

Around the same time, Glover, in a move that was either brilliant or spectacularly ill-advised, went on Late Night with David Letterman and kicked the host in the head. It might have been performance art – or it might have been something else – but that, coupled with the lawsuit, made people think Glover was nuts. Yet, rather than hurt his career, it turned him into a cult icon, with him stealing scenes in Wild at Heart, The Doors, Dead Man, and many others. In 2000, he had his most prominent role since Back to the Future in Charlie’s Angels and its sequel. He even got to be a leading man in the horror remake of Willard.

Since then, Glover’s somewhat retreated from the spotlight, directing his bizarre cult movies, making music, and typically only showing up in lower-key projects. In this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, which is written (with Mathew Plale), edited, narrated and produced by Taylor James Johnson, we dig into the life of a true Hollywood original.