Harry Tunney Waters Jr. (born April 13, 1953) is an American actor, singer and

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

, best known for his portrayal of

Marvin Berry The ''Back to the Future'' film trilogy and subsequent animated series feature characters created by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. The lead character of the series is Marty McFly. During the course of the trilogy, he travels through time using ...

in ''

Back to the Future ''Back to the Future'' is a 1985 American science fiction film directed by Robert Zemeckis, and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale. It stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas F. Wilson. Set in 1985, ...

'' (1985). His renditions of " Night Train" and "

Earth Angel "Earth Angel", occasionally referred to as "Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)", is a song by American doo-wop group the Penguins. Produced by Dootsie Williams, it was released as their debut single in October 1954 on Dootone Records. The Penguins ...

" are two of the ten tracks on the

gold record Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile meta ...

winning soundtrack album '' Back to the Future: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack''. He created the role of Belize in the first production of '' Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes'' in 1991.

Career

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and growing up in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, Waters attended Princeton University and received his MFA in Directing from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. He worked as an actor in New York City on and off Broadway for more than a decade as well as at theaters around the country. Venues include the Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, TheatreWorks, and the San Jose Repertory Theatre. He was a member of the Frank Silvera Writers Workshop in Harlem, which has developed the work of new, African American playwrights, directors, designers, and actors since 1973. In 1985, he was cast as Marvin Berry (a fictional cousin of

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...

) in ''

'', a role reprised in ''

Back to the Future Part II ''Back to the Future Part II'' is a 1989 American science fiction film directed by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay by Bob Gale and a story by both. It is the sequel to the 1985 film ''Back to the Future'' and the second installment in the ' ...

'' in 1989. In 1991, he created the role of Belize in the first production of ''

Angels in America ''Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes'' is a two-part play by American playwright Tony Kushner. The work won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for O ...

''. He was a cast member of the 1992 Disney show ''

Adventures in Wonderland ''Adventures in Wonderland'' is a 1992–1995 American live-action/puppet musical television series based on the novels ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and ''Through the Looking-Glass'' (1871) by Lewis Carroll as well as the 1951 anima ...

'' portraying Tweedle Dee, based on the

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

novels ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a ...

'' and ''Through the Looking Glass''. He has worked in collaboration with novelist/playwright

Jewelle Gomez Jewelle Gomez (born September 11, 1948) is an American author, poet, critic and playwright. She lived in New York City for 22 years, working in public television, theater, as well as philanthropy, before relocating to the West Coast. Her writing� ...

on a play about James Baldwin, titled ''Waiting for Giovanni'' which was produced for the 2011-12 (San Francisco) New Conservatory Theater season. The project's development was sponsored by Intersection for the Arts. Waters has taught acting, script development and has directed numerous productions around the country. He is currently a tenured professor in the Theatre Department at

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

. As he approaches retirement, he was appointed as the Associate Dean of the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship. Waters is an Honorary Member of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's most Prestigious Academic Honor Society.

Filmography

References

External links

*
Selected Works of Harry Waters Jr.
bepress.com
Filmography
bfi.org.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Waters, Harry Jr. African-American actors Living people American male film actors American male television actors Princeton University alumni Macalester College faculty 1953 births 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people