Stephen Harold Tobolowsky (born May 30, 1951) is a Tony Award-nominated American character actor perhaps best known for playing amiable, brainy, and/or clueless characters, in television, stage, and film.
He played Principal Flutie in the unaired "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997) pilot episode.
Attended Kimball High School. High School Debate champ.
Turned down the role of Al on "Home Improvement" (1991).
Attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, with actress Patricia Richardson (I) and playwright Beth Henley during late 1960s and early 1970s.
He was named one of the 100 coolest people in L.A. by Buzz Magazine in the 1990s, he later lost this honor to Andy Dick (I).
Once held hostage at gunpoint at a supermarket in Snider Plaza
Was almost murdered twice in one week in Hartford, Connecticut by different people. As he admitted, "That's unusual."
Surfing channels in Vancouver recently, he watched himself getting thinner and hairier in old episodes of "Murder One" (1995), "Seinfeld" (1990).
One of the actor's heroes is his late aunt, 'Hermine Tobolowsky', known as the "mother of the Texas Equal Rights Amendment".
Was nominated for a Tony award in 2002 as Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role in the revival of "Morning's At Seven".
Edwin Tobolowsky is his third cousin.
Graduated from the University of Illinois - Urbana, Champaign
His name is pronounced tow-buh-law-skee
Was the lead singer in the first band formed by guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan. They went to school together in Dallas.
To develop a plotline for the 1986 film True Stories (1986) he and rocker David Byrne (I) once stared wordlessly for two hours at Byrne's.
His aunt was the head librarian at Hillcrest High School in Dallas, Texas (called Franklin at the time) for many years.
