ATHENS — Stephen Clark was just 20 years old in 1985 when “Back to the Future” came out and he’s been unabashedly star struck every since.
Clark, who has been employed by Athens State University since 1994 and has served as coordinator for distance education technology — ASU Internet courses — since 1998, created and has maintained for the past 18 years an international Back to the Future Web site.
“Over that time I’ve met a lot of famous people,” said Clark. “[The Web site] began as a hobby, but one thing led to another and celebrities took notice and it began getting a lot of attention.”
Clark said he has forged friendships with BTTF cast members, but “I’m always respectful of their privacy.”
He said he recently traveled to Birmingham to see Tim Wilson, who played the character of Biff in BTTF at the Birmingham Stardome.
Clark, a Muscle Shoals native, attended David Lipscomb College for two years and graduated from the University of North Alabama. He will take part in the annual George Lindsey Film Festival March 4-7, which will focus on BTTF. Several cast and production members from the film will attend the festival.
“I had always liked science fiction and time travel movies,” said Clark. “The film grabbed my attention from the start, but then ‘Starlog Magazine’ published an article about it in the summer of 1986, right after it came out on VHS, and it was all about the science behind it, a lot of things I didn’t take note of when I saw it the year before.
“I went back and watched it frame-by-frame, and then they came out with two more movies.”
Clark has been married to his high school sweetheart, Susan, for 23 years and he has a son, Chris, 15, and a daughter, Katie, 11.
“On our fifth wedding anniversary my wife surprised me with a trip to Orlando where they have a Back to the Future ride at Disney World,” he said. “From there, I guess it just mushroomed.”
Clark, who says he shares an affinity with “Trekkies,” a worldwide following that originated from the “Star Trek” television series and feature films.
“I used to publish a newsletter in the mid-90s before the Internet really took off,” he said. “In 2002 when they came out with the BTTF films on DVD I was hired by Universal Studios to write pop-up trivia for all three movies.”
Clark said his BTTF associations have also led to other marketing projects.
“I’ve been involved in so many aspects,” he said. “I’ve written BTTF new toy descriptions for the back of the packaging. A friend of mine did the graphic and I wrote the back of the packaging for a toy DeLorean (car from now defunct manufacturer that was used as a time machine in all three films).”
Clark said he has even taken his fight for BTTF historical recognition to Washington.
“In 2007, I was part of a grassroots effort to successfully get the Library of Congress National Film Registry to include it,” said Clark. “Every year the Library of Congress names 25 films to the registry. They are put in the Library of Congress to be preserved for all time. I was told that of all the votes cast for films, Back to the Future got three times as many as the next choice of film.”
Clark and his family now live in Center Star in Lauderdale County. His children attend Mars Hill High School, where Clark attended and met his wife.
His wife, Susan, a former IRS agent, is now a stay-at-home mom, he said.
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February 15, 2010
The past is future for ASU’s Stephen Clark
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The past is future for ASU’s Stephen Clark
Stephen Clark was just 20 years old in 1985 when “Back to the Future” came out and he’s been unabashedly star struck every since.
Clark, who has been employed by Athens State University since 1994 and has served as coordinator for distance education technology — ASU Internet courses — since 1998, created and has maintained for the past 18 years an international Back to the Future Web site.
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