updated: 08/01/2003
Lea Thompson played Lorraine McFly (nee Baines) in both Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II. In the course of the two movies she played a young Lorraine in the 1950s, three different present-day middle-aged Lorraines (unhappy and gone-to-seed, happy and fit, and the surgically enhanced Lorraine who married Biff), and grandma Lorraine in the future. She also appeared briefly in Part III as a young Maggie McFly.
These images show the prosthetic makeup application for middle-aged Lorraine in Back to the Future and for Grandma Lorraine in Back to the Future Part II. There is another page showing Lea Thompson in the completed middle-age and old-age makeups.
According to the transcript of one interview, Lea Thompson was not enamoured of the makeup experience:
It was pretty horrible, especially in the first movie, because the makeup artist wasn’t the nicest guy in the first movie: he would sometimes send me home with the makeup on, so I could take it off! But I was so young, and I didn’t know that was something really tacky to do! I mean, that makeup is glued on your face, you need a professional to get it off! It hurts! So that was pretty bad. The worst time I had was the Tales from the Crypt that I did while we were shooting the eighty-year-old Lorraine makeup in Back to the Future Part II, I had to do prosthetic makeup for the Tales from the Crypt and Back to the Future Part II at the same time. So my face was really terrible. It hurts a lot! The young Lorraine in the first movie was a great character. But then I also loved – it’s nobody else’s favorite but my own – I loved the character in Back to the Future Part II with the big boobs. She was so hilarious to me! I just laugh every time I see that!
I have to comment in relation to that quotation that I have only seen the transcript online so I can not validate its accuracy, nor do I have any idea to which makeup artist she may have been referring. As to the allegation itself, I find it difficult to believe that any makeup artist would send an actress home to remove her own prosthetic makeup: never mind the etiquette or the ethics, just think of the potential lawsuit.
Ken Chase created the makeup for both Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II; Michael Mills and Kenny Myers were credited for makeup application for Back to the Future Part II.