I've always liked Rip Torn. He's one of those memorable "character actors" who occasionally gets the lead role on film or TV; he also loves and still does live theatre, lives in New York City rather than anywhere near Hollywood, and at 76, remains a vibrant force.
Here's a guy who has gotten to work with an array of cool actors, including Steve McQueen; who successively married actors Ann Wedgeworth, Geraldine Page and Amy Wright (Sabbath Lily in Wise Blood); who has gotten to play lofty roles like U.S. Grant, LBJ, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and King Louis XV; and who's also played both son and father of the same character (in Sweet Bird of Youth 1962, 1989). He also had a wild impromptu fight -- filmed and kept in the otherwise mediocre movie -- with Norman Mailer (Maidstone, 1970).
The rowdy Texan (birth name Elmore Rual Torn, nicknamed "Rip" by his father, another "Rip;" born in Temple, TX, not far below Waco down what is now I-35) has a strong role in the great Korean War movie, Pork Chop Hill (1959) alongside Gregory Peck; plays a vengeful New Orleans gambler in The Cincinnati Kid (1965); is Henry Miller in Tropic of Cancer (1970); is excellent as Nathan Bryce with David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976). He's great in The President's Plane is Missing (1973) and in One Trick Pony (1980), too, but one of my favorite of his roles is as visiting writer Quentin "Q" Morewood in Wonder Boys (2000), a brilliantly wicked sendup of the writing world. Morewood is not unlike Norman Mailer. Hmmm. Lastly, Sissy Spacek is Rip Torn's cousin. Small world.
Today's Rune: Growth.
Viva Rip Torn!
5 comments:
He just got a DUI a few weeks ago. As ZZ Top would sing, arrested for driving while blind...
Keep on rockin', Rip!
He was also great as the evil general in "By Dawn's Early Light," and of course he was great in the movies your picture of him was from, Men In Black I and II. My kids and I love those ones.
Yeah, he's awesome!
I knew little about him, and haven't even seen "Man who..." Better remedy that quick sharpish...
Thanks for the comments, y'all.
Johnny, I'd forgotten abut that movie -- Powers Boothe is in it, too. James Earl Jones. Must find again. Nice call on the photo :->
Sheila, right on. And Danny -- it's a STRANGE movie, as befits an alien visitation and David Bowie. Not a family film, to be sure. But interesting.
Weird synchoronicity, Erik-- Sunday afternoon my son, friend Jim and I were in Target and my son saw MIB 1 and 2 and expressed how much he liked the movies. I of course had to remind him that he had a birthday coming up March 7-- his 13th-- and then had to run over to Target to buy them today.
Powers Boothe is great-- remember him in Southern Comfort, a movie I saw described quite well as Apocalypse Now meets Deliverance?
BTW, "By Dawn's... ", which was an HBO production, is on DVD. And yes, James Earl Jones was great in it.
My son and I watched "Dr. Strangelove" this weekend-- I'll be blogging about it later this week-- and I pointed out that James Earl Jones was the voice of Darth Vader. My son's a huge Star Wars fan.
Post a Comment