Rip Torn, cult actor and Artie in the Larry Sanders Show dies aged 88 (theguardian.com).
Rip Torn, America’s celebrated wildman actor, has died aged 88. Torn, who had been a constant presence on stage and screen since the mid-1950s, was arguably better known for his eccentric, and occasionally violent, antics when the cameras weren’t rolling—and on one notorious occasion, when they were.
With the nickname “Rip” being a family tradition in the Torn family and said “notorious occasion” being 1970’s Maidstone in reference to the English town in which in a somewhat surreal altercation in the improvised counterculture production the irascible Torn struck director and star Norman Mailer on the head with a hammer, intending to “kill his character”, with Mailer biting off a chunk of Torn’s ear as they wrestled to the ground with Torn attempting to strangle him until broken up by the rest of cast with the cameras rolling.
With a film career that flourished in the 60s he starred opposite David Bowie in the The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976 but then stalled with much of the roles offered being in “run-of-the-mill crime and horror” in the 80s but experienced a career changing upturn in the early 90s:
Torn experienced a dramatic career upturn after being cast as Machiavellian, foulmouthed talk-show producer Artie in The Larry Sanders Show, after the producers were impressed by his turn as a lawyer in the Albert Brooks afterlife comedy Defending Your Life. The show ran from 1992 to 1998, and Torn was nominated for an Emmy for each of its six seasons: he only won once, in 1996.
The success in the sitcom leading on to being cast along with other roles bringing him to the attention of a Generation X and Millennial audience as Agent Z in 1997’s Men in Black and as the wheelchaired wrench-throwing coach Patches O’Houlihan in 2004’s comedic DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, but with his irascibility and alcohol abuse landing him in bother again with a series of arrests for drink driving and in 2010 for breaking into a Connecticut bank at night while carrying a loaded gun with him seemingly thinking it was his home.
#RIPRipTorn (Instagram).
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