Rip Torn

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

 

  1. Paul Newman, Sweet Bird of Youth, 1961.  Here we go again. Raddled spinster  meets a hot blood.  We are back in Tennessee Williams country with – for once –  the top three players of the 1959 Broadway play retained for the f;lm.  Geraldine Page as the Hollywood has been; Page’s husband Rip Torn  (their Big Apple postbox was marked Torn Page!) as a sadistic Tom Junior; and Paul;  Newman as the sneaky gigolo, Chance Wayne. Torn took over that role on the US tour and nearly in the film, when Newman suddenly quit. Before he changed his mind  back again,  writer-director RIchard Brooks had  examined Burt Reynolds, Dean  Stockwell…  even Elvis Presley. AS  if Colonel Parker  was going to let  his money-machine  play a gigolo.

  2. Jack Nicholson, Easy Rider, 1969.
    Hello, gud evenin’ and welcome… to another edition of  Rashômon…   1. Terry Southern wrote  it for Rip.   2.  Torn didn’t like director and co-star Dennis Hopper or his   script cuts and  told Peter Fonda and  Hopper: “I’m not going to do your shitty film” – he’d get more money for  Norman Mailer’s Maidstone.   3. Hopper said on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, May 31, 1994,  that  Torn pulled a knife on him.    4. Torn  claimed it was Hopper pulling a blade on him, inches from his eyes.    5. In 1997,  Dennis paid $950,000 in damages for the TV anecdote... 
    Whatever the truth, playing Civil Liberties attorney George Hanson changed Nicholson’s life when he  was “about to retire and concentrate on directing and writing.” He was working on his Head script for the US Fab Four (The Monkees) and was keeping an Front Office eye on what was then Hopper’s The  Losers. When Torn ripped, the BBS boss Bert Schneider suggested Jack take over the Hanson role, as well. “And I’m the schmuck who didn’t want Jack,” admitted Hopper. Schneider insisted; after all he put up the  $360,000 budget and “asked for absolutely nothing, you’re running wild out there, use Nicholson.” “OK, but you’re screwin’ up my movie, OK?”   After the reception given him – at Cannes, Nicholson suddenly realised: “My God, I’m a star!”  In ’69, Torn made his own contribution to wild indie movies with the claustrophobically intimate Coming Apart andMailer’s pretentious Maidstone  (all 45 hours of it).  Fifteen years on, Jack and Rip were  up for  support Oscars; Torn hated losing  on April 9, 1984. “C’mon! He wasn’t a supporting  player. His name  was up there above the title [Terms of Endearment]. I didn’t care. But the fix was in. Nicholson was going to win.” And did. Again.

  3. Keith Carradine, Cold Feet, 1989.   “The casting didn’t really work,” complained the Nouveau Western writer Tom McGuane. “I wanted Rip… [Carradine] was too thin and young – kinda coastal for me. Because the character as written is basically a Texas hustler. And Rip would’ve been a really menacing force there.”
  4. Corey Burton, Hercules, TV, 1989-1999.      Zeus and Philoctetes  – Torn (and Danny De Vito – were the only members of the 1997 key cast to t avoid Disney’s spin-off series.  Burton had been a Burt Villager in the first toon take. Of course, he was. For 50 years, Burton has been  everywhere in animation voicing Luke Sywalker and  Star Wars villains  Count Dooku, Ziro the Hutt and Cad Bane  to Mickey Mouse’s Ludwig Von Drake and Chip ‘n’ Dale. Pus Captains Hook and Marvel, Brainiac, Dracula, Megatron, and Woody Woodpecker’s Dad!  He made it a one-man growth industry with the TV series and various video. Whenever Disney called him back for more, he was there.  
  5. Charles Dance, Space Truckers, 1995.   Torn reportedly was ready to drop the (above) defamation action if Hopper could find him a leading film role ((nothing was coming his way despite three Emmy nominations for The Larry Sanders Show). He was all set to be the villain fighting Hopper in this one but pulled out to have his day in court. Paid better than the movie.
  6. John Getz, Superhero Movie, 2008.  Spoofing X-Men, etc., is a good idea – if the ZAZ boys (Jim Abrahams andthe Zucker Brothers) are doing it.Here, they were not.
  7. Seth Rogen, Paul, UK-US, 2009.   They had their alien.  They had their Hollywood deal. All they needed was Pauj’s voice.  Funny Brits Simon Pegg and Nick Frost suggested Jack Nicholson  – they wanted their great alien to have oldish tones.  They actually suggested Jack or Rip Torn. (Ho, ho!  Jack had famously taken over Torn’s role in Easy Rider).  Finally, Universal, said Rogen (and not Bill Hader) should supply the Paul-speak.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  7