Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on

(WOW it’s been over a year since I’ve posted! I’m so sorry. Trying to get my life back on track; I promise to post more often!)

Standing at 6’4 with a tornado of jet black hair, piercing blue eyes and more swagger and verve than every founding father and mother of rock & roll combined, Carey started to make his mark in cinema in the 1950’s, with turns in such classics like Elia Kazan‘s East of Eden (1955) and in Stanley Kubrick‘s twin masterpieces, The Killing (1956) and Paths of Glory (1957). Standing out in the Kazan film despite being both dubbed and on screen for a hot second, Carey blew the lid OFF with the latter two. In particular, his turn as the doomed Private Maurice Ferol in Paths of Glory is unshakable once you’ve seen it. Carey’s ability to not only innately steal every scene he graced but also bring the entire rainbow of the human condition to any film made him a presence to look out for.

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Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on

(Producer Midge) Sanford: For Dennis Hopper‘s role [‘Feck’], we sent the script to Harry Dean Stanton, who passed. Apparently, Harry Dean Stanton passed on a lot of scripts and gave them to Dennis.

(Director Tim) Hunter: I initially hoped that John Lithgow would play it, but it was too dark for John—he wanted no part of it. We had some reluctance that it might be typecasting for Dennis, but ultimately we wanted him very badly and we needed Hemdale to come up with a little extra money for him. I threatened to cast Timothy Carey, who was in Stanley Kubrick‘s The Killing and John Cassavetes‘s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. He was brilliant, but also a well-known wild man who never stuck to a script—he’d ad lib and be quite disruptive. The thought of having Timothy Carey in the picture finally convinced Hemdale to come up with that small amount of money to pay Dennis to do it.

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Dennis Hopper as Feck, with Crispin Glover

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on

Duress’ deep-set pale blue eyes, which we first encountered in 2014 as a Safdie brothers discovery in their harrowing heroin-addiction drama, Heaven Knows What, further remind me of another chambered stare, that of Timothy Carey: the eccentric, rowdy actor best known for playing characters pushed to rabid extremes. His minor roles, like Morgan Morgan in John Cassavetes’ 1971 Minnie and Moskowitz, are bizarrely tonic, scene-stealing, and charismatically coarse.

It’s a muggy July evening, and I’ve just mentioned the Timothy Carey comparison to Duress. Maybe that was a mistake. […] Grimacing at a picture of Carey on my phone, the 32-year old Duress exclaims, “I’m better looking than him!”

It’s true. I apologize—not because I think I’m wrong, but because I’m not properly articulating what I mean. Eventually I land on a photo of Carey that elicits a nod from Duress. “Yeah, he’s handsome there. I see it. I see it,” he says. “My ocular bones really stick out. People say I look like a raccoon at night.” What I try and fail to convey to Duress is how it’s more than merely his looks. The connection feels part of some deeper cinematic heredity.

Some faces—like Carey’s, like Duress’, with its big avian features—are meant to be photographed. As the journalist Grover Lewis once wrote, “Perhaps only the camera truly loved these kinds of mavericks and marginals…the work of certain low-billed jesters, sidekicks, and tough guys runs through movie history like the veins in a granite cliff.”

– Durga Chew-Bose, Ext. Queens Evening – With Actor Buddy Duress; SSense.com (accessed 11.25.18)

915654-800wBuddy Duress, photo by Jody Rogac

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by Marisa on

Hey folks, here’s something to be thankful for – I’m making a post!! Seriously though, life has been crazy and I apologize profusely once again for the lack of posts. There will be more posts, however, and also some exciting news on the Carey front that I am not quite at liberty to disclose yet, heh heh. However, I can tell you that The World’s Greatest Sinner is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video!

In the meantime, meditate on what you’re thankful for and let the gratitude wash over you. Have a wonderful day and always remember: “There’s hope, there’s hope, there’s hope!”

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Happy Halloween!

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A long-sought-after treasure of Careyana has been found! It’s Timothy’s Halloween commercial for Sambo’s restaurants, first aired on NBC-TV on October 29, 1980. Who is that at the very beginning, appearing from behind a newspaper as Frankenstein’s monster? I think we all know who! Happy Halloween, everybody!

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on

In honor of the imminent release of Steve De Jarnatt’s gem of a short film Tarzana (1978) on video (yes, finally! Watch this space!), here is the director recalling his experience of working with Timothy on that film to Paul Rowlands of the Money Into Light film blog.

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How was working with the legendary Timothy Carey?
What can you say about Timothy Carey? There was only one. A brilliant, extremely complicated and odd performer and human being. Some say Tim, who was in Paths of Glory (1957) and The Killing (1956), was the reason Stanley Kubrick moved to England, and I sort of know why. Tim would call me a couple times a week after the film was shot and talk (or perform) for an hour – it could be a freaky sort of thing – and poor Stanley probably couldn’t take it. This is how Tim would roll with someone he trusted. Now I just regret I didn’t record all those rambling Dali-esque monologues of his. When I got my first professional gig in the 80s, directing the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “Man from the South” with John Huston and Kim Novak, Tim called up Universal and said he was my manager and was supposed to get 50% of everything I made. (In truth, my entire salary went to joining the DGA on that one). I sort of drifted off from contact with him, but when I was casting for my first feature, Cherry 2000, Tim began to hound me for the part of Six Finger Jake. I did go to bat for him, but the studio and producer nixed it. I was very fortunate to get Ben Johnson, but Tim never forgave me. I had betrayed him. Ah well.
What was the shoot like?
We planned on shooting ten days and after three days, Tim Carey had used up all the film. Well, that’s not true, I did. I sat there agape and watched him riff in these crazy improvs that had nothing to do with the movie. One of the improvs is its own little cult film, Cinema Justice (1977). We had to shut down production and look for more money. 
– Steve De Jarnatt, interview with Paul Rowlands, Money Into Light (accessed 10.29.17)
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Michael C. Gwynne and Tim, Tarzana (1978)

Richard Anderson 1926 – 2017

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Better late than never, folks. Richard Anderson, Timothy’s co-star in Paths of Glory (1957) (two years later they both appeared in The Gunfight at Dodge City, though not together), passed away on August 31 (my birthday!) of this year at the age of 91. He was of course best known for his role as Oscar Goldman in The Six Million Dollar Man television series. Romeo Carey did get an interview with him a few years ago, thankfully. As today is Wednesday, the usual day for Video of the Week, here is Anderson with Timothy in the memorable court-martial scene from Paths. Rest well, Oscar.

 

Doris E. Carey 1940 – 2017

Posted by Marisa on

Very sad news to report, via Romeo Carey:

Doris Carey, 77, Mother, Actress, Poet, Theanthropist

LOS ANGELES, June 7—Doris Erica Radlinger-Carey, actress, poet, and best known as the wife of character actor Timothy Carey (they met in Germany in 1957 while Carey was making Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory), died on Wednesday at Arcadia Methodist Hospital. She was 77. Her son Romeo announced the death and said the cause was a heart attack.

Doris Carey’s acting career began with a part in Timothy Carey’s 1961 movie The World’s Greatest Sinner and 1969 TV series Tweet’s Ladies of Pasadena. Mrs. Carey was also a published author of a book of poems entitled Echoes of A Soul in Anguish.

Mrs. Carey was her husband’s writing partner on several movie scripts and plays, including The Insect Trainer. Mrs. Carey’s domestic life was filled with homemaking, gardening, knitting, animal rescue, and other philanthropic endeavors.

In addition to her son Romeo, she is survived by her five other children: Mario, Velencia, Silvana, Dagmar and Germain, and six grandchildren: Priscilla, Ambria, Kevin, Fiory, Akira, and Prima.

Mrs. Carey will be laid to rest on Wednesday, June 14, 2017 alongside her husband at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California.

Quote of the Week

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MARON:  Now, coming full circle, do you know – are you familiar with Timothy Carey?

GLOVER:  Yes! I went to his house – (laughs)

MARON (laughing): I knew it! I knew it!

GLOVER:  Yeah, I went to his house in the ’80s, late ’80s.

MARON:  Like, is he a role model?

GLOVER:  Well, there were two actors when I was studying acting – I could always detect, I could always figure out what the method, for lack of a better word, was that an actor was employing to get to their state. But there were two actors that I did not feel that way about. One of them was Andy Kaufman, and the other was Timothy Carey. And I never met Andy Kaufman, but I had the opportunity to go to Timothy Carey’s house, and it was a very, it was a really – it was really fascinating. I’m very glad I had that experience.

MARON:  When I, when I sort of started –

GLOVER:  Did you know him?

MARON:  No no no, but when I started thinking about you, and about, you know, sort of – not a template but somebody who was within the system and then started to kind of really break away in an extreme way, I thought about Timothy Carey, who I loved in some of the earlier movies; I’m not that familiar with his work, you know – 

GLOVER:  Well, have you ever seen The World’s Greatest Sinner?

MARON:  No.

GLOVER:  He directed it.

MARON:  Right, right. No, I know about the movie but I’ve not seen it.

GLOVER:  It’s worth seeing. I saw it for the first time at his house. He didn’t have it out on DVD at the time and he –

MARON:  That’s the one that Zappa did the soundtrack for, correct?

GLOVER:  Yes, I believe that’s right, yeah.

MARON:  What was your experience with Timothy Carey?

GLOVER:  Well, it was fascinating.

MARON:  Yeah. You were going there to figure him out, in a way.

GLOVER:  Yes.

MARON:  How did that happen? How did you get the opportunity to go there?

GLOVER:  A friend of mine, Adam Parfrey –

MARON:  I know Adam Parfrey, I’ve interviewed him.

GLOVER:  Oh you did? OK great, great. Adam –

MARON:  It makes sense, it’s all coming together. Apocalypse Culture, the first volume, changed my life. And it seems like you’re kind of symbiotic –

GLOVER:  Yeah, he’s a great publisher. He’s in my first film, he’s in What Is It? 

MARON:  His father was a character actor as well.

GLOVER:  That’s right. That’s something he and I have in common. […]

MARON:  So he set you up with Timothy?

GLOVER:  Well, there was a friend of his, or somebody he was acquainted with, that had been in contact with Timothy Carey, and so that was set up so that the three of us went to Timothy Carey’s house. We were there for a number of hours.

MARON:  And what did you glean?

GLOVER:  (laughs) Well, um, (laughs) I’m trying to think if it’s right to say, but – (long pause) he was – (laughs) (long pause) (laughs) – the first hour was spent talking, Timothy Carey talked about passing gas, and the health of this –

MARON:  Uh huh. For an hour. 

GLOVER:  Yes. (laughs) And at first of course it was kind of funny, the first 15 or (laughs) 20 minutes it was funny. And then, and then – (MARON laughs) – it was very serious. He wasn’t doing it as a joke. And then it wasn’t really so funny (he and MARON continue to laugh throughout). And then it was kind of funny again. We were there for several hours.

MARON:  Well, you watched the film, right?

GLOVER:  Eventually – probably about two hours into it. We were at his guest house, which was larger than this and was kind of his studio, and we were out there for most of the time. Then we went into his living room and he showed us the film, which was excellent. It’s a very interesting movie. And then I asked him – what I noticed about him, I went and saw both East of Eden and…

MARON:  The Killing?

GLOVER: And The Killing. I think I saw The Killing a little later.

MARON:  Paths of Glory? 

GLOVER:  Paths of Glory I saw later. But I noticed when I was watching the films [Ed. note: The other film must have been One-Eyed Jacks]– you know, James Dean is one of those actors that you’re studying as a young actor, and Marlon Brando – but in those scenes, Timothy Carey has fight scenes with both of them in bars. But in those scenes, my eye was not on James Dean, my eye was not on Marlon Brando, it was on Timothy Carey. But the part that I hesitate to say a little bit but maybe I’ll say it – at one point – you hear a lot of different tales, I don’t know if you’ve heard a lot of tales about Timothy Carey, but I’ve heard a lot of tales about him that are fascinating. Like he disappeared during the shooting of Paths of Glory in Germany. If you look at the film, his character is in shadows at a certain point in the prison. But he wasn’t originally supposed to be in the shadows. He disappeared during the middle of production. I’ve heard different tales as to how he was found, but essentially they just had to hide his character and then they put him back in once he showed back up again. Also I think he met his wife in Germany there, and Kubrick did as well. So there’s something in common. But he kind of pointed at his head at one point and said – I almost feel like I’m betraying something private. He said something about his mental health. So it was fascinating to me because I realized that part of what was hard for me to detect about him was there was something going on, I gleaned or assumed from talking to him, that was essentially undetectable because he was having, for lack of a better word, mental health issues. And so that’s part of why I would say probably it was hard for me to detect what his specific method was. Like Marlon Brando, he’s a great actor but I can essentially understand what he’s employing to get to the state, or James Dean. But like I said, I never met Andy Kaufman so I don’t know exactly where it was coming from. And Timothy Carey, even having had that meeting of course, I don’t know the exact neurons, so to speak, for getting to that point.

MARON:  Well, you’re sort of one of those guys too. 

GLOVER:  Well, I probably early on have always been interested in the idea of art and madness, for the lack of a better word, as being good for art.

Crispin Glover – WTF Podcast with Marc Maron #673 (01.18.16)

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