Our quote for this week is once again not by Timothy, but about him. It’s from an unpublished interview with his younger brother, George Carey:

Timmy’s big mistake of all time was not taking the part of Luca Brasi in The Godfather. He had the part, no question about it, but then decided he didn’t want to get involved. I was taking calls from Paramount and Francis Ford Coppola definitely wanted Timmy in the film as Luca Brasi. Basically, Timmy was replaced (by Lenny Montana, a former wrestler). That part was Timmy’s. All he had to say was he wanted it. But – that was Timmy. He passed that up and it was a big mistake. One of Hollywood’s top agents (Walter Kohner) personally told me that if Timmy would only cooperate by playing the game, he could be one of the big stars. He told me this personally right in his office. He was Timmy’s agent for a while, and it’s really remarkable, when you think of it, that Timmy had this guy as his agent. I think Timmy’s biggest problem was that he had hostility with certain directors. Maybe they thought his acting methods were too outlandish. Once the cameras were rolling, Timmy might do a scene in a totally different way than it was rehearsed. Sometimes, the directors retaliated by taking his name off the credits.

– Filmfax article (not published) by Harvey Chartrand, 2003