This one is full of some oft-repeated rumors and half-truths, but is still worth a look.

Imagine an actor with the wild, manic stare of a skid-row John Turturro, the gangly rebel stance of Jerry Lee Lewis and the acting presence of a secure-ward Nicolas Cage. Even then you’re still not close to the twisted screen presence of the great Tim Carey.[…]

Right from the start, Carey’s unique approach to acting – frowning and mumbling like a dope addict plotting to overthrow the world – got him into trouble. His key scene in The Wild One (1954) was his unscripted decision to shake up a can of beer and squirt it in Brando‘s face. His performance in East of Eden so incensed Elia Kazan that the director physically attacked Carey on set and then re-dubbed all of Tim’s surreal mutterings. However, Brando eventually patched it up with Carey and cast him as the oddball Howard Tetley in the portly star’s directorial debut, One-Eyed Jacks (1961). By the end of filming, Brando was so impressed by Carey’s unique performance that he ended up stabbing him with a fountain pen.

– Andrew Male, “Timothy Carey,” Bizarre magazine #27 (January 2000)