Holy cow, folks. I really dropped the ball on this one. Timothy’s 88th birthday anniversary was last Saturday, March 11. I truly apologize for not posting that day. I promise to get back to posting on the regular. Life has been crazy lately, not to mention I had a portable hard drive meltdown a while back and it’s taken me some time to round up my screen shots. Things will be getting back to semi-normal around here soon! In the meantime, just ponder the fact that Tim would be 88 years old now.
THE WORLD’S GREATEST SINNER. And possibly the World’s Greatest Movie! Timothy Carey has the kind of flat-out sensual, deliberate brilliance that can scare the life out of a strong man. Like anyone who’s had the good fortune to experience this mammoth film…written, produced, directed and starring Mr. Carey… I’m in line to touch the hem of his garment. The awesome bombardment of philosophical / psychological / metaphysical messages in this tour de force goes 3-d one better, so to speak-this is the one film that not only SAYS IT ALL, but also manages to deliver the real truth about rock & roll and its place in a wildly undulating universe. To rockin’ rollin’ KICKS readers, TWGS is the ultimate R&R movie. To Joe Blow in the corn belt, it’s an incredible fast paced thriller with the wildest twists this side of Chubby Checker! Early on, we see leading man Carey as Clarence Hilliard, checking out a crazed crowd at a wild R&B show. Inspired, he takes up the guitar, changes his name to “God”, sports up in a fantastic gold lame suit (with “God” embroidered on the cuffs), and starts thrilling millions with his screaming rock & roll, dancing and preaching. With power, he becomes corrupt and careless, and the thrust of the film becomes a bizarre probe into the soul of man. The power and the glory of Carey’s performance come in the fact that, try as you may, you can’t bring yourself to believe that he is merely acting. Timothy Carey is, truly, genius personified. The movie is not only recommended, its required. Oh, and check this out, the title song is a reckless, stomping, lo-brow ’61 audio blaster that rates easily in KICKS HQ Top Ten Of All Time, even tho everybody here says pee-yew about the guy responsible for it – Frank Zappa!
– Miriam Linna, Kicks Magazine, 1992
Anybody who thinks Hollywoodites are normal persons like the folks next door should meet Timothy Carey, the strangest, wildest actor of them all.
Carey played the role of the creepy killer in last year’s “The Killing,” one of the best whodunits of many a season. In person he is creepier and makes Marlon Brando and Jack Palance look proper as Sunday school teachers.
A Mobile, Ala., theater man [M.A. Ripps] who saw the picture got so excited over Tim that he produced his first movie, “Bayou,” in order to star the 24-year old [more like 27] Carey. Tim gets special billing in his next picture, “Paths of Glory,” starring Kirk Douglas.
But before this success were years of troubles, apparently because of his inhibited [sic – this must be a typo, surely they meant “uninhibited”] behavior.
– Aline Mosby, “Carey Is Strangest, Wildest Actor”; newspaper column, March 7, 1957
The Timothy Carey Experience 