Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on October 12, 2014

Carey is a Brooklyn boy who never went far in high school but has acted in 16 films and six TV shows. He says: “What I really want to do is write. I’ve got a script right here, which I call L.A., that I’d like you to read.”

Carey isn’t about to quote Shakespeare but he’s living proof that “All the World’s a Stage…” He’ll say: “I joined the U.S. Marines at 15, was at Parris Island and finished boot training when they learned my age. Then I was out.”

That brief hitch with the Leathernecks was enough to entitle the unusually tall (6 feet 5 inches) Carey to go to school on the GI Bill. He elected drama school. He says: “When I got to Hollywood, I heard Henry Hathaway was casting Prince Valiant. I rented a Viking costume for $15, climbed a studio fence, confronted him with drawn sword. I didn’t get the part.”

Carey’s early penchant for such monkeyshines had him in the doghouse with half of Hollywood—but he’s acting and eating while many a more retiring youngster is waiting for a call, he says.

– George Murray, “Loop Movies,” Chicago Daily News, January 15, 1958

Timothy during the unfinished A.L. shoot, 1956

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on October 6, 2013

GL: No offense, Tim, but did you ever drink a lot or use drugs?

TC: No, I’m a teetotaler. I never even smoked. People were always offering me grass or cocaine. I got my own cocaine – my own personality. I AM COCAINE. What do I need that stuff for?

GL: So, basically, you didn’t have any vices at all?

TC: Oh, yeah – I loved gambling and women. I used to live in Watts and go with black women all the time.

GL: All I have to go on is a list of your pictures and some wild stories I’ve heard around town. For instance, did you once tie up Otto Preminger in his office to get a role?

TC: False.

GL: … throw a snake into a closet where Ray Dennis Steckler was loading a camera, on the shoot of The World’s Greatest Sinner?

TC: Yeah, well, that’s what he claimed.

GL: And there’s this infamous screening of Sinner at Universal, where you stood by the door with a baseball bat and wouldn’t let the executives out.

TC: Naw, that’s one of the stories Cassavetes loved to tell, but we didn’t even screen the picture. We were up there to discuss a project of mine that John was promoting, a TV thing called “A.L.,” which is L.A. in reverse. But, no, I don’t use tactics like that. But my menace was my idea. I said, “When I work, nobody sits down and relaxes.” Cassavetes said it scared Ned Tannen. He and Danny Selznick were the ones who were there at the meeting.

– Grover Lewis, “Cracked Actor”, Film Comment Jan/Feb 2004; interview conducted in 1992

Timothy during the unfinished shoot of his own version of his script A.L., 1956

Pic of the Day: Directing “A.L.”

Posted by Marisa on June 1, 2012

Our pic for today is not the usual screen cap from one of Timothy’s films. Instead, it’s a portrait of the artist as a young director. It was taken around the time Tim was attempting to film his script A.L. (which is not only the lead character’s name, but “L.A.” spelled backwards). The year was 1956.

A.L. tells the story of a young man from the Midwest named Al and his pet monkey, temporarily stranded in the labyrinths of Los Angeles without a car, while his wife prepares to give birth to their first child in a nearby hospital. Timothy had apparently filmed the first forty pages of his script before realizing that his lead actor simply didn’t have the chops to carry off the part.

“I’ve seen footage of A.L.,” Tim’s son Romeo told Harvey F. Chartrand in Filmfax magazine, “and it is amazing. Crisp 35mm footage on the freeway. Really cool. The monkey and the Midwestern couple are in it. So A.L. exists, but it hasn’t been cut. Much of it hasn’t even been screened. I have a vault with stacks of film cans of A.L. that I haven’t gone through yet.” Here’s hoping that footage soon sees the light of day.