esquire magazine | The Timothy Carey Experience

(Sorry to be late with this, I was out of town yesterday!)

The OLD SENTIMENTALITY said that anybody who was famous was a celebrity and therefore possessed glamour and excitement. It didn’t matter what we personally thought of them. We idolized movie stars because they were movie stars and if it was a rotten movie, so what? In the NEW SENTIMENTALITY, our celebrities come from the Underground. An actor who happens to excite us in a personal way is a REAL CELEBRITY. If we see somebody like TIMOTHY CAREY, the scared solider in PATHS OF GLORY, we react. We save our ADULATION for the man who happens to say something DIRECTLY TO US.

– David Newman and Robert Benton, Esquire magazine, July 1964

These two fellas wrote an article about me, David Newman and Robert Benton. These are the fellas that wrote the exciting picture Bonnie and Clyde. Much to my surprise, my brother called me up from New York back in 1965 and said, ‘Tim, you’re in Esquire.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding, what do they want me in Esquire for?’ Anyway, there’s a picture of John Wayne and a picture of myself, and the caption above it was ‘The Old Sentimentality vs. the New Sentimentality.’ Under John Wayne’s picture they had ‘Old Sentimentality’ and under mine they had ‘New Sentimentality.’ And they said ‘It happens that an actor,’ and they said a bit actor too, which I didn’t like. Anyway, they said that ‘Tim Carey is our new underground celebrity.’ They said I was dirty, now, they said I was uncouth. (laughs)

– Promotional radio interview for Head with Dick Strout for the “Hollywood Report,” 1968 (pic from the Psychotronic interview)