g.i. bill | The Timothy Carey Experience

Our week begins with another look at the Ellery Queen episode “The Adventure of Caesar’s Last Sleep,” first airing on March 14, 1976. Rent-a-hit-man Bonner is on the phone clearing up some details with his latest client.

Also seen in this episode (no scenes with Timothy, unfortunately) is familiar character player Michael V. Gazzo. Like Tim, he attended drama school after World War II on the G.I. Bill. He first gained success as a Broadway playwright with A Hatful of Rain, which later became a film directed by Fred Zinneman. He enjoyed a forty-year career as a memorable character actor on television and the big screen. He is perhaps best known for his Academy Award-nominated performance as gruff mafioso Frankie Pentangeli in The Godfather: Part II (1974).

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