Quote of the Week

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

Tim shooting AL in LA, 1956

Timothy during the unfinished A.L. shoot, 1956

Quote of the Week

In New Haven, they put me on the stage to help whip up some interest in Bayou. They hollered when I did the dance. It out-Elvises Elvis… 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… 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… 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.

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

Bayou lobby card

 

Quote of the Week

“Everything was fine until I got to Parris Island, then I didn’t like the Marine Corps. Oh, I could tell you things about the Marine Corps, boy. I’m not kidding. I called my mother and I said ‘I wanna get out of here!’ I didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t what I believed it was going to be. I knew it wasn’t going to be a tea party, but… They beat me from pillar to post, you know, called me ‘big stupe,’ kept on shooting me in the arm with this thing. The drill instructor said ‘Look, I’m just as good as Jesus Christ.’ He was tough, this guy. They had a rifle range, you know, and I could never get into the right position. You had to kneel down and put your fanny on your heel. I just couldn’t do that too good. And the drill instructor said, ‘I want this big stupe to fall over a locker box tonight!’ Every recruit has a locker box. If you fall over it, everybody can beat you up. So they came and beat me up that night. I ended up in the hospital. I tried to protect my knees, and they hit me over the knees with a baseball bat. And that was the Marine Corps.”

– Tim talking about his experience at Marine boot camp at age 15 (he had absconded with his late older brother’s birth certificate), from the work-in-progress documentary available at Absolute Films