Happy Birthday Kirk Douglas!

Posted by Marisa on December 9, 2014

The inimitable Kirk Douglas turns 98 years old today! That’s pretty impressive. Here he is with Timothy in Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory (1957). Tim is reportedly standing in a hole, so that he would not tower over the film’s star and uncredited co-producer.

“Let me tell you an interesting story about Paths of Glory,” Tim said in the Psychotronic interview. “In the execution scene there was no dialogue but I started to speak, so Kubrick said, ‘Bring in the sound!’ I kept saying, ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die’, so Kubrick comes up to me and says, ‘Tim, you better make this good, Kirk Douglas doesn’t like it’, but of course they used it.” We hope that Douglas has forgiven Tim by now for stealing the film from him. We’re pretty sure he has; he recently named Paths as one of the films he is most proudest of. Happy birthday, Mr. Douglas!

Pic of the Day: “One-Eyed Jacks” promotional still

Posted by Marisa on April 3, 2014

Today we observe the 90th birthday anniversary of the legendary Marlon Brando. Timothy appeared with him twice, in The Wild One (1953) and One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Here is a rarely seen promo still from that latter film that I received from friend of the blog Toby Roan, author of the forthcoming A Million Feet of Film: The Making of One-Eyed Jacks. In a scene not appearing in the final cut of the film, the dead body of ne’er-do-well Howard Tetley is carried away by Rio, the man who shot him (Brando), Chico (Larry Duran) and Sheriff Dad Longworth (Karl Malden).

“You know, I was always a hound for publicity,” Tim said in the Psychotronic interview. “They were doing the Academy Awards and Brando was up for it. Well, I knew him from The Wild One, I knew he was going to get it (for On the Waterfront), so I was getting dressed up for it and I was going to go up there and get it before he got there, but some guy from Western Costume who was dressing me up talked me out of it.” I think most of us secretly – or perhaps not so secretly – wish he had gone ahead with his dastardly plan. Sending afterlife birthday greetings to you, Mr. Brando!

Video of the Week: “The Wild One”

Posted by Marisa on February 20, 2013

This week’s video revisits The Wild One (1953), directed by Laslo Benedek and starring, who else, Marlon Brando. Timothy first appears at about 4:25, when he and the gang terrorize poor switchboard operator Dorothy (Eve March).

Tim related in the Psychotronic interview, “Someone took me over to see Laslo Benedek, who directed The Wild One, and he liked me, but he wouldn’t let me drive a motorcycle. I guess he didn’t trust me. He thought I’d run over a few people.”

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on October 9, 2011

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)

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on July 17, 2011

[Talking about One-Eyed Jacks (1961)] “Brando gave me a compliment or a complaint! He said, ‘Tim, you’re the only actor,’ now he shot me, ‘You’re the only actor that I ever worked with, that even in death, you move.’ He knew me from The Wild One. There’s this scene where I shake up a beer and squirt it in Brando’s face and he said to me, ‘You’re not gonna throw any beer in my face are you?’, and I said, ‘If I do Marlon, it’s gonna be good beer, I’m gonna use German beer.'”

– From Psychotronic Video magazine #6, 1990, interview by Michael Murphy and Johnny Legend with research by Michael J. Weldon