Doris E. Carey 1940 – 2017

Posted by Marisa on June 14, 2017

Very sad news to report, via Romeo Carey:

Doris Carey, 77, Mother, Actress, Poet, Theanthropist

LOS ANGELES, June 7—Doris Erica Radlinger-Carey, actress, poet, and best known as the wife of character actor Timothy Carey (they met in Germany in 1957 while Carey was making Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory), died on Wednesday at Arcadia Methodist Hospital. She was 77. Her son Romeo announced the death and said the cause was a heart attack.

Doris Carey’s acting career began with a part in Timothy Carey’s 1961 movie The World’s Greatest Sinner and 1969 TV series Tweet’s Ladies of Pasadena. Mrs. Carey was also a published author of a book of poems entitled Echoes of A Soul in Anguish.

Mrs. Carey was her husband’s writing partner on several movie scripts and plays, including The Insect Trainer. Mrs. Carey’s domestic life was filled with homemaking, gardening, knitting, animal rescue, and other philanthropic endeavors.

In addition to her son Romeo, she is survived by her five other children: Mario, Velencia, Silvana, Dagmar and Germain, and six grandchildren: Priscilla, Ambria, Kevin, Fiory, Akira, and Prima.

Mrs. Carey will be laid to rest on Wednesday, June 14, 2017 alongside her husband at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California.

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on September 20, 2015

The Insect Trainer’s main character, Guasti Q. Guasti, is convicted of murder after farting so powerfully that a woman falls from her chair, hits the floor and dies. The play is characteristic theatre of the absurd, full of non-sequiturs and jarring stage action. Carey was hard at work rehearsing the play before his passing and created a philosophical tract about the virtues of flatulence. Carey’s son Romeo is planning a revival of The Insect Trainer, due to premiere in Los Angeles this spring. Romeo hopes to take the production on the road.

For all of Timothy Carey’s antics, he remained a devoted family man with a wife (only one) and six kids and endless dogs, cats, chickens, and horses. He lived out his life in the quiet suburb of El Monte, preferring the company of his animals to the unearthly world of Hollywood society. As he admits, he “made lots of fast enemies” during his career, but readily forgave his antagonists, as they were often just not ready to appreciate his uniqueness.

James B. Harris, the crusty producer/director who had many a run-in with Carey over the years acknowledges, “I know he’s so bizarre and I don’t think it’s gratuitous. I think there is enough humanity in this man. I think he could make a scene better than anyone else.” This humanity described by Harris encompassed a sympathy for the underdog: Carey was a supporter of Palestinian and Native American rights. The romantic equation, the ability to triumph despite the odds, played a great part in his art and his outlook.

– Alex de Laszlo, “The Wonderful Horrible Life of Timothy Carey”, Uno Mas magazine, 1996

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on May 24, 2015

The three wonderfully distinctive personalities I encountered and will mention in this series were all outspoken, eccentric to be sure, but full of passion for the unusual things in life. They all shared a sharp and wicked sense of humour and a youthful exuberance that probably presented itself to most who crossed their paths. I’m fairly certain of this because I had friends who encountered them as well. I feel extremely fortunate to have met all three. Sadly they have all passed on.

Part 2:

Another strange but colorful personality belonged to Timothy Carey, a character actor extraordinaire who I first met and spoke with just outside a Century City movie complex during a Los Angeles Film Exposition. He was protesting alone, holding a sign about the Expo’s organizers not showing his film The World’s Greatest Sinner. He paced back and forth while shouting phrases like “They show other people’s films but they won’t show my film” and “I worked with Brando and Kubrick but they won’t show my film.” He almost sounded like the whiny character he played in Paths of Glory. When I spoke with him while he protested, he just reiterated the above. When I spoke with one of the Expo’s organizers, he stated simply “It’s a really bad film.” (I’ve never seen it).

I ran into him again outside of a privately owned L.A. health food store. The store’s Korean owners rather cynically referred to this strange guy as tending to their outside herb garden. At the time I was with a friend who was clinically diagnosed as psychotic and he seemed to easily develop a rapport with Mr. Carey, especially when he mentioned that Carey should consider selling the herbs growing in the small garden bed. So imagine my surprise when I got home and heard on my answering machine Timothy Carey’s message that “The herbs are in the offing” amidst a reference to watching with some friends one of his memorable scenes in Paths of Glory where he suddenly kills a cockroach.

Another close attorney friend of mine and movie buff met Carey and told me of his plans to appear in a play Carey wrote about a guy who farts someone to death. It was never produced to my knowledge and instead of appearing in his play my attorney friend became pallbearer at his funeral. Timothy Carey died at only 65 years of age in 1994. He improvised his way into acting immortality. His cinematic legacy has become truly inspirational. He possessed a real life persona that was above all else, honest, caring and genuine and will be sorely missed.

A.G.

Timothy Carey (March 11, 1929 – May 11, 1994) R.I.P.

– Arthur Grant, “Close Encounters of the Treasured Kind #5: The Eccentrics Part 2”; The Cinema Cafe, January 22, 2014

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on May 3, 2015

Since then, Le Petomane has become the stuff of legend. His story became a comic strip in a 1975 issue of Apple Pie magazine and the better part of a 1976 comic book called The Compleat Fart, both of which featured him farting on the cover. In the 1980s, writer-character actor Timothy Carey, with assistance from painter Salvador Dali, invoked the figure and the “let-it-all-out” consciousness of Le Petomane during a murder trial (a man accidentally killed a woman when he farted) in a bizarre stage play called The Insect Trainer, subtitled Le Pet. While casting the play, Carey told Filmfax magazine, “I’d take a big fart in front of [the actors]. That’s always a big help. I always thought if you really want to be a good actor, you’ve got to be able to fart in public.”

– Jim Dawson, Who Cut the Cheese?: A Cultural History of the Fart; Ten Speed Press, 1998

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on February 15, 2015

Many kind, deifying and admiring words have been written to extol the virtues of Timothy William Carey, the hulking, Irish-Italian Brooklynite actor who was notoriously difficult to work with. From his death in 1994 ebbed a slow but mighty wave of fans who have been able to articulate the importance of his long and varied career (although it must be said, even if he himself stressed the importance of always being a different character, he was ALWAYS Tim Carey in his roles). He is often mentioned in the same breath as Crispin Glover (because of his overindulgence in bit-parts and screen stealing mania) and also Andy Kaufman (for his ability to irritate everybody on a set and spontaneous outbursts of “creativity”), however, there was a quality inextricably unsurpassed in Carey that makes him quite separate from those who share his title as simply a Hollywood provocateur. He was an example par excellence of the mutinous mutant, the graceful pig, the real hero of those beneath the underdog.

His representations of unstable deadbeats (Cassavetes’ Minnie and Moskowitz), men on death row (Kubrick’s Paths of Glory) or righteous fartists (his own The Insect Trainer) all have the honor of being loved by him – characters with nothing else in common but expedient exaggeration – but are still always losers, always hated by all around them, apart from himself. In one of his glorious interviews, he announced, “Characters as evil as the ones I play just can’t be allowed to remain in society. The only time I managed to “stay alive” all the way through a picture was when I wrote and produced one myself”. However this clever byline has a witty double entendre; for his overacting, radical excitement and inability to cooperate or be boring, he was fired from almost as many roles as he was able to snag. That, and a piety about his art that made him give up done deals to be in the first two Godfathers, or roles with Tarantino and Coppola. It is immediately apparent from looking at his career that the directors that gave him the most rope (his beloved Cassavetes and the early Kubrick work) were the ones that got the most out of him.

– Jimmy Trash, “Timothy Carey: Hollywood Provocateur”; Network Awesome Magazine, April 25, 2013

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on February 1, 2015

Truly one of the greats, actor Timothy Carey was unparalleled in his career in his portrayals of creepy, scary, dirty, slimy swarthy bastards. No one did it better — no one ever will.

In addition to a very eclectic filmography as an actor, he also directed at least one bonafide classic. (ITEM: I just spell-checked “Bonafide, and got “Bonaire!” Hahaha!)

Sadly, Timothy Carey died on May 11, 1994 as a result of his fourth stroke in less than six years, right before THE INSECT TRAINER went on stage.

IMO, he was both “The World’s Greatest Sinner,” and “The World’s Greatest Actor.” Certainly the former for his brilliant film of the same name, and certainly the latter in the categories of “Cult Actor” and “Villain!”

First about his being typecast as a “villain.” If you’re not familiar with the man’s work, just take a look at that mug of his. He was born to play the no good, the swarthy nasty who always gets the girl (although frequently, she doesn’t want him) and the downright evil — and he loved every minute of it. And it wouldn’t be too surprising if you were not familiar with his work. That’s part of what makes him a “Cult Actor” – you’ve got to work to find him. But the funny part is, you’ve probably seen him before because he was one of Stanley Kubrick’s favorite actors (but even Stanley probably couldn’t find roles for him in 2001 or Barry Lyndon).

NOTE: Sorry, but I need a break here. Eventually, I’ll probably write many pages on this unique actor. In the meantime, don’t miss his performance as the sleazy, racist “Horse Sniper” in Kubrick’s early classic, The Killing. Also, check-out Kubrick’s following film, the one even most all critics agree is a classic, Paths of Glory, where Carey is one of three soldiers sentenced to die (along with another fave, Ralph Meeker, who can be seen in just about the best example of film noir, Kiss Me Deadly), and his slow, measured breakdown into a whiny weasel begging for his life. And, you get Kirk Douglas, too. Finally, don’t miss his wild, uninhibited dance in Poor White Trash (aka Bayou), where Cajun-Carey out-Ziggys Bowie! I’m not kiddin’. In fact, the filmmakers liked it so much, they edited in/repeated the dance about four or five times in the film.

– Punchinello Beat/Scott Morrow, “Timothy Carey: Greatest Cult Actor”; 2005 (accessed 02/01/2015. Angelfire site; sorry about that!)

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on June 22, 2014

GUASTI

Then… this man actually made music with his anus?

BOSKORSKY

Of course… his colon was a polytongued organ and he could fire it as if from a magaxine of a gune. At least a dozen tropes of musical modes of which he chose only those that had artistic merit. It’s amazing La Pet became so wealthy from his fete or rather his rectum, I should say, he bought the Moulin Rouge, where he performed. He was the toast of the continent!

(STANDS)

All dressed-up in top hat, tuxedo and tails… on stage a spotlight was always on his backside of his pants, which was split, of course, so the audience could hear every note… I know, because I had the honor of seeing and hearing him perform… (STARTS DANCE) he was incomperable, (In Russian): Fantastic… tell you, truly a legend in his own time, monsieur La Pet. The Fart. (HUMMS the French Anthem)

GUASTI

(IN ECSTACY)

Wow! Wow! Wow!

JUDGE

(POUNDS GAVEL)

Order, order in the court.

CURTAIN COMES DOWN

– Timothy Carey, The Insect Trainer (1988; final draft 1993). Presented as it appears in the script verbatim, with Tim’s spelling and syntax intact.

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on April 20, 2014

Timothy Agoglia Carey lived and died an underground legend.

The heavy-lidded, conspicuously tall actor crafted one of the most disjointed, overlooked and under-appreciated film careers in cinema history.

He was a man who refused to compromise, didn’t check his spelling, and never, ever listened to a goddamn word anybody said to him.

He wrote, produced and directed a play called THE INSECT TRAINER, which revolved around the power and the importance of farting.

He brought John Cassavetes over to his house, put him in a dog attack suit and let three rottweilers jump on him, while yelling words of encouragement from the next room, “It’s not you they hate, it’s the suit!”

Richard Widmark beat him up on the set of 1956’s THE LAST WAGON. Not to be outdone, in 1961 Carey was kicked in the ribs by Karl Malden and stabbed with a pen by Marlon Brando during the making of ONE-EYED JACKS.

He was one of the few actors Stanley Kubrick ever trusted to improvise a scene.

He faked his own kidnapping and ransom note during the filming of PATHS OF GLORY, just to get some press.

He led a life of strange brilliance. Carey’s passion for life blazed a trail of wide-eyed wonder that has been followed by such contemporary icons as Crispin Glover and Andy Kaufman.

Through all of this, and much, much more, he always remained true to the world he most definitely helped create and flourish: the underground.

– Sam McAbee, “Timothy Carey: Saint of the Underground”; Cashiers du Cinemart #12 (2001)

Video of the Week: “Paths of Glory”

Posted by Marisa on February 26, 2014

Our video for this week is from Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory (1957). It’s the scene in which the doomed prisoners (Ralph Meeker, Joe Turkel, and Timothy) ruminate over their fate. They have just rejected their last meal, fearing it may have been poisoned.

An unfortunate cockroach also meets his fate. I’ve always suspected that Tim’s play The Insect Trainer was inspired, at least in part, by his desire to make amends to the cockroach.

Quote of the Week: A Note from Tim

Posted by Marisa on January 19, 2014

This is a note written by Timothy to a fan in England by the name of Paul. It’s undated, but as he mentions he’s preparing a production of The Insect Trainer, I’m guessing it was written near the end of his life. There was another note to Paul and an autographed photo from The World’s Greatest Sinner also up for auction on eBay, but I got outbid on those. I can find no information on the English friend of his he mentions.

Dear Paul!

Excuse the delay. I’m preparing an original play, “Insect Trainer”. Hope to meet you someday. I had a friend from England. He was an actor/writer named Tony Rome [Rowe?]. But he went to the Happy Hunting Grounds. I miss him. Perhaps you could be an ade [aide] to me some day. Thanks.

Tim Carey