Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on October 29, 2017

In honor of the imminent release of Steve De Jarnatt’s gem of a short film Tarzana (1978) on video (yes, finally! Watch this space!), here is the director recalling his experience of working with Timothy on that film to Paul Rowlands of the Money Into Light film blog.

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How was working with the legendary Timothy Carey?
What can you say about Timothy Carey? There was only one. A brilliant, extremely complicated and odd performer and human being. Some say Tim, who was in Paths of Glory (1957) and The Killing (1956), was the reason Stanley Kubrick moved to England, and I sort of know why. Tim would call me a couple times a week after the film was shot and talk (or perform) for an hour – it could be a freaky sort of thing – and poor Stanley probably couldn’t take it. This is how Tim would roll with someone he trusted. Now I just regret I didn’t record all those rambling Dali-esque monologues of his. When I got my first professional gig in the 80s, directing the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “Man from the South” with John Huston and Kim Novak, Tim called up Universal and said he was my manager and was supposed to get 50% of everything I made. (In truth, my entire salary went to joining the DGA on that one). I sort of drifted off from contact with him, but when I was casting for my first feature, Cherry 2000, Tim began to hound me for the part of Six Finger Jake. I did go to bat for him, but the studio and producer nixed it. I was very fortunate to get Ben Johnson, but Tim never forgave me. I had betrayed him. Ah well.

What was the shoot like?

We planned on shooting ten days and after three days, Tim Carey had used up all the film. Well, that’s not true, I did. I sat there agape and watched him riff in these crazy improvs that had nothing to do with the movie. One of the improvs is its own little cult film, Cinema Justice (1977). We had to shut down production and look for more money.

– Steve De Jarnatt, interview with Paul Rowlands, Money Into Light (accessed 10.29.17)

Michael C. Gwynne and Tim, Tarzana (1978)

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on January 25, 2015

Part 2 of director Alex Cox‘s tale of his encounter with Timothy during the filming of his student film Edge City (aka Sleep is for Sissies) (1980):

Clearly, Timothy was right for the part of the mysterious, mythological madman, the wisdom-dispensing grail-o-matic at the end of Roy’s desert quest. I offered him the part, making it clear that there wasn’t any money, this being a student film. He told me this was fine. What was important, he said, was somewhere he could be quiet and prepare, on set, before we filmed. This was a reasonable (if inconvenient) request; in my head I saw myself pitching a tent, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Timothy also thought that some of his observations, particularly regarding farts, might fit the character of Beauregard. I couldn’t have agreed more. How much film would it use up? Not that much. I could always cut the fart stuff out – though, if Timothy said it with the passion he evidently felt, it would probably be better than the lines I’d scripted.

I spoke to him a couple of times at his home in El Monte. The LA County Fair was held in nearby Pomona, and Timothy urged me to attend it, in particular so I could marvel at its enormous pigs. I said I’d try, and returned to issues of the shoot: costume, location, date, etc.

My plan was to shoot our showdown on one of the trails above Will Rogers Park. This was then an unspoiled and wild part of LA, whose canyons and roadless areas had so far defeated the developers. If you got deep enough into it, and looked the right way, all you could see was desert hills and the ocean. I was giving Timothy the directions to Will Rogers when he hit me up for cash. And he didn’t mean gas money, he meant a fee.

I’d already explained I had no money, that the film was being made via a ‘UCLA waiver’ by which Screen Actors Guild members could work for no money without breaking the guild’s rules. I reminded Timothy of the waiver, but he was now unwavering. ‘You must be able to come up with something,’ he told me, ‘even if it’s as little as 10,000 bucks.’

$10,000 was more than the entire budget of the film. I told him I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pay for anything, beyond gas, food, film, and his fucking tent.

I saw him only once thereafter, a couple of years down the line. I was going to a screening at the Hitchcock Theater on the Universal lot. And there was Timothy, sitting in the guard’s booth with the guard, singing and playing the guitar. He fixed me with an intense gaze, and serenaded me as I passed.

– Alex Cox, X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker (I.B. Tauris, 2008)

Edge City (1980) in four parts on YouTube

Pic of the Day: “That Sister Ain’t No Cousin” revisited

Posted by Marisa on November 12, 2013

Today we take another look at “That Sister Ain’t No Cousin,” the third of four Baretta episodes in which Timothy appeared. It was first broadcast on January 19, 1977. El Greco is a sinister drug lord obsessed with ancient Greek culture (hmm, must be why they call him that). Clearly he enjoys his work.

Oh boy, I can hear my husband now: “Ah, I see he’s wearing his SUN TV jacket!” Yes, dear. I’m guessing the show was originally recorded on videotape from SUN TV in Canada. Apparently, the Baretta Season One box set didn’t sell well enough for Universal to consider releasing subsequent seasons. A shame, truly. I do hope they revisit the idea.

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on October 6, 2013

GL: No offense, Tim, but did you ever drink a lot or use drugs?

TC: No, I’m a teetotaler. I never even smoked. People were always offering me grass or cocaine. I got my own cocaine – my own personality. I AM COCAINE. What do I need that stuff for?

GL: So, basically, you didn’t have any vices at all?

TC: Oh, yeah – I loved gambling and women. I used to live in Watts and go with black women all the time.

GL: All I have to go on is a list of your pictures and some wild stories I’ve heard around town. For instance, did you once tie up Otto Preminger in his office to get a role?

TC: False.

GL: … throw a snake into a closet where Ray Dennis Steckler was loading a camera, on the shoot of The World’s Greatest Sinner?

TC: Yeah, well, that’s what he claimed.

GL: And there’s this infamous screening of Sinner at Universal, where you stood by the door with a baseball bat and wouldn’t let the executives out.

TC: Naw, that’s one of the stories Cassavetes loved to tell, but we didn’t even screen the picture. We were up there to discuss a project of mine that John was promoting, a TV thing called “A.L.,” which is L.A. in reverse. But, no, I don’t use tactics like that. But my menace was my idea. I said, “When I work, nobody sits down and relaxes.” Cassavetes said it scared Ned Tannen. He and Danny Selznick were the ones who were there at the meeting.

– Grover Lewis, “Cracked Actor”, Film Comment Jan/Feb 2004; interview conducted in 1992

Timothy during the unfinished shoot of his own version of his script A.L., 1956

Pic of the Day: “Fear of High Places” revisited

Posted by Marisa on March 9, 2012

Our pic for today is another view of Tim’s mysterious silent character Jules Forel, as seen in the episode of The Name of the Game known as “Fear of High Places.” It first appeared on television screens across the nation on September 20, 1968.

It would be very nice to see an official release of this unusual series. Hello, powers that be at Universal? Also, still can’t get over those far-out shades.