Rip Torn

The actor, Rip Torn, died yesterday.  He was a terrific actor, a force of nature, as they would say.  He was most famous, I guess, for getting into big fights and living a gigantic life, but on stage, he was loved for astonishing performances of Tennessee Williams' characters ("Sweet Bird of Youth" - in which he played the nasty brother of Heavenly -- you can see him in the movie, but apparently, the movie can't hold a candle to the play performance directed by Elia Kazan) and for the character he played on "The Larry Sanders Show" -- Artie, the producer.  He also played "Zed" in "Men in Black" and lots of other things.  He said that he never missed a performance -- that once he passed a kidney stone on stage on opening night of a play.

He was known for having a volatile temper.  Apparently, the reason he didn't get Jack Nicholson's role in "Easy Rider" was that he and Dennis Hopper (no shrinking violet himself) had some sort of altercation with a knife and one of them got stabbed.  (Dennis Hopper said Rip Torn stabbed him, but Torn sued him and won so I don't know what that means.)  He said this about his reputation for being "out of control".  "What do they say about all the guys that are tremendous actors? Don't they say they have a volatile temper and emotions? Yeah, sure they do! They're not saying they like a nice, mild guy. Look at Sean Penn." (that's from IMDB)

He was married to Geraldine Page (who was an extraordinary actor and played Alexandra Del Lago, a fading movie star, in the aforementioned "Sweet Bird of Youth").  He was married to her until her death and called her "his soul" and said that she taught him how to deal with the challenges of his temper -- "I learned from Gerry that all you need is time on stage.  No matter how I felt, no matter what anyone said about me, I always had the audience."