Timothy Carey
I’ll do a short post and let his performance (see video above) speak for itself.
- Born 1929 in Brooklyn.
- Lied his way into the Marines at age 15, though I’m not sure how or why.
- Acted in a few Kubrick films, a couple of Cassavetes films, Head, East of Eden, Echo Park, etc.
- Scaled a wall at Fox wearing a full suit of armor in an attempt to be cast in Prince Valiant.
- Stabbed with a pen by Marlon Brando while shooting One-Eyed Jacks.
- Faked his own kidnapping (ransom note an all) during the production of Paths of Glory (to get press). Kirk Douglas was already angered by Carey’s performance (which he felt overshadowed his own (it did)), and I’m sure this didn’t help matters any. Kubrick loved the anger this aroused in Douglas and encouraged Carey, as Kubrick wasn’t thrilled on working with Douglas.
- Wrote, produced, directed and starred in 1962’s The World’s Greatest Sinner, which, I must add, is narrated by a snake (who represents the Devil).
- Invited Cassavetes to his house, dressed him in a dog attack suit and unleashed 3 angry rottweilers on him, shouting (from the next room), “It’s not you they hate, it’s the suit!”
- Turned down a part in The Godfather. While reading for The Godfather: Part II, Carey pulled a gun from a lunch box he had and shot Coppola (with blanks). Coppola loved him, though he didn’t act in that film.
- Planned a film called Tweet’s Ladies of Pasadena in which he’s a “giant manchild who rollerskates everywhere he goes,” and who, among other other things, wishes “to clothe all the naked and homeless animals in the world.”
- Died 1994 in Los Angeles.