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 Torn, whose late-career resurgence included a key role on U.S.
television's "The Larry Sanders Show" and in the movies "Men in
Black" and "Dodgeball," died peacefully at his home, his family
told the Hollywood Reporter and other media.
The cause was not disclosed, but he was surrounded by his wife,
actress Amy Wright, known for "Stardust Memories" and "The
Accidental Tourist", and his daughters, media reports said.
Neither his family nor agent were immediately available for
comment late Tuesday.
Torn showed great range in his career but with a crooked grin,
gruff voice and devilish glint in his eyes, he was especially
well suited to playing bad boys and unpredictable characters.
He often made headlines because of his volatility. He blamed his
dismissal from a production of "Macbeth" on "friends" of the
administration of President Richard Nixon, who Torn would later
portray in the television mini-series "Blind Ambition."
Later in life came alcohol-related incidents, including an
arrest in 2010 for breaking into a closed bank that he had
mistaken for his home in Salisbury, Connecticut.
"I have certain flaws in my makeup. Something called
rise-ability," Torn told writer Studs Terkel for "Working," a
1974 book about people and their jobs. "I get angry easily. I
get saddened by things easily."
Torn said he went into acting as a way to use those emotions to
his benefit.
"Rip has an unabashed masculine drive. You can't act that,"
playwright Horton Foote, who cast Torn in his play "The Young
Man From Atlanta" and also worked frequently with Torn's second
wife, Geraldine Page, told the New York Times.
FARM DREAMS
Torn was born in Temple, Texas, on Feb. 6, 1931, and grew up
with aspirations of being a farmer before discovering drama at
the University of Texas. After graduating, he and first wife Ann
Wedgeworth moved to New York in the late 1950s.
Torn, who studied at Lee Strasberg's legendary Actors Studio,
found steady stage and television work. His early movies
included "King of Kings" (1961), "The Cincinnati Kid" (1965) and
the war films "Pork Chop Hill" (1959) and "Beach Red" (1967).
Torn was a good fit for Tennessee Williams' plays, such as
portraying the menacing Tom Jr. in "Sweet Bird of Youth," which
earned him a Tony nomination. He reprised the role in a movie in
1962 and also played Big Daddy in a 1984 TV production of
Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Much of Torn's work in the 1970s and '80s consisted of one-off
TV roles and a few little-seen experimental films. Among the
exceptions were "Cross Creek," a 1984 film that earned him an
Academy Award nomination, and 1972's "Payday" in which he
starred as a hard-drinking, womanizing country singer.
Torn blamed the career slowdown partly on his political views,
including criticism of the Vietnam War, but he came out of it in
the '90s, boosted by his part in Albert Brooks' much-praised
life-after-death comedy "Defending Your Life."
From 1992 through 1998 he had the scene-stealing role of Artie,
the all-knowing producer on "The Larry Sanders Show," Garry
Shandling's satiric take on late-night television. Torn won an
Emmy in 1996 and was nominated five other times for the role.
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Torn also played Zed, the alien-busting boss in two "Men in Black"
movies, and was Patches O'Houlihan, the snarling wheelchair-bound
burn-out case whose idea of training his charges in the 2004 comedy
"Dodgeball" was to throw tools at them ("If you can dodge a wrench,
you can dodge a ball!").
A run on the NBC sitcom "30 Rock" brought Torn another Emmy
nomination in 2008.
UNEASY MEETING
Torn gained notoriety for a role he did not get in the classic
hippie-era movie "Easy Rider." Novelist-screenwriter Terry Southern
wanted Torn to play a disenchanted lawyer in the film (the part
eventually went to Jack Nicholson). But when they had dinner with
stars Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda to discuss it in 1967, an
altercation broke out.
Hopper would say Torn threatened him with a knife but Torn contended
it was Hopper who pulled the knife and that he had taken it away
from Hopper and turned it on him.
Torn said Hopper's account made him look unstable and hurt his
career. When Hopper repeated the story on the "Tonight" show in
1994, Torn sued and won $475,000 in damages.
Torn was a co-star in one of the most remarkable scenes in movie
history - a real fight with friend Norman Mailer in "Maidstone," a
1970 experimental film the writer was directing and starring in.
Mailer played a presidential candidate who feared assassination and
Torn his half brother in the highly improvised film, which was to
conclude with the killing of the candidate. For the final scene,
Torn went up to Mailer unannounced and struck him on the head with a
hammer, drawing blood.
In the ensuing grappling, Mailer bit Torn's ear and Torn ended up on
top of him, choking the writer until two men and Mailer's wife, who
was screaming and slapping Torn, separated them - all while the
cameras rolled.
Torn, who would end up in a hospital after his bitten ear became
infected, insisted Mailer knew what was coming and that he had used
the hammer's handle to hit him.
Torn went into entertainment with a name that many assumed was a
corny, ill-conceived stage name. For a while he carried his passport
with him to show skeptics that his name really was Elmore Rual Torn
Jr. and told them that Rip was a long-standing nickname for the men
in his family.
"If anything, my name has made me work harder," he told the New York
Times. "Some people just seem to take instant umbrage at it."
Torn, who helped his cousin Sissy Spacek start her movie career, had
six children in his marriages to Wedgeworth, Page and Amy Wright.
(Writing and reporting by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by Rich
McKay; Editing by Peter Cooney and Patricia Reaney)
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