Rip Torn facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Rip Torn
Torn in 1994
Born	Elmore Rual Torn Jr. (1931-02-06)February 6, 1931 Temple, Texas, U.S.
Died	July 9, 2019(2019-07-09) (aged 88) Lakeville, Connecticut, U.S.
Burial place	Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1956–2016
Spouse(s)	Ann Wedgeworth ​ ​ (m. 1955; div. 1961)​ Geraldine Page ​ ​ (m. 1963; died 1987)​ Amy Wright ​ (m. 1989)​
Children	6, including Angelica Page
Relatives	Sissy Spacek (cousin) David Torn (cousin)

Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn Jr. (February 6, 1931 – July 9, 2019) was an American actor whose career spanned more than 60 years. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing Marsh Turner in Cross Creek (1983). Torn's portrayal of Artie the producer on The Larry Sanders Show received six Emmy Award nominations, winning in 1996. He also won an American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Male in a Series, and two CableACE Awards for his work on the show. Torn is also known for his roles as Zed in the Men in Black franchise (1997–2002) and Patches O'Houlihan in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004).

Early life

Elmore Rual Torn, Jr. was born on February 6, 1931, in Temple, Texas, the son of Elmore Rual “Tiger” Torn, Sr., and Thelma Mary Torn (née Spacek). The senior Elmore was an agriculturalist and economist who worked to promote the consumption of black-eyed peas, particularly as a custom on New Year's Day. Thelma was an aunt of actress Sissy Spacek. The family is of German, Austrian, and Czech/Moravian ancestry. The nickname "Rip" is a family tradition among men in the Torn family, having been used by his father, uncle, and a cousin. Torn graduated from Taylor High School in Taylor, Texas, in 1948.

Torn was a member of the Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets, although he graduated from the University of Texas where he studied acting under the Shakespeare professor B. Iden Payne, and was a member of the Alpha Nu chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity. After graduation, he served in the Korean War with the 2nd Infantry Division with the military police in the United States Army.

Career

Film and television

After moving to Hollywood, Torn made his film debut in the 1956 film Baby Doll. Torn then studied at the Actors Studio in New York under Lee Strasberg, becoming a prolific stage actor, appearing in the original cast of Tennessee Williams' play Sweet Bird of Youth, and reprising the role in the film and television adaptations. Torn later helped his younger cousin Sissy Spacek enroll in the Actors Studio. He also appeared in the first production of his friend James Baldwin's Blues For Mister Charlie. Along with Baldwin and numerous mutual friends he was active in the Civil Rights movement from the '50s forward, as Baldwin's biographer David Leeming relates.

One of Torn's earliest roles was in Pork Chop Hill, portraying the brother-in-law of Gregory Peck's character. He also had an uncredited role in A Face in the Crowd as Barry Mills. In 1957, Torn portrayed Jody in an early episode of The Restless Gun. In 1957, he starred as incarcerated Steve Morgan in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Number Twenty-Two", and on the same series in 1961, he played a recently released prisoner, Ernie Walters, in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Kiss-Off". After portraying Judas, betrayer of Jesus, in 1961 epic film King of Kings, Torn appeared in the February 7, 1962, episode of the acclaimed TV series The Naked City, "A Case Study of Two Savages". He played a graduate student with multiple degrees in 1963 television series Channing, and as Roy Kendall in the Breaking Point episode "Millions of Faces". More military roles followed, as a Marine drill instructor in an episode of The Lieutenant in 1963 and as a GI in an episode of Combat! the next year. In 1964, Torn appeared as Eddie Sanderson in the episode "The Secret in the Stone" in The Eleventh Hour and in the premiere of The Reporter. In 1965, in the film The Cincinnati Kid, he played Slade, a corrupt New Orleans millionaire, who pressures Steve McQueen during a high-stakes poker game. On television that year, Torn portrayed Colonel Royce in the episode "The Lorelei" of Twelve O'Clock High. Following these roles, he had turns as a character actor in numerous subsequent films. The part of George Hanson in Easy Rider was written for Torn by Terry Southern, but according to Southern's biographer Lee Hill, Torn withdrew from the project after co-director Dennis Hopper and he got into a bitter argument in a New York restaurant. Jack Nicholson played Hanson, instead, in a career-launching performance.

In 1972, Torn won rave reviews for his portrayal of a country and western singer in the cult film Payday. He co-starred with singer David Bowie in the 1976 science-fiction film, The Man Who Fell to Earth.

In 1982, Torn played a role as a black magic cult leader in the sword-and-sorcery movie The Beastmaster. He also co-starred in Jinxed!, a comedy with Bette Midler, and appeared as an airline executive in Airplane II: The Sequel. He played a sheriff opposite Treat Williams and Kris Kristofferson in the 1984 thriller Flashpoint. Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in 1983's Cross Creek as a poor neighbor of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in the orange groves of Florida. He was nominated for the CableACE Award for his portrayal of Big Daddy in the 1984 Showtime production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He co-starred with John Candy as a man who helps a tourist win a sailboat race in the 1985 comedy Summer Rental. He had a brief role as Sheriff Hank Pearson in Extreme Prejudice.

Torn in 1993

In 1988, he ventured into directing with The Telephone. The screenplay was written by Terry Southern and Harry Nilsson, and the film was produced by their company, Hawkeye. The story, which concerned an unhinged, out-of-work actor, had been written with Robin Williams in mind. After he turned it down, Whoopi Goldberg expressed a strong interest, but when production began, Torn reportedly had to contend with Goldberg constantly digressing and improvising, and he had to plead with her to perform takes that stuck to the script.

Goldberg was backed by the studio, which also allowed her to replace Torn's chosen DP, veteran cinematographer John A. Alonzo, with her husband. As a result of the power struggle, Torn, Southern, and Nilsson cut their own version of the film, using the takes that adhered to the script and this was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, but the studio put together a rival version using other takes and it was poorly reviewed when it premiered in January 1988.

In 1990, he portrayed Colonel Fargo in By Dawn's Early Light, a film from HBO about a fictional world war. In 1991, he portrayed Albert Brooks' character's celestial defense attorney in Defending Your Life. In 1993, Torn portrayed the OCP CEO in RoboCop 3 and starred opposite Tantoo Cardinal in Where the Rivers Flow North. This is the same year that Torn played the owner of a fictional battery company in a series of Energizer commercials in which the owner of a rival battery company hires various fictional villains to assault the Energizer Bunny and eliminate the competition. He was a naval officer presiding over a wargame in the Kelsey Grammer submarine comedy Down Periscope in 1996.

In 1997, Torn appeared in the Disney film Hercules, in which he voiced the god Zeus. Torn played MIB agency boss Zed in the 1997 hit film Men in Black, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, a role he reprised in the 2002 sequel Men in Black II. In 2001, Torn portrayed James "Jim" Brody in the comedy film Freddy Got Fingered. In 2004, he played the iconic wrench-tossing coach Patches O'Houlihan in DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story.

Stage career

Broadway

Torn appeared in ten Broadway plays and directed one. In 1959, he made his feature Broadway debut when he played Tom Junior in Sweet Bird of Youth, for which he won a Theatre World Award and also received a Tony Award nomination.

He returned next in 1962 in the play Daughter of Silence as Carlo, following that with a role in the 1963 production of Strange Interlude. In 1964, he played Lyle Britten in Blues for Mister Charlie, and four years later, he was Roberto in The Cuban Thing for its only performance on September 24, 1968.

In 1971, he portrayed Edgar in Dance of Death, and directed his first Broadway play in 1973: Look Away. In 1975, he portrayed the Son in the Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie and 5 years later, portrayed Don in Mixed Couples. For 13 years, Torn was absent from Broadway, but returned in 1993 to portray Chris Christopherson in Anna Christie. In his last Broadway appearance in 1997, Torn portrayed Will Kidder in The Young Man from Atlanta.

Off-Broadway

Torn made his feature off-Broadway acting debut as Eben Cabot in the play Desire Under the Elms, followed by Peter in The Kitchen at the 81st Street Theatre. His third off-Broadway role in The Deer Park won him the 1967 Obie Award for Distinguished Performance. He performed at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the play Dream of a Blacklisted Actor, and later at the Joseph Papp Public Theater's Anspacher Theater as William McLeod in Barbary Shore.

Torn's off-Broadway debut as director was for the Evergreen Theater with the play The Beard; he won the 1968 Obie for Distinguished Direction for that work. He next directed The Honest-to-God Schnozzia at the Gramercy Arts Theater, followed by August Strindberg's Creditors and The Stronger—in which he acted beside his wife at the time, Geraldine Page for the Joseph Papp Public Theater. Torn and Page also co-produced that production, and had previously presented the two plays along with Miss Julie at the off-off-Broadway Hudson Guild Theatre the year before.

The Larry Sanders Show

From 1992 to 1998, Torn portrayed Artie in The Larry Sanders Show. For his work, Torn received six consecutive Emmy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and won the award once (1996). Torn was the only actor in the series who won an Emmy Award for his work. Other than the Emmy nominations and win, he received two American Comedy Awards nominations for Funniest Male Performance in a Series, winning once, and two CableACE Awards for his work on the series.

Later career

Torn attending the Chiller Theatre Expo in 2015

Following The Larry Sanders Show, Torn appeared in many comedic roles in films. He was also known for his voice work and did voice-overs for many animated films.

In 2007 and 2008, he made five guest appearances on 30 Rock as the fictional chief executive officer of General Electric, Don Geiss. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, but lost to Tim Conway, who guest-starred in the same sitcom. Torn's character was reportedly killed off as a direct result of his 2010 arrest, though Tina Fey denied this in a DVD commentary. Torn voiced the character of Hephaestus in the 2010 video game, God of War III.

Torn also appears in the music video for the They Might Be Giants song "Can't Keep Johnny Down", from their 2011 album Join Us.

In 2015, he reprised his role as Zed in a Men in Black safety video for Air New Zealand with rugby player Israel Dagg and singer Stan Walker.

Personal life

Family

Torn was married three times, and had six children and four grandchildren.

His first marriage to actress Ann Wedgeworth lasted from 1956 to 1961. They had a daughter, Danae Torn.

In 1963, Torn married Geraldine Page, and they remained married until her death in 1987. They had a daughter, actress Angelica Page, and twin sons: actor Tony Torn, and Jon Torn (an associate professor of electronic media and film at Northern Arizona University). Torn apparently delighted in the fact that the doorbell of their New York townhouse read Torn Page.

Torn married actress Amy Wright in 1989. They had two children, Katie and Claire Torn.

Death

Torn died on July 9, 2019, at his home in Lakeville, Connecticut, at the age of 88 due to complications from Alzheimer's disease. He is buried at the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

See also

In Spanish: Rip Torn para niños