God knows how, but Rip Torn somehow made it to the age of 88. They say he could have been the next Marlon Brando or James Dean, had he not had a very slight falling out with Dennis Hopper on the set of Easy Rider. Torn was kicked off the movie (replaced by Jack Nicholson) and the ramifications were a) Torn had a career reputation as a troublemaker b) Torn sued Hopper for claiming he’d pulled a knife on him during an on-set argument.
Rip Torn would never pull a knife on-set, that’s ridiculous. Instead he pulled a hammer on director Norman Mailer on the set of Maidstone and smacked him repeatedly around the skull with it, drawing blood. The fight was, bizarrely, inserted into the film’s final cut.
In his later years, Torn finally earned enough money to pay off various debts: as Zed in Men In Black and, most notably, as conniving producer Artie in the game-changing sitcom The Larry Sanders Show. He never mellowed though: in 2010 he was arrested after breaking into a bank while drunk, allegedly under the belief it was his home (which was 3/4 of a mile down the road). When cops arrived to arrest him, he asked them how they got into his house.
Rip Torn
February 6, 1931 – July 9, 2019
Died aged 88 (3 picks)