RIP TORN


Rip Torn died recently. He was 88. I always assumed he picked that quirky name to sound tough. Many famous actors have changed their name to something easier to remember- Tina Fey, Vin Diesel, Whoopi Goldberg, etc. But no, that is Rip Torn’s real name! Well, Torn is his family name and men in the family had been called Rip for several generations. He had a glowery countenance, perfect for playing bad guys. I cannot remember a movie where he smiled. 
He logged nearly 200 credits in movies and TV. Mr. Movie is here for you, to rip(!) out the gold from the dross in Torn’s dossier.
Let’s begin with his one Academy Award nomination. It came in 1983 when he portrayed Marsh Turner in Cross Creek, the excellent film based on Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ classic autobiographical story. Mary Steenburgen plays the author, who leaves her husband and New York after buying a Florida orange grove sight unseen. Her interaction with the locals becomes the basis for her very successful novel, The Yearling. Rip Torn’s character is forced to shoot his daughter’s pet deer after it eats all of the family’s vegetables. By the way, Torn lost to Jack Nicholson for Terms Of Endearment.
Pork Chop Hill (1959) is one of the very best Korean war movies, and Rip Torn appears as Lieutenant Walter Russell. The Americans and South Koreans take Pork Chop Hill from the enemy, but suffer grievous losses. The Chinese are massing to retake the hill, but the allies are still urged to hold out despite the overwhelming force against them. Gregory Peck has the major role in the film, but the cast includes an astonishing list of actors who went on to become stars: Martin Landau, Woody Strode, Harry Guardino, Robert Blake, George Peppard, Gavin MacLeod, and Harry Dean Stanton. It’s fun to see all these guys when they weren’t yet famous.
Marie Antoinette (2006) is the fairly accurate biopic of the Austrian beauty who lost her head in the French Revolution. She is sent to France to marry the future Louis XVI and produce heirs. She doesn’t for many years and the French blame her, though her husband seems impotent or uninterested or both. Much later he finally gets the idea and a daughter is born. Rip Torn plays his father, Louis XV, who dies of smallpox. Kirsten Dunst has a great time playing the flighty Marie.
In both of the first two Men In Black (1997) and (2002) Rip Torn is the boss of the two leads, Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, who go around outing and blowing away aliens who look like ordinary people. Rip is appropriately dictatorial and frequently angry. 
Rip Torn can also be seen as Big Daddy in the TV movie of Cat 
on A Hot Tin Roof (1984).
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups.