Video of the Week: “Making Sinner”

This week’s video is a preview trailer of sorts for Making Sinner, the forthcoming documentary by Tim’s son Romeo Carey on the exercise in barely controlled chaos that was the filming of The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962).

I have to say, I’m not a big fan of the rap music accompaniment. I think some gut-bucket rockabilly would have been more appropriate. Your mileage may vary. At any rate, it’s all worth it for the shots of God Hilliard entwined in the coils of The Snake, attacking his guitar like a man possessed. Wow…

Pic of the Day: “Mermaids of Tiburon” revisited

By special request (not to mention that it’s way past time for a revisit), today’s pic is another shot from Mermaids of Tiburon (1962), directed by underwater photography expert John Lamb. Timothy’s bad guy Milo Sangster (what a great name) is menacing the hero (George Rowe) with a flare. He appears to be really enjoying it, too.

It’s too bad Tim didn’t get a chance to do more films outdoors and especially on the water; he appears to be right at home. I don’t know if being a Pisces had anything to do with it.

Quote of the Week

“I did a snake scene at a personal appearance in Hartford, Conn., and had trouble getting a girl to help. I mean, I didn’t want to get my mother for it… My mother wants me to be a priest.“

- From My New York by Mel Heimer, Simpson’s Leader-Times, January 18, 1958

Timothy and his mother, Ida Agoglia Carey, from the work-in-progress documentary available at Absolute Films

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!

Eighteen Years Without Tim.

Timothy died of a stroke eighteen years ago today. It is also the birthday anniversary of his hero, Salvador Dali. Coincidence? You make the call!

Tim looking decidedly Dali-esque in his son Romeo’s short film The Devil’s Gas (1990), his final film appearance

Amazing portrait by Dan O’Connor of Ace Kilroy fame!

Visiting Tim last September.

Timothy’s obituary from the New York Times, May 17, 1994.

May Timothy continue to entertain us, inspire us, enchant us, and make us think. Rest well, Tim. We miss you.

Pic of the Day: “The Blue Angels” revisited

Today we take another look at “The Blue Angels,” the Charlie’s Angels episode that was first aired on May 4, 1977. Timothy only appears in the first few minutes. This is how he ends up, unfortunately.

He got a much more important role in his second appearance on the show later that year, in the episode “Angels on Ice.” “The Blue Angels” was directed by the prolific television actor and director Georg Stanford Brown.

Video of the Week: Frank Zappa on the Steve Allen Show, 1963

This week we present something slightly different. This is a young Frank Zappa appearing on the Steve Allen Show in 1963. He talks about his involvement with Tim and the scoring of The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962). He is not exactly complimentary. Then he plays a bicycle. Take a look:

“Around the same time he [Zappa] was on the Steve Allen Show,” Timothy said in the Psychotronic interview in 1990. “That’s where our friendship stopped. Steve asked him what films he did. He said, ‘I did The World’s Greatest Sinner, the world’s worst film and all the actors were from skid row.’ It wasn’t true. The press said I was the world’s greatest ham, and that The World’s Greatest Sinner was a travesty of the arts. Zappa didn’t like that and he started to get on their bandwagon. The opening night at the director’s guild, he was in complete awe. He walked into the window and banged himself in the head. He didn’t even know there was a window there.”

Pic of the Day: “East of Eden” (1955) still

Today’s pic is another from Elia Kazan‘s East of Eden (1955). What is interesting about this still is that it depicts a scene that is not in the final version of the film.

When Joe the bouncer (Timothy) removes Cal (James Dean) bodily from Kate’s room, the scene ends with Joe struggling with Cal in the hallway. The next scene shows Cal tending his wounds elsewhere. This still shows Cal actually being thrown out of the brothel, with Joe looking on. I am not sure who the other actor is. It’s also not clear if this was an actual scene that was cut from the film, or if it was a staged shot to be used as a model for poster artwork and the like. Nonetheless, it’s quite a treat to come across a rare bit of film history like this!

Pic of the Day: “The Deadly Quest Affair” revisited

To mark the birthday anniversary of the late great Darren McGavin, today we take another look at “The Deadly Quest Affair,” the episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. that first aired just in time for Halloween on October 30, 1967. McGavin is exotic villain Viktor Karmak, complete with pet leopard. Timothy, as Karmak’s torpedo Stefan, is divesting Robert Vaughn and Marlyn Mason of weapons or anything else that would give them an unfair advantage as the plot unfolds.

Tim appeared with McGavin again the following year in the first episode of the series The Outsider, “For Members Only,” which I’m still working on finding a copy of. McGavin certainly ruled a big part of my teen years as Kolchak: The Night Stalker in the mid-1970s. He passed away in 2006  and is greatly missed.

Quote of the Week

This week we feature another newspaper article that needs to be posted in full. It’s from the Delaware County (PA) Daily Times of August 28, 1968.

EVEN POLICE GET NERVOUS AT SIGHT OF CHARACTER ACTOR

Timothy Carey is one of the country’s top character actors, but he has a face that makes you want to scream for the cops.

Even policemen get nervous when they catch sight of this gentle man who looks as though he’s bound to have horns under his hair.

“I can’t even take a stroll through a park,” says Carey. “As soon as women see my face they start gathering up their children and running for home.”

Carey, who will portray a foreign agent in “The Fear of High Places,” the premiere episode of the NBC Television Network’s new “Name of the Game” series Sept. 20, says he never walks into a liquor store late at night for fear of giving store owners heart attacks.

“Every time a policeman gets a look at me I can see the wheels starting to turn in his head. He’s positive that I’m on his ‘wanted’ list for at least three major crimes.”

In real life Carey is a devoted husband and the father of five children. They all live in a happy, noisy home which contains, among other things, ducks, chickens, cats, dogs and a goose.

His kids love to see their father as the “bad guy” in movies and television. “They hiss and boo right along with everyone else,” laughs Tim.

The Brooklyn-born former Marine plays such a bad “bad guy” that he always winds up dead. “Characters as evil as the ones I play just can’t be allowed to remain in society,” says Carey. “The only time I ever managed to ‘stay alive’ all the way through a picture was when I wrote and produced one myself.”

Last week, while driving home from the studio, Carey was hailed to the curb by a suspicious policeman.

“He had his ticket book in one hand as he walked up to the window,” says Carey, “but he had the other hand on his gun.”

As he has so often in the past Carey assured the officer that he was just a hard working actor, not a wanted criminal.

“Now I recognize you. You’re the guy that always loses,” said the officer as he folded his ticket book and smiled.

“This time you’re going to win.”

Pic of the Day: “The Great Train Robbery”

Today we finally get a look at Timothy in the Sheriff of Cochise episode “The Great Train Robbery,” first broadcast on October 5, 1956. He portrays Stark, the nasty leader of a gang of thieves who pull off said robbery. As we all know, however, justice prevails (at least on television in the 50s), and Stark and his gang are eventually hauled off to jail by Sheriff Frank Morgan (John Bromfield).

Also appearing in this episode is Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, whose brother Jose co-starred with Tim in Mermaids of Tiburon (1962). Bromfield retired from acting in 1960 to become a commercial fisherman.