Remembering Rip Torn and his effortless gravitas

Rip Torn had one of those unmistakable voices -- booming, imposing but also genial --he effortlessly leant gravitas to any material he appeared in, yes, even Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

Torn died today at 88 and he'll likely not have any huge tributes since he's the kind of stalwart character actor that Hollywood tends to take for granted until it's too late.

Yes, Torn did score one Oscar nomination in his career (for a supporting turn in 1983's Cross Creek) and he won a well deserved Emmy for his greatest role, as Garry Shandling's producer Artie on The Larry Sanders Show. But he still remains relatively unheralded.

I remembered him best from Larry Sanders, where his aggressively avuncular character was the perfect ying to Shandling's neurotic yang.

But probably my first introduction to him was in a wonderful performance opposite Albert Brooks in his criminally underrated (aren't all his movies?) comedy about purgatory called Defending Your Life. He plays Brooks' representative in a kind of trial to determine whether Brooks' soul can go to heaven or return back to earth to try to get it right the next time.

As wild as the premise is, Torn plays the role with such confidence and heart that he makes it all seem very plausible, even banal. It's no surprise that he would go on to play Will Smith andTommy Lee Jones' mentor/boss in the original Men in Black movies, only he could convincingly push Tommy Lee Jones around.

But there's more to appreciate in Torn's filmography. There's his turn in The Man Who Fell to Earth for instance, where he is probably the most normal character in the movie -- or Wonder Boys, where he plays a pompous author alongside Michael Douglas.

It appears that Torn was quite the rabble rouser in real life. He was allegedly originally cast to play the Jack Nicholson part in Easy Rider until he had a falling out with Dennis Hopper which involved  the director/star brandishing a knife and threatening him.

And if you really want to take a deep dive into Rip Torn craziness check out the very real physical fight he got into with author and wannabe filmmaker Norman Mailer, captured on camera and included in the obscure film Maidstone.

Basically, it's fair to say that Torn lived a hard life. And there aren't many actors lie that around anymore perhaps because of the era of tabloid saturation in which we live. They don't make them like Harry Dean Stanton or  Robert Loggia or Rip Torn anymore. And I think that's a shame.