Name: Rip Torn on Letterman, October 4, 1983
Uploaded: 2019-07-10T03:43:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Rip Torn on Letterman, October 4, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-07-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Rip Torn on Letterman, October 4, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-07-10. Transcript available.

Thank you, Leon. Thank you, folks, and welcome back to our program.
My next guest has had a distinguished career and often controversial as an
actor.
He has played the characters Judas, Walt Whitman, Richard Nixon,
and is currently appearing in a film called Cross Creek with Mary Steenburgen.
It's a pleasure now to meet Rip Torn. Rip.
Hi, Rip. How are you?
Thank you very much for being on the program.
I recently, Mary Steenburgen was here not too long ago,
and I had seen Cross Creek, and I thought you were terrific in it.
Thank you.
Did a really, really nice job.
For people who may not have seen the film, explain your character,
and then I'd like to find out if there was an actual person you based that on.
Well, I play a backwoodsman, a poacher, a bootlegger, a subsistence farmer,
It's a guy in Florida.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And did you, is this a guy you just invented, or did you?
Oh, I grew up in East Texas.
I used to fish a lot along the Sabine River and Caddo Lake,
and they're like a lot of people I grew up with.
Did you do any work with any of the locals before the film?
This was based on Rawlings.
What was it?
Marjorie Kennard Rawlings.
Yeah.
She was quite a character down there, wasn't she?
Yeah, they still talk about Ms. Rawlings, and they're very protective of her.
They got a state park down there named after her, but they still talk about Ms.
Rawlings this, Ms. Rawlings that.
Yeah.
Did you spend any time with them before you did the movie?
Well, we built a boat.
Me and a fellow named Jake Glisson, we built the boat that we used in the film.
It's an Orange Creek poacher's boat.
Now, that's interesting to me.
Why would you, I can understand going down there, you know, to talk to folks
who knew the woman
and get research and so forth and background, but why would you help a guy
build a boat?
Well, you know, he, well, I said if I got the right boat for the guy that I'm
playing
and the right horse for him and the right gun and the right clothes and
everything,
I might mess up the acting, but the rest of it will sail off.
So, you know, it's like having basic equipment.
How long did it take you to build the boat?
Three days and three nights.
Oh, so...
We leased it to the film company.
We heard them bad.
It was like a $14 million film, and we charged them $700 for the, at least, the
Bull Gator
is the name of the boat.
It's one of my first venture capitalist things, and we split it up and put it
in our pockets
and shook hands, and we still got the boat down there.
Well, good.
And so the next time another unsuspecting film crew comes through, you'll...
Well, I'll bill you some more props.
You were...
Let me ask you about your name.
That's an interesting name, isn't it?
It certainly is.
Were you born Rip Torn?
Well, they tell me they said Little Rip out of Big Rip, because that's my dad's
name.
He was Rip Torn, and I got an uncle named Roland.
He's called Rip, and I got a cousin named Sam that's called Rip, so don't mess
with us,
a bunch of us.
Oh, no, I'm not going to mess with you.
Okay.
But it was a nickname, wasn't it?
Yeah, it's a nickname.
I got my Texas driver's license.
Oh, good.
Put your hands on the car, Rip, and...
Don't tell anybody in New Mexico you're from Texas, but I guess it's okay up
here.
All right, operator.
Oh, I see.
Here we go.
All right, down there.
Let's take a look at that.
Now, did you ever have any difficulty with that name when you were first
starting out as
a serious actor?
Torn, Elmore...
Serious?
Rule.
They said it was a bit country, and they said Rip sounded like a comedian, so...
But I said, no, that's my cousin.
And did anybody ever ask you to change the name?
Yes.
Actually, I got to play him, Mr. Carlo Ponte.
He offered me a seven-picture deal early in my life, and they said that I had
to change
my name, and I got a chance to play him later on.
I hope I didn't take no vengeance on him.
Yeah.
What did you tell him when he said, we'd like you to change your name?
I didn't have anything to say.
I just said thank you and got up and walked out, and I was kind of dumb.
Oh, well.
But it was very important to keep the name Rip Torn.
It wasn't, but I thought I was protecting my real name, Elmore, by using the
name Rip,
and if I did anything dreadful, because showbiz, where I grew up, had an awful
reputation.
Yeah, just so the folks back home wouldn't know.
Yeah, it was Elmore in trouble.
You were also offered an exclusive contract by Howard Hughes, weren't you, at
one point
in your career?
I think I was, because I never talked to Mr. Hughes.
I knew Walter Kane, who's a big entrepreneur out in Las Vegas, and he said that
Mr. Hughes
would see me on television with Tuesday Well, and want to put me under contract.
Were you pretty excited about that at the time?
Well, definitely.
I mean, he's an all-American hero, but I thought about it, and I knew the old
boy that
had played Billy the Kid, did one movie, and was on salary for about 25 years.
See, Mr. Hughes had so many irons in the fire that he didn't really, he didn't
know, he
might forget about you.
Yeah.
So, I told, I said, thank you very much, but I just want to remain independent.
Yeah.
Did you ever actually meet the guy face to face?
Never did, no.
Never did.
There's a story that we were talking about this afternoon that Norman Mailer
bit your ear.
Is that the truth?
We were doing a film in which he probably invited 20 or 30 people to make an
assassination attempt
on him, and it was a kind of improvisational film, and so I whacked him pretty
good, and
I think he thought I was going to...
Whacked him with what?
A lethal object, and I think he thought that when I said, you know, I thought
it was a movie,
and I said, you know, like, lie down, Norman, you've got to die now, you know,
it's like
you play bang bang, cowboys and Indians, because this was improvisational, and
he had a different
idea for the script.
I think that's about all it amounted to.
So he then did bite you on the ear?
Well, you can't fault Norman for that, because...
LAUGHTER
He went to war with the Texas Regiment, and that's an old frontiersman, last
grasp kind
of thing, you know, if the bear's eating you, or if the Bronco's trying to stomp
you alive,
if you can get a hold of their ear, you know...
You can bite them in the ear.
But I said to him, I said, Norman, I need this ear to work with, and he said,
oh, okay.
Yeah.
What are you...
We're still good friends.
We see each other on birthdays.
About once a year is about all we can take.
What are you working on now?
What is coming up for you?
I've just finished a film with Kathleen Quinlan on one of your neighbor
stations, and I'm
going to do a film with Willie Nelson down in Austin.
Oh, that sounds like fun.
And I also work each year in the settlement houses here in New York City doing
Shakespeare
and Strindberg and Shaw and a lot of American...
Plus, this boat rental thing could take off just like that.
Rip, it was a pleasure meeting you.
Thank you very much for having me.
Good luck to you.
You're right there, Rip.
We'll be right back, Rip.
Thanks again.
Thank you.
I appreciate it, Rip.
Tomorrow night on this program, Martin Sheen, animal expert Warren Eckstein,
and also Tony
Randall.
Thank you, everybody.
Have a good night.
We'll see you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.