Timothy Carey; Actor Played Film Villains

Timothy Carey, a film actor best known for his portrayals of menacing villains in early Stanley Kubrick pictures and later as star of the cult favorite “The World’s Greatest Sinner,” which he also produced, is dead.

His son, Romeo Carey, said his father--the assassin in Kubrick’s “The Killing” and one of the scapegoat soldiers in “Paths of Glory”--was 65 when he died of a massive stroke Wednesday in a Beverly Hills hospital.

The heavy-lidded actor, who began in movies in the early 1950s, played loathsome characters in “The Wild One,” “East of Eden,” “Bayou,” “One-Eyed Jacks,” “Minnie and Moskowitz,” “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” and many more.

In 1992 he starred in what Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas called a “primitive art” film whose rambling lead character sees himself as God. He gives up a predator’s life as a salesman for one of religious faith, promising eternal life to his followers.

Carey said the role in “The World’s Greatest Sinner” involved “an Elvis Presley who becomes a Billy Graham who becomes a Father Divine.”

The film was made for only $100,000 and showed at a few select art houses.

A funeral service has been scheduled for Wednesday at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier.