All the right moves

WITH his gleeful smirk undiminished by his 75 years on this Earth, Elmore Rual Torn, better known by the family nickname Rip, says that his late-blooming career renaissance as comedy’s favorite cracked authoritarian came about when his then-young daughter Katie pleaded, “Daddy, please don’t play any more bad guys.”

That was back in the early ‘90s, before his sashays in the comedies “Men in Black” and “DodgeBall,” or his Emmy Award-winning turn as the unctuous and savage Artie on “The Larry Sanders Show.” Indeed, anyone born after 1970 might not know that this is the man whose Oscar-nominated performance in “Cross Creek” moved the late, great film reviewer Pauline Kael to write: “It’s a demonstration of a wild-man actor’s art -- he lets us see how rage and tears verge on each other. It’s crazy, great acting.... “

This Texan-born, onetime military policeman, onetime student of dance legend Martha Graham, made his debut in the original Elia Kazan-directed Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” and went on to appear in Williams’ films “Baby Doll” and “Sweet Bird of Youth.”

He made an indelible impression as a two-bit, pill-popping country singer in “Payday” as well as taking on some of the big names in American history -- including such figures as Walt Whitman, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

In Ira Sachs’ “Forty Shades of Blue,” the grand jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Torn plays Alan James, a legendary country music writer-producerwho’s mellowed into a genial narcissist and inveterate philanderer. His world nonetheless begins to crumble when his much younger, very beautiful Russian trophy wife (the haunting Dina Korzun) begins to choke on her own loneliness.

This character is much like Sam Phillips, the legendary producer who discovered Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley.

He certainly was what they call a good ole boy. He was ahead of his time in the music he did. That’s similar to Sam Phillips. When I was growing up, I had to go into the black part of town to hear that kind of music. In New Orleans, it fused together, both black music and the white music they called country. Now [those singers] are in limos and tuxes.... Sam Phillips was a man who helped make that happen, the first guy who ever recorded Elvis. You know who was one of the biggest fans Elvis Presley ever had? Lee Strasberg.

You studied with Lee Strasberg. Are you a Method actor?

I’ve always been an instinctive actor. I never worked with Stella Adler, but I liked what she said. There is also the imagination. We used to make fun of guys who were so Method. We’d say, “That guy comes into theater with a great bag of yesterday on his back.” I had English training. I even worked out in the gym with Larry Olivier.

You worked out with Laurence Olivier?

Sig Klein had a gym, for athletes and theater people. [Sig] said, “Go over and talk to Larry. He likes you. He won’t listen to me. He’s going to break his bloody back.” I played football and sports.

He said, “Good legs.”

“Yeah, running up and down the stadium.”

“I used to have to pad my tights.”

I said, “I read it in your book.”

“But can you vault aboard a horse with full armor?”

“I don’t think so”

“I can.”

“I saw the movie, Larry. I’m here to tell you cut it out, you’re going to break your back. What are you doing?”

“ ‘Spartacus.’ I won’t let that blank-blank Kirk Douglas out-physicalize me.”

I saw [Olivier later] -- I went up to Ed Koch’s reception when he was mayor. It was a few years before his life ended. He had that crippling disease and he was in great pain. My late wife Geraldine [Page] dragged me up there. I said, “I’m not invited. I don’t want to go as a tag-along.” She said, “But Larry likes you.” I went up there and I stood in a long reception line. I said, “I’m Rip Torn and I used to work out with you at Sig Klein’s gym.” He said, “Oh yes.” I moved on and the line stopped and he must have known that I wasn’t working very much. [Someone came over] and said, “Larry wants to say something to you.”

“Oh dear boy, I just wanted to tell you, you’re a wonderful actor.”

You didn’t work much because you were blacklisted?

I like what [Norman] Mailer said: “We can’t dignify it by calling it the blacklist. The gray list.” I do have an FBI file.

Do you miss playing Artie?

Yeah, I’m the only one who got emotional [when the show ended]. Garry was burned out. He wrote it. He trained all those [writers]. I called it “Shandling’s Comedy College.” It was a family thing. He handpicked everyone. I used to get steamed when they’d rewrite the script. [Garry] said, “Don’t get mad. Get funny.” He said he never said that.

You’re going to appear as Louis XV in Sofia Coppola’s new movie “Marie-Antoinette.”

My sister Patricia Alexander said, “You were so great doing those Shakespeare plays and Moliere, and you used to wear those britches and tights and you looked like you lived in them.” Then I got a call from Sofia Coppola to play King Louis. So all that dance training with Martha and Shirley Dodd, how to stand on the stage. Where to hold your foil. I’m so overtrained. Then I got a chance to get a private tour of Versailles. I saw the guy I was playing. I stood just the way he was standing in the portrait. I had his strength. I had the way he put his hand on his walking stick. It just awestruck me. I look like those guys He was a notorious womanizer. I have a great [love] scene with Asia Argento -- fully clothed -- but the whole cast got red in the face. And they’re Frenchmen.