MovieChat Forums > The Larry Sanders Show (1992) Discussion > Arthur!

Arthur!

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
9 replies | jump to latest

Rip Torn is still with us as I post this -- but not seen or working (he's 86!)

He'd been around in TV and movies since the 50's, including a countercultural period in the 70's where he fought for real on camera with Norman Mailer.

But around the 80's, he started turning up more regularly as a stalwart, sonorous "character guy."
Like Richard Boone before him, when Rip Torn appeared on screen and started talking -- the charisma just leapt out of the screen.

I recall Torn almost back-to-back in two 80's movies where he played a Texas guy with a big cowboy hat and a Voice of God wryness -- he was a good guy in "Extreme Prejudice"(with Nick Nolte) and he was a bad guy in "Nadine"(with Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger) but he was pretty much the same guy.

In 1991, he showed off his "sweeter" side -- while remaining sonorous, tough and authoritative -- while playing the defense attorney trying to keep Albert Brooks from being sent back to Earth instead of to heaven in "Defending Your Life."

And then, about a year later, it all paid off for Rip Torn: Arthur, aka Artie, on "The Larry Sanders Show."

If you look at Rip Torn's performance as Artie -- as well as the writing FOR Torn -- you can see elements of his tough guy villains being mixed with the compassion(or perhaps FALSE compassion) of his celestial defense attorney in Defending Your Life. Its just a few steps from humoring the neurotic defendant Albert Brooks in Defending Your Life to pampering and "handling" neurotic TV star Garry Shandling as Larry Sanders.

Though I liked this about Arthur: booming voiced and authoritative as the Old School TV producer was for Larry...he'd started out as a BOUNCER. The real Rip Torn looked a bit too thin and slight in his old 60's movies(like The Cinncinati Kid) to be believable as an ex-bouncer but ARTHUR sure as hell could be an ex-bouncer. And a show business survivor who had bedded Angie Dickenson and Eva Gabor(so he said) in his prime.

Arthur is the best pal and tough love coddler any spoiled TV star has to have. And Arthur knows it. He protects Larry from the outside world, blocks out hustlers, kicks those in the a-- who dare go above him or around him to manipulate Larry directly. I liked how in the epsidoe where the established young male head writer was butting heads with the new young female writer on the show -- with both of them directly flooding Larry Sanders with decisions to make on jokes -- Arthur caught up with both of them and read them BOTH the riot act("This goes for you too, young lady -- keep it up, I'll fire you, too!)

Boss man, sycophant(but only to a point), keeper of the guard -- I'm guessing Arthur would have been a great role with any number of middle-aged actors in it. But it just seems a perfect fit for Rip Torn -- what he was waiting for all along. And he used it to craft a persona (in Men in Black and other films) that worked for him for years more.

Arthur IS Rip Torn!

[–] [email protected] (5871) 7 years ago

Artie was just about the funniest character on the show!

I simply loved the way he protected Larry and did all his dirty work for him. He really established himself in the first episode when the network made Larry do those live commercials for the Garden Weasel on his show.
Larry:"Why not call it the Amazing Rat Stick?"

Whenever things got too bad, Larry would look around with that panicked face, "Artie?"

Sometimes I wish I had a personal "Artie" of my own. I can wuss out like Larry and I hate to give people bad news or say no to them. Arthur relished doing all those things. In fact, I recall he said that to Larry in an episode. He loved kicking butt and taking names. He loved being the enforcer.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I simply loved the way he protected Larry and did all his dirty work for him. He really established himself in the first episode when the network made Larry do those live commercials for the Garden Weasel on his show.

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This was the pilot , I think, and it established how Artie would "hold back" on being the enforcer until he absolutely had to . He helped finesse Larry into doing the live commercials and stayed out of the way when Larry tried to fight on his own against the hard-as-steel female TV exec(and got a literal black eye.)

But when the chips were down and Larry had tried as best he could to cooperate, Arthur stepped in and told the female exec: "I killed a man like you, in Korea!" and said Larry was done with the commercials, and that she would never get past Artie to Larry again.

(Note in passing: the take on Hollywood men, Hollywood women, and the animus between them on Larry Sanders offers a clue to why things are where they are today.)

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Larry:"Why not call it the Amazing Rat Stick?"

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Those commercials were great, as Larry tried but failed to fight his own ad lib humor when told by the boss to "keep it serious."

And when he brought Hank out to join him in "selling the product" -- Hank proved HIS value. Jeffrey Tambor, VIP of many a TV series, has the brilliantly written role of a whining, narcissistic, insecure, heart-on-his-sleeve putz - but its not like Hank was without a talent for what he did: sidekicking, announcing, commercials.

What a great show. Artie as the tough guy, Hank as the whining schmuck, Larry above them(in comedy talent) and less than them(in survival skills)...the mix was as sophisticated and hilarious as any TV has given us.

[–] [email protected] (5871) 7 years ago

Oh, Melanie Parrish who gave Larry a black eye! She was a very good looking woman and probably had to learn to be really tough in a male dominated world.

That scene also established Hank's cluelessness. The staff knew the true story of Larry's black eye, but Hank believed the story of Larry walking into a door.
Hank was a great sidekick, always deferring to the star on-air. And he sure knew how to sell a product! I remember his contract with the orange growers of Florida. It was in jeopardy when a little porno tape he made surfaced. Hank found a way to "appease" their representative. ha!

When the commercial came out, Larry expressed envy. "Gee Hank, who do you have to #bleep# to get this deal?" If Larry only knew!!

Getting back to Artie and his "I killed a man like her in Korea" line, when Larry mentioned it to his wife, she kept referring to "that Korean woman."

Artie had so many funny comments while being angry and/or sarcastic, it's hard to remember them all. Everything he did was geared to protect Larry.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Whenever things got too bad, Larry would look around with that panicked face, "Artie?"

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In "real life," Dean Martin had as the producer of his successful TV show a guy named Greg Garrison, who handled things pretty much the same way, I've read, though Dino was more of a "I don't care about any of this, leave me alone" kind of guy whereas Larry Sanders is hands-on and insecure (closer to Hank than to Artie in demeanor, just with more talent than Hank.)

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Sometimes I wish I had a personal "Artie" of my own.

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Don't we all.

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I can wuss out like Larry and I hate to give people bad news or say no to them. Arthur relished doing all those things. In fact, I recall he said that to Larry in an episode. He loved kicking butt and taking names. He loved being the enforcer.

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Let's face it. We all wish we could be Artie. He's like the toughest guy in any Western or gangster movie -- the alpha male. But -- this being Hollywood -- he knows his place, too. Larry Sanders is the celebrity, the funny guy, the talent. Arthur's job is to "protect the property": Larry.

[–] [email protected] (5871) 7 years ago

I didn't know that about Dean Martin. But it makes sense. He always came across as a relaxed guy with a friendly demeanor. It seems logical that guys like that need a tough "enforcer" on their staff to protect them.

Can't recall the specifics, but there's an episode when Larry decided he wanted to be "plugged-in" and aware of everything that was going on with his staff. Artie warned him that he spent years shielding Larry from all the day to day problems. It wouldn't be a good idea to get involved with his staff.
All this talk has made me want to watch the show again. I have a "Best of Larry Sanders" DVD and a couple of the seasons.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I didn't know that about Dean Martin. But it makes sense. He always came across as a relaxed guy with a friendly demeanor. It seems logical that guys like that need a tough "enforcer" on their staff to protect them.

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Yep. I've read a couple of books about the production of that super-successful series that demonstrate Martin chose Garrison to be his "ultimate protector."

Dino got that famous deal where he only showed up on Sunday to tape his show, watching NFL games from his soundstage trailer as others rehearsed(who had been rehearsing all week without him) and he watched their work on another TV set. Then Dino would go out and tape the "final show" in about three hours, including re-takes.

In short, Dino was paid multi-millions for a few hours work each week. But he had the star quality to pull it off.

And Greg Garrison made sure that nobody bothered Dino in that trailer!

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Can't recall the specifics, but there's an episode when Larry decided he wanted to be "plugged-in" and aware of everything that was going on with his staff. Artie warned him that he spent years shielding Larry from all the day to day problems. It wouldn't be a good idea to get involved with his staff.

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Sounds funny -- and probably a good "echo" of why Dean Martin didn't get involved. (In one funny story, Garrison actually sent one of the musicians on the show, who had worked there for years, into Dino's trailer to ask him to do something for Garrison. Said Dino to the longtime show staffer, "I don't know who you are, but if Greg wants me to do it, I'll do it.")

BTW, Dino also had an "on the road enforcer" for Vegas gigs and movie shoots. A man named Mack Gray.

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All this talk has made me want to watch the show again. I have a "Best of Larry Sanders" DVD and a couple of the seasons

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I've been catching up on "HBO on Demand." Its funny, going back to the early 90's. Alec Baldwin is on the show -- thin.
Ellen DeGeneres -- with longish hair.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

A "sidebar" on Rip Torn:

I recall getting hooked on his charismatic qualities around 1987, when -- middle-aged and in one of them, bearded -- he played supporting roles in Nadine and Extreme Prejudice.

But I recalled that Rip Torn went back to a lot of 60's TV and movie work. And it turned out I had two examples of that work to look at, in my DVD collection, both from 1965: The Cincinnati Kid, and The Man From UNCLE.

Torn looks roughly the same in both of them. A lot thinner, with a sharp face, and a young man's version of that great sonorous voice. (Rather like Richard Boone, it seemed that Rip Torn had to age a bit to add more "flavor" to that voice, more comic personality; here he plays things straight.)

Torn is the villain in both pieces. In "The Cinncinati Kid," he's a rich southern scion who is out to rig a poker game and ready to ruin or kill those who might try to stop him. In the wackier "Man From UNCLE" two part episode, he's a wealthy man out to become "Alexander the Greater" by breaking all Ten Commandments and taking over the world.

The "UNCLE" episode is rather hilarious in that Torn's megalomaniac billionaire has a pesky separated wife(chirpy Dorothy Provine) chasing him all through the episode out to get him to sign divorce papers and make her rich. Torn takes time out from breaking commandments and killing people to humor his soon-to-be ex. But I loved this exchange:

Provine: So if you don't get your way, you're going to kill those two UNCLE agents?
Torn: Don't exclude yourself, now. I'll kill you too.
Provine: Oh, whatever.

Its just funny. The deep voiced power-mad villain unable to scare his estranged wife.

And at episode's end, when Torn has been killed but signed the divorced papers, this exchange:

Provine: You know, I'm going to miss him.
Robert Vaughn: Even though he was a power-mad thief and murderer?
Provine: Yeah...but he never bored me!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In the sixties when he was young and whip-thin, Torn was married for awhile to an older, more successful actress named Geraldine Page. I think they both had Southern roots(and Rip Torn was his real name!) I recall them being an interesting couple.

And in the TV mini-series "Feud" early in 2017(about Joan Crawford vs Bette Davis during the making of Baby Jane), they had a scene with new actors playing Page and Torn. Both actors were cast well, and got the voiced down right.

I assume they showed the actor playing Rip Torn...The Cincinnati Kid and The Man From UNCLE.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

A bump...in honor of the passing away of Rip Torn in July of 2019...