Rip Torn

American actor and director of stage and film, Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated leading man and character player in over 50 TV and film roles. After playing understudy for Paul Newman in "Sweet Bird of Youth," in 1959, he took over the role. His other roles included "Men in Black," "Hercules," (he was the voice of Zeus) "Defending Your Life," "The Cincinnati Kid," and the role of the acerbic producer in HBO’s "The Larry Sanders Show," for which he won an Emmy in 1996. Though many of his roles cast him as surly, violent and unbalanced, he was also seen as sensitive and intelligent.

He was married three times and had six children. His first marriage to actress Ann Wedgeworth lasted from 1956 to 1961. They had a daughter, Danae Torn. In 1963, Torn married actress Geraldine Page, and they remained married until her death in 1987. They had a daughter, actress Angelica Page, and twin sons: actor Tony Torn and Jon Torn. While married to Page, he had an affair with Amy Wright during a production of "Hamlet" in 1976, which produced a daughter. Torn married Wright in 1989. They had another child.

On 21 January 1997, in Los Angeles superior court, Torn won a $475,000 judgment in a defamation of character suit against actor Dennis Hopper. He had filed suit in 1994 after Hopper said on "The Tonight Show" that Torn had pulled a knife on him. Witnesses testified that it was Hopper who had pulled a knife on Torn.

Rip Torn died on 9 July 2019, aged 88, at his home in Lakeville, Connecticut.