http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100201/ap_ ... e_rip_torn

this is both hilarious and sad

he's 78?!

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 85175.html

In 1970, on the set of Maidstone, he famously attacked director and co-star Norman Mailer with a hammer, after apparently growing unhappy with criticisms being made of his interpretation of a key scene. Mailer retaliated by biting his ear, and drawing blood.

Their fight, which took place during filming of a scripted scene (Torn was playing Mailer's assassin), was eventually broken up by crew members, and parts of it were eventually included in the finished film. You can even hear Mailer's wife and children screaming in the background.

Only a decade ago, Torn successfully sued his former colleague Dennis Hopper for telling a 30-year-old anecdote on Jay Leno's chatshow about the 1969 cult film Easy Rider, in which he had originally been cast before being replaced by Jack Nicholson.

Hopper had told Leno that Torn was sacked after pulling a knife on him in a restaurant. Torn did not dispute that an argument had taken place between the two of them, but claimed Hopper was responsible for pulling the knife. A judge agreed, and awarded him $475,000 damages.

More recently, Torn – whose only Oscar nomination came in the 1983 film Cross Creek – has suffered frequent alcohol-related brushes with the law. In 2004, he was arrested for refusing a breathalyser test after crashing his car into a New York taxi. Despite being shown video footage of him swearing at officers, a jury acquitted Torn of drunk driving.

In 2006, he collided with a tractor in New York State, and pleaded guilty to drink driving, for which he was banned for 90 days and fined. In 2009, he was given probation after being convicted of drunk driving after police spotted him driving his 1994 Subaru estate, with a Christmas tree strapped to the top, in the emergency lane.