The minute Rip Torn showed up in a movie or a television show, I always started to grin. OK, I’d think, now we can have some fun. And I was always right. It could be 30 Rock, The Larry Sanders Show, Men in Black, The Man Who Fell to Earth, even the crazy fight scene at the end of Norman Mailer’s Maidstone—didn’t matter how big or small the part, there was something about Torn that made you watch.