After appearing in John Cassavetes’ “A Child Is Waiting” in 1963, he moved to France for several years. Headlines of the period tell the story: “Film ‘Dillinger’ Booked on Drunk Charge.” “Court Warns Film Actor to Be Good.” “Actor Tierney Must Sleep on Jail Floor.” “Tierney Goes to Jail Again.”īy the early 1960s, the onetime B-movie leading man had been reduced to small parts.
DeMille’s 1952 best-picture Oscar-winner, “The Greatest Show on Earth.”īut by then Tierney’s off-set misadventures were taking a toll on his career. He also played the villain who caused the train wreck in Cecil B. He starred in such films as “San Quentin,” “Step by Step,” “The Devil Thumbs a Ride,” “Born to Kill,” “Bodyguard,” “Kill or Be Killed” and “The Hoodlum.” Billed as “the handsome bad man of the screen” when “Dillinger” was released, Tierney returned to RKO where he portrayed tough guys on both sides of the law. Booze was always at the root of his misbehavior, which included tearing a public phone off the wall, hitting a waiter in the face with a sugar bowl, breaking a college student’s jaw and attempting to choke a cab driver. Off-screen, the actor’s arrests for drunken brawls at bars and Hollywood parties took a heavy toll on his once-promising Hollywood career in the 1950s. Tierney, who suffered several strokes in recent years and had recent bouts with pneumonia, died in his sleep Tuesday during a brief stay at a Los Angeles nursing home.īest known for his gangster roles in an 80-film career that spanned 50 years, Tierney’s most memorable credits include the title role in the 1945 B-movie classic “Dillinger” and the leader of a pack of vicious killers in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 crime drama “Reservoir Dogs.” Tickets are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777.Lawrence Tierney, a veteran character actor and onetime B-movie leading man whose two-fisted, tough-guy image on screen in the 1940s and ‘50s rivaled that of his off-screen personal life, has died. The cast includes Barry Keane, Mike O’Malley, Jude Quigley, David Sullivan, Ollie Keogh, Stephen Burns, Paddy Carter, Steve Cantrell, and Mark McCormack. The film’s mixture of mob violence, razor sharp wit, and pop culture references has been worked into a stage adaptation by actor and director Graham Feeley (Kings, Blood Sweat and Wars ), and it will be staged in the Town Hall Studio from Monday January 25 to Saturday 30 at 8.30pm. Each gangster is assigned a colour, and instructed not to discuss each other's personal background to minimise the chances of their being traced if someone were to be caught. The story is set around a bungled jewellery store robbery.
Reservoir Dogs was Tarantino’s first feature film in 1992, and it announced in controversial style that an important new film-maker had arrived. “THERE’S TWO ways you can go on this job: My way or the highway,” so says Joe, played by Lawrence Tierney in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.