Lawrence Tierney

Lawrence James Tierney (March 15, 1919 – February 26, 2002) was an American film and television actor who is best known for his many screen portrayals of mobsters and "tough guys" in a career that spanned over fifty years. His roles mirrored his own frequent brushes with the law. In 2005, film critic David Kehr of The New York Times described "the hulking Tierney" as "not so much an actor as a frightening force of nature".

Early life Lawrence James Tierney was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City on March 15, 1919, the son of Mary Alice (née Crowley; 1895–1960) and Lawrence Hugh Tierney (1891–1964).

After graduating from high school, he earned an athletic scholarship to Manhattan College but quit after two years to work temporarily as a laborer constructing a section of the 85-mile-long Delaware Aqueduct, which supplies nearly half of New York City's water supply. He then drifted around the country from job to job, working for a time as a catalogue model for Sears Roebuck & Company.

Dillinger and stardom Tierney's breakthrough role was starring as 1930s bank robber John Dillinger in 1945's Dillinger, made for the King Brothers and Monogram Pictures, which borrowed him from RKO.

Back at RKO, Tierney resumed his work there in small and supporting roles in Those Endearing Young Charms (1945), Back to Bataan (1945) (with John Wayne in one scene), Mama Loves Papa (1946), and in the Western Badman's Territory (1946) in which he portrays Jesse James. However, as ticket sales for Dillinger continued to rise and that film's financial success became apparent at RKO, the studio promoted Tierney in 1946 to star status in Step by Step, another film noir, one that portrays an ex-Marine being falsely accused of murder. He next starred as a reformed prison inmate in the 1946 release San Quentin.

The next year he was cast as the lead in two more RKO productions that have since gained cult followings among film noir enthusiasts: The Devil Thumbs a Ride directed by Felix E. Feist and the more notorious Born to Kill directed by Robert Wise. In Feist's film, Tierney plays a homicidal hitch-hiker, while under Wise's direction he portrays a suave but murderous conman. Despite such negative contemporary reviews of the film, more recent critics and film historians have expressed admiration for Tierney's intense performance and identified the production as a quintessential example of film noir, in particular of RKO's approach to the genre. left Tierney attacking Elisha Cook Jr. in the film noir Born to Kill (1947)

Reflecting on his career, Tierney maintained that he did not like playing such violent roles:quote|I resented those pictures they put me in. I never thought of myself as that kind of guy. I thought of myself as a nice guy who wouldn't do rotten things. I hated that character so much but I had to do it for the picture.

Post-RKO In 1950, Tierney was cast by Eagle-Lion Films to star in Kill or Be Killed, directed by Max Nosseck, who had also directed Dillinger. That same year, however, Tierney only received second billing in Joseph Pevney's Shakedown, although in 1951 he returned to a starring role in another film produced by Eagle Lion and directed by Nosseck: The Hoodlum. He then returned to RKO to play a supporting role, performing again as Jesse James in Best of the Badmen (1951). After co-starring in The Bushwhackers (1952), director Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the villain who causes a train wreck in the 1952 Best Picture Oscar-winner The Greatest Show on Earth. Tierney's supporting work in that film earned him a request by the director of Paramount Pictures to put him under contract, but that proposal was dropped by the studio when Tierney was arrested for fighting in a bar.

Television During the 1950s and 1960s, Tierney had guest roles in many television series, including Naked City, The Detectives, New York Confidential, Man with a Camera, Adventures in Paradise, Peter Gunn, The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Follow the Sun, Bus Stop, The Lloyd Bridges Show, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Among his film roles were parts in John Cassavetes' A Child Is Waiting (1963), Naked Evil (1966), Custer of the West (1967), and Killer Without a Face (1968). After his work on A Child is Waiting he moved to France. After several years there,

1970–1982 According to the book The Films of John Avildsen: Rocky, The Karate Kid and Other Underdogs, Tierney was supposed to play the role of Joe Curran in Avildsen's 1970 hit Joe. However, he was fired and replaced by Peter Boyle due to an incident two days before principal photography began when he was arrested for assaulting a bartender who refused to serve him any more hard liquor.

During the 1970s, he occasionally found film work, appearing in a bit part as a security guard in Otto Preminger's Such Good Friends (1971), as an FBI agent in Joseph Zito's Abduction (1975), in Andy Warhol's Bad, in 1976 (which he later described as "a terrible experience—unprofessional"), as well as small roles in Cassavetes' Gloria (1980) and Zito's The Prowler (1981).

In 1985, Tierney had a small speaking role as the chief of the New York City police in John Huston's Prizzi's Honor. Between 1985 and 1987, Tierney made several guest appearances on the last two seasons of the police drama Hill Street Blues, portraying Desk Sergeant Jenkins working the precinct's night shifts. He spoke the last line of dialogue on the series' final episode when he answered the front desk phone, uttering "Hill Street."

Tierney had a more substantial supporting role as the father of protagonist Ryan O'Neal in Norman Mailer's film adaptation of his own novel Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987). He also played a baseball-bat wielding bar owner in the film adaptation of Stephen King's Silver Bullet. Tierney credited Tough Guys Don't Dance in particular with rejuvenating his acting career, and he personally ranked it as some of his best work. During production, Tierney's off-screen antics both amused and disturbed the cast and crew. At the end of his first week of directing Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino got into a shoving match with Tierney and fired him. Tarantino stated that Tierney had a tendency to abruptly walk away during conversations and Tarantino eventually became frustrated with Tierney’s behavior while directing him and grabbed Tierney’s arm as he attempted to walk away. Tierney stated, “Get your fucking hands off me!” and shoved Tarantino, prompting Tarantino to loudly banish him from the set in front of the crew. The entire crew burst into applause. He later referred to Tierney as "a complete lunatic" who "just needed to be sedated". Tierney’s co-star Harvey Keitel later spoke with Tierney, Tarantino and the studio executives, allowing things to be smoothed out and the filming completed.

Despite his reputation as a brawler and being difficult to work with, Tierney remained in steady demand as a character actor in Hollywood until he suffered a mild stroke in 1995 which made him gradually slow his career. He had suffered a previous stroke in 1982. He turned to doing voice-over work on animated features and made occasional appearances in film and television in small roles (most of which feature him only sitting or laying down) as his health slowly deteriorated until his death. One of Tierney's later roles was an uncredited cameo appearance as Bruce Willis' disabled father in Armageddon (1998) in a short scene which ended up being deleted from the theatrical version. The same year, his long-time agent, Don Gerler, recounted Tierney's continuing troubles with the law: "A few years back [in 1994] I was still bailing him out of jail. He was 75-years-old and still the toughest guy in the bar!"

Between 1944 and 1951, Tierney was arrested at least twelve times in Los Angeles for brawling—fistfighting with multiple people—and frequently for drunkenness which included ripping a public telephone off a wall in a bar, hitting a waiter in the face with a sugar bowl for refusing to serve him any more drinks, and attempting to choke a taxi driver. He was jailed for three months for brawling in May 1947 and again in June 1949 and drunkenness in January 1949 and October 1950. His legal troubles included a 90-day jail sentence which he served from August to October 1951 for breaking a New York college student's jaw during another barroom brawl. He served 66 days in the city jail in Chicago, Illinois from March to May 1952 on drunk and disorderly charges. In October 1951, he was sent to a mental hospital in Chicago after being found in a church in a disheveled state. In New York City, he was arrested for assault and battery of a barroom pianist in August 1953, and in October 1958 for resisting arrest and assaulting two police officers in another barroom brawl. At the time of his October 1958 arrest outside a Manhattan bar, The New York Times reported that he had been arrested six times in California and five in New York City on similar charges. Two years later, Tierney was questioned by New York City police in connection with the apparent suicide of a 24-year-old woman who had jumped from the window of her high-rise apartment. Tierney told police, "I had just gotten there, and she just went out the window." He was never arrested or charged with the young woman's death.

Tierney's Reservoir Dogs co-star Chris Penn recounted an incident in which Tierney, for no apparent reason, stole a table lamp from a restaurant where they had eaten, and showed it off to Penn while the two drove in Penn's car.

Wil Wheaton recalled that while filming Season 1, episode 12 of Star Trek: The Next Generation in October 1987, Tierney questioned why the 15-year-old Wheaton did not play football in school and belittled him with homophobic slurs.

The Simpsons showrunners and writers Josh Weinstein and Bill Oakley stated on Twitter numerous incidents regarding Tierney's voice recording session for the show in 1995, including "terrorizing" the writers and staff, sexually harassing the female casting director and making strange demands for his role, such as insisting he voice the entire performance with a Southern accent.

In December 1990, during the filming of Season 2, episode 3 of Seinfeld, Jason Alexander and Jerry Seinfeld caught Tierney in the act of trying to steal a knife from the set. When Seinfeld confronted him, Tierney began to laugh nervously and jokingly pretended he would stab Seinfeld while imitating the music from the film Psycho. Tierney’s role was intended to be reoccurring on the show but after the incident, the entire crew was uncomfortable with Tierney, prompting Seinfeld not to hire him again. Julia Louis-Dreyfus complimented Tierney's performance on the show but stated he was a "total nutjob.”

Personal life and death With much of his career and personal life repeatedly embroiled in legal problems and hampered by chronic alcoholism, Tierney never married despite having several short-term relationships with women in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. He did, however, father a daughter named Elizabeth who was born in 1961.

Both of Tierney's younger brothers preceded him in death, Edward in 1983 and Gerard (known by his stage name Scott Brady) in 1985. Tierney died in his sleep of pneumonia in a Los Angeles nursing home on February 26, 2002, at age 82. He had been residing there for about a year after suffering another debilitating stroke. Shortly before Tierney’s death, Tarantino called him on his birthday and the two had a long conversation where they reiterated their apologies for one another. Afterward, Tierney remarked, “He’s okay, that Quentin. That was very nice of Quentin to do that.”

Biography The first biography of the actor, Lawrence Tierney: Hollywood's Real-Life Tough Guy, was written by Burt Kearns and published on December 6, 2022, by the University Press of Kentucky.

Selected filmography

Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943) as Cab Driver (uncredited) Government Girl (1943) as FBI Man (uncredited) The Ghost Ship (1943) as Seaman Louie Parker (uncredited) The Falcon Out West (1944) as Orchestra Leader (uncredited) Seven Days Ashore (1944) as Crewman (uncredited) Youth Runs Wild (1944) as Larry Duncan Dillinger (1945) as John Dillinger Those Endearing Young Charms (1945) as Lieutenant Ted Brewster Back to Bataan (1945) as Lieutenant Commander Waite Mama Loves Papa (1945) as Sharpe Sing Your Way Home (1945) as Reporter in Paris (uncredited) Badman's Territory (1946) as Jesse James Step By Step (1946) as Johnny Christopher San Quentin (1946) as Jim Roland The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947) as Steve Morgan Born to Kill (1947) as Sam Bodyguard (1948) as Mike Carter Kill or Be Killed (1950) as Robert Warren Shakedown (1950) as Harry Colton The Hoodlum (1951) as Vincent Lubeck Best of the Badmen (1951) as Jesse James The Bushwackers (1951) as Sam Tobin The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) as Mr. Henderson The Steel Cage (1954) as Chet Harmon, a Ringleader (segment "The Hostages") Female Jungle (1956) as Detective Sergeant Jack Stevens Singing in the Dark (1956) as Biff Lamont The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1963) (Season 1 Episode 32: "Death of a Cop") as Herbie Lane A Child Is Waiting (1963) as Douglas Benham Naked Evil (1966) as The Doctor (U.S. version) Custer of the West (1967) as General Philip Sheridan Killer Without a Face (1968) Such Good Friends (1971) as Hospital Guard Abduction (1975) as FBI Agent I Andy Warhol's Bad (1977) as O'Reilly-O'Crapface The Kirlian Witness (1979) as Detective Bloodrage (1980) as Malone Gloria (1980) as Broadway Bartender Arthur (1981) as Man in Coffee Shop The Prowler (1981) as Major Chatham Midnight (1982) as Bert Johnson Terrible Joe Moran (1984) as Pico Nothing Lasts Forever (1984) as Carriage Driver Prizzi's Honor (1985) as Lieutenant Davey Hanley Silver Bullet (1985) as Owen Knopfler Murphy's Law (1986) as Cameron From a Whisper to a Scream (1987) as Warden Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987) as Dougy Madden Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988) as Cyrus Redblock The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) as Angels Manager House III: The Horror Show (1989) as Warden Why Me? (1990) as Armenian Robber #1 Dillinger (1991) as Sheriff Sarber Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991) as Slave Master The Runestone (1991) as Chief Richardson City of Hope (1991) as Kerrigan The Death Merchant (1991) as Ivan Yates Reservoir Dogs (1992) as Joe Cabot Eddie Presley (1992) as Joe West Red (1993 short) as Louis "Red" Deutsch Junior (1994) as Mover Starstruck (1995) as Patron Fatal Passion (1995) as Robert Pearlman 2 Days in the Valley (1996) as Older Man American Hero (1997) as Captain Roads Southie (1998) as Colie Powers Armageddon (1998) as Eddie "Gramp" Stamper (uncredited) Evicted (1999) as Bob (filmed in 1996; final role)