Devil May Care

N THE ONE AND ONLY OCCASION THAT I WAS IN THE MAN’S PRESENCE, Rip Torn asked me if I wanted to wrestle. This was in the lobby of Anthology Film Archives in the spring of 2009, on the occasion of a retrospective of films starring Torn, after a showing of Daryl Duke’s (1973). Torn was at the moment enjoying the last of his improbable late-career successes with a recurring role on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock—I say improbable because everything about Torn’s reputation suggests that he shouldn’t have had a “late career” at all—but he had plenty of time to stand around and chop it up with a meager but jazzed crowd at the House of Mekas. I turned down the match—I’d seen (1970), after all—but thought at the very least the wrestling invite made for a good anecdote, until some years