Well, I've told my Rip Torn stories before, but since there are new Hainsies here, I'll repeat them:
Rip and Gerry were longtime friends of my Uncles. My Uncles in fact found the Torn-Pages (funny, eh?) their longtime family house in Westchester (IIRC). When I went back to NYC for the first time as a kid, my Uncle, who, like BK, knew everyone, asked me whom I would like to meet. He nixed my first two choices--"Uncle Lenny", because he said he wouldn't trust the Maestro alone with me, LOL, and then my second choice, Shirley MacLaine, because she was in China at the time filming that documentary of hers. Somehow the default choice turned out to be Rip Torn and Gerry Page, whom they called and woke at some ungodly hour of the morning and then stuck me on the phone with. Like BK, I thought they were kidding about Rip Torn's name (I was a kid, I had never heard of him, sorry). Luckily, I knew about "Sweet Bird of Youth," so was able to spout a few inanities to Ms. Page about her performance. It was easily the most awkward phone conversation of my life.
Rip gave the eulogy at my Uncle Charlie's funeral many years later. He was doing Larry Sanders when my Uncle Pat died, and so his son, Tony, came and read a very sweet eulogy that Rip had written.
