I Ain't Working Unless I Get Steak 'n' Eggs!

Discovering the Age of Tierney

Comments (0) By Steven Mikulan Wednesday, Jan 17 2007

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BRAD: The best role he ever did was in The Devil Thumbs a Ride [1947]. When the roles stopped, that’s when he went on the drunk. He always drank but not to the excess where he went to Skid Row.

CHARLEY: If you were in a conversation with Larry, he would call you on poor English or things that didn’t make sense. One time, I was talking about aircraft systems to another person and Larry was listening. I said, “This system has a double-redundant hydraulic system.” Which means it has a hydraulic system and a backup system and a backup system to the backup system.

Two thumbs locked: Lawrence Tierney with Anne Jeffreys in Dillinger (1945) (Monogram/Photofest)

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He said, “Whadda ya mean, ‘double redundant’?” And he was right — it could only be redundant. He was really listening.

BRAD: He used to do that to me all the time. I’d say something and he’d say, “What the fuck ya talkin’ about, you sound like a gemulk out of the jail!”

CHARLEY: You’d introduce him to your girlfriend and he’d want to know everything about the relationship — if you were right for each other, should you get married.

BRAD: Around women he was very polite, he was a gentleman all the way.

CHARLEY: One day, I was walking along [New York’s] Upper West Side, on Columbus Avenue, and there was this old, old Irish bar, like something out of a film. All the guys in there were Larry Tierney’s age and talking exactly like him. I was laughing to myself, and after a couple of cocktails, I said to one of these guys, “You know, you really remind me of an acquaintance on the West Coast, the way you talk. His name’s Larry Tierney.”

And the guy goes, “Oh, Larry Tierney! He used to come in here. One time, he was sitting right where you are now and the cops came up to the door and they said, “Send Tierney out here!”

They were scared to come in. For an hour, Tierney wouldn’t come out — “Screw you, I’m not coming out!” Finally, they all convinced him that sooner or later he was going to have go out. So he opened the door, stepped out on the sidewalk, and the cops beat the living shit out of him. He took his lumps.

BRAD: I drove him home a lot. Larry would say, “Hey, I ran out of gas and I need you to take me home.” He lived up on Beachwood. The place was just filthy. Shit all over the place — pizza cartons and Coke containers in the bathtub. He was going through all the shit on the floor, all these papers. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Lookin’ for money. Ah, here’s one, that’s good, that’s $75.” It was a residual check! When the mail came, he’d throw ’em all over the place. When he’d need money, he’d just look at the floor for residual checks.

CHARLEY: Larry would regale you with stories. He told me the story of when he was in Paris with Errol Flynn and they’d been on a three-day drinking bender. He said they were drinking at a sidewalk café when all of a sudden, he had the tremendous urge to get up and run. So he bolted down the street, and after about a block, Flynn caught up with him and asked, “Why are you running?”

Larry said, “I think if I stop, I’ll die.” His body may have been telling him he was on the verge of alcohol poisoning. He had run for a mile or so when he finally came to a stop. He was standing in the middle of a cemetery.