Rip Torn, men in black and Larry Sanders star, dies at 88

Rip Torn, the American actor known for his roles in Men in Black and The Larry Sanders Show, died at the age of 88.

A character actor with a career spanning seven decades, he won an Emmy in 1996 for playing Artie, the irascible producer of Sanders, in Garry Shandling's sitcom.

His only Oscar nomination came in 1983 for the Cross Creek drama.

Will Smith, who appeared with Torn in Men in Black and his first sequel, paid tribute by posting a picture together on Instagram.

Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman said that the actor had inspired the character of Mr Wednesday in his novel American Gods.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane paid tribute to Torn's work in The Larry Sanders Show and as Bob Diamond in the comedy Defending Your Life.

Alec Baldwin, who worked with Torn on the 30 Rock TV comedy, said he was "a deeply committed and phenomenal actor" and "a crazy madman".

Born in 1931 in Texas, Elmore Rual Torn Jr., Torn moved to New York in the 1950s to study at the legendary Actors Studio in New York.

In 1960, he won a Tony nomination for playing the threatening role of Tom Finley Jr. in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, which he took up in the 1962 film version.

King of Kings, The Cincinnati Kid and The Man Who Fell to Earth, are among his other films in which he plays alongside David Bowie.

He then played Zed in the first two films Men in Black and Patches O 'Houlihan in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

However, he was also known for his unstable nature and his colorful altercations that had seen him labeled "hell".

A dispute with Dennis Hopper in 1967 made him lose the role that Jack Nicholson ended up playing in the classic counter-culture Easy Rider.

In the 1970 film, Maidstone, meanwhile, he attacked his friend Norman Mailer with a hammer while the cameras were spinning.

In 2010, he admitted to being drunk into a Connecticut bank while he was carrying a loaded rifle.

Torn leaves behind his third wife, actress Amy Wright, with whom he had two children.

He was previously married to actress Geraldine Page, with whom he had three children, and to Ann Wedgeworth, with whom he also had a child.

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