Other notable film credits include Crime Wave (1954), East of Eden (1955), One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), Head (1968) and The Outfit (1973).

[2][3] He made his screen debut with a minor role in Billy Wilder's 1951 movie Ace in the Hole (alternately titled The Big Carnival).

One of Carey's most recognized early roles is in the 1956 Stanley Kubrick film The Killing,[1] in which he portrays a gunman hired to shoot a racehorse as a diversion from a racetrack robbery.

[4] The 1957 film Bayou (later retitled Poor White Trash) features one of Carey's few leading roles, as a demented Cajun shopkeeper named Ulysses.

[8] Carey first appeared on Gunsmoke in 1958, playing “Tiller Evans”, a wild, abusive & jealous cowboy in the episode “The Gentleman”, alongside Jack Cassidy (S3E39).

He has a minor role as Bert in "Ransom for a Dead Man", a pilot for the series Columbo, which guest-stars Lee Grant and originally aired on March 1, 1971.

Carey wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the 1962 feature The World's Greatest Sinner, whose music soundtrack was scored by a young, pre-Mothers of Invention Frank Zappa.