European Film Star Postcards: Russ Tamblyn

15 July 2024

Russ Tamblyn

Russ Tamblyn (1934) is an American actor and former dancer. The son of actor Eddie Tamblyn, he was in front of the camera as a teenager. He earned an Oscar nomination for Peyton Place (1957). Tamblyn became best known as gang leader Riff in the musical West Side Story (1961) and as the eccentric psychiatrist Dr Lawrence Jacoby in the TV series Twin Peaks.

Spanish postcard by Raker, no. 1053. Russ Tamblyn in West Side Story (Robert Wise, 1961).

Spanish postcard by Archivo Bermejo, no. C. 179. Photo: United Artists. Russ Tamblyn in West Side Story (Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins, 1961).

Rousing dance numbers out of mundane frontier pursuits

Russell Irving 'Russ' Tamblyn was born in 1934 in Los Angeles, California. His parents were the actors Sally Aileen (Triplett) and Edward Francis 'Eddie' Tamblyn. His younger brother, Larry Tamblyn, was the organist for the 1960s band the Standells. Russ took dance and acrobatics lessons at a young age.

Tamblyn's first professional job came when he was ten years old and was cast by actor Lloyd Bridges in a play Bridges was directing called 'The Stone Jungle' alongside Dickie Moore. During the play's run, several talent scouts saw him. An agent signed him. When he was 13, Tamblyn lived in North Hollywood and studied dramatics under Grace Bowman. He also learned dancing at the North Hollywood Academy, owned and operated by his parents.

Tamblyn was a gymnastics champion, which served him well in his later dance and musical films. His agent arranged for Tamblyn to audition for a role in the fantasy drama The Boy With Green Hair (Joseph Losey, 1948), and he was given a small part. From then on, he appeared credited as Rusty Tamblyn in such films as the biblical drama Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949), the Film Noir Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950) and The Winning Team (Lewis Seiler, 1952) with Doris Day. In the war film Retreat, Hell! (Joseph Lewis, 1952). He played a seventeen-year-old private who hid his true age to serve with the unit overseas and outdo his older brother, a Marine. MGM was impressed by Tamblyn's performance in Retreat, Hell! and signed him to a long-term contract.

His training as a gymnast in high school, and his abilities as an acrobat, prepared him for his breakout role as Gideon, the youngest brother in the classic musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen, 1954). Set in Oregon in 1850, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is particularly known for Michael Kidd's unusual choreography, which makes rousing dance numbers out of such mundane frontier pursuits as chopping wood and raising a barn. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers won the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture and was nominated for four additional awards, including Best Picture. The film established him at MGM.

Tamblyn subsequently portrayed Norman Page in the drama Peyton Place (Mark Robson, 1957), starring Lana Turner. For his role as Norman, Tamblyn earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Peyton Place was a major box-office success, though its omission of the novel's sexually explicit material was widely criticised. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It won none. Tamblyn went to England to play the title role in the musical Tom Thumb (George Pal, 1958). When he returned, MGM immediately cast him opposite Mamie Van Doren in the crime drama High School Confidential (Jack Arnold, 1958), which was a solid hit. Tamblyn's career momentum was interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army in 1958.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 512. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 709. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

Spanish postcard by Ediciones Raker, Barcelona, no. 329. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

The leader of the Jets

Russ Tamblyn had as Riff, the leader of the Jets gang, one of the lead roles in West Side Story (Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins, 1961) opposite Richard Beymer. The film received praise from critics and viewers and became the highest-grossing film of 1961. West Side Story was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won 10, including Best Picture.

In the following decades, Tamblyn appeared in dozens of series and films. He appeared in two MGM Cinerama movies, the fantasy The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (Henry Levin, George Pal, 1962), and the epic Western How the West Was Won (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, George Marshall, 1962). He also appeared in the British Horror film The Haunting (1963), directed and produced by Robert Wise.

Tamblyn could not consolidate his position as a leading man, so he acted in TV series and low-budget films. Throughout the 1970s, he appeared in several exploitation films such as Dracula vs. Frankenstein (Al Adamson, 1971). He worked as a choreographer in the 1980s. It would take until 1990 for him to be seen in a major role. 29 years after West Side Story, Tamblyn and Beymer appeared together again in David Lynch and Mark Frost's cult series Twin Peaks (1991-1992). Tamblyn played eccentric psychiatrist Dr Lawrence Jacoby in Twin Peaks. His scenes in the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1993) were cut, but he reprised the role during the series' 2017 revival.

Tamblyn appeared again as Dr Jacoby in a soap opera, General Hospital (1997-2000), alongside his daughter Amber. In 2004, he appeared with Amber again, playing God as a man walking dogs, in three episodes of Joan of Arcadia (2003-2005). In Quentin Tarantino's revisionist Western Django Unchained (2012), they were billed respectively as 'Son of a Gunfighter' and 'Daughter of a Son of a Gunfighter', alluding to Tamblyn's leading role in the Spanish-American Western El Hijo del Pistolero/Son of a Gunfighter (Paul Landres, 1965).

Russ Tamblyn married actress Venetia Stevenson in 1956 but divorced the next year. In 1960 he married Elizabeth Kempton, a showgirl, in Las Vegas. In the 1980s, Tamblyn discovered he had a daughter he did not know about from the 1960s with artist and spiritual practitioner Elizabeth Anne Vigil. His first daughter, China Faye Tamblyn, is an artist and heavy metal welder who lives in California. Tamblyn did not meet her until she was a teenager and only after his second child, actress Amber Tamblyn, was born in 1983 to his third wife, folk singer Bonnie Murray. Russ Tamblyn lives in Santa Monica, California and manages daughter Amber's career.