We're "Dancing on the Edge," My Thoughts on Russ Tamblyn's Memoir

Russ Tamblyn was the first movie star I met. I have known many actors through my parents, but Russ is the star who more likely had his movies shown in big, glamorous movie palaces. The other actors I have known were on television, such as Dean Stockwell and Billy Gray, But Russ, which was very much the tradition of seeing him in the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. So when I saw Dean or Billy, the screen was small because we had a small-screen TV set. But to see Russ is like visiting him on a six-story movie screen, with ushers in uniforms and expensive candy and soda drinks in the lobby. He also did musicals, which are not real life but are better than life. And it seemed that Russ jumped higher than the entire cast because he is really something. Before parkour or freerunning, there was Russ, and he did all of that before it got a fancy French name.

The first time I saw Russ was in West Side Story, and I went with my grandmother Anna (my father’s mother) to the Fairfax Theater on Beverly Boulevard. Even then, the theater was a bit run-down, but it was a movie theater for me, so it was always elegant. And I knew we were seeing a film that was shown at the Chinese Theater or some other big movie house in Hollywood. My Grandmother would smuggle food for me in her giant purse, including soda. I got the impression, at the time, that she was paying more attention to me than the film itself. I think one eye was on the screen with Russ, and the other was consistently on me. If she saw any signs of hunger coming from me, she would take food out of her large purse, like Felix the Cat’s magic bag.

I think it was decades later that I saw Dean in a movie, and it was Blue Velvet. But again, it seemed our friends were friends with the small TV set. I actually met Russ at his house in the Pacific Palisades, I think, in 1963, so that would have made me nine or eight years old. In his beautifully written memoir, Dancing On The Edge, he writes about Dean bringing my parents to his house for a party for Henry Miller. I don’t remember Henry Miller, but I do remember being there with my parents, and I think the party was taking place in the late afternoon. It was the first time in my life that I had been in a movie star’s house; to a child, this was a house that I imagined a star would live in. A giant game room with a pool table and single-lane bowling alley. And, of course, a giant swimming pool outside his door in the backyard.

Russ and his British-born wife, Elizabeth, were extremely child-friendly. I have always felt appreciated and welcomed in their presence. Elizabeth was a grand chef, which I thought was odd because even as a child, The British had a bad reputation when it came to cooking. Dinner at the Tamblyns was no joke; it was really something, but nothing fancy. I was not introduced to new types of food, but with everything I was familiar with, the tastes became more intense through her cooking. The dinners were high-quality, and she could do magic with food. When Russ turned from a movie star to a visual artist, I witnessed his life in Topanga during the 1960s and 1970s. He and my dad were very close; I think they were a hip version of Dean & Jerry.

Russ’s memoir Dancing On The Edge captures the world of my childhood in Topanga Canyon very well. His book is very much a companion work to my memoir. It’s interesting to read side-by-side because our worlds were different but shared the same landscape and people. The big difference is that he was an adult, and I was a child/teenager. What I found moving is finding out that Russ’s dad died when he was fifty, the same age when my father passed away from a car accident, and actually on his 50th birthday. Russ and I were the same age when our fathers died, and the other thing that struck me was the fact that Russ and I wrote about Wallace, and of course, we knew him. Other books written on Wallace are by people who never met him while he was alive. I didn’t learn anything new about Wallace, but his character is similar in both of our books.

For example, as I had written in my memoir TOSH, when I discovered my precious comic book collection had a mysterious hand-made stamp on every cover that said collector’s item, it was a Twilight Zone moment for me because I couldn’t imagine how this could be possible, and who would do such a thing. When I approached my dad about my concerns downstairs, he was reading the newspaper. As I approached him from the back, and he slowly turned toward me, I could read collector’s item on his forehead. I remember screaming, but he never explained his actions to me, so I removed my comic collection. It has been touched by other hands besides yours truly. Reading Russ’s book, he writes about having Wallace over his Pacific Palisades home, and on the wall, there was a rare poster for a bullfight with a famous Bullfighter. It was an expensive poster, and Russ had great trouble getting it to his home from Spain. To this day, I remember that poster. Wallace asked Russ if he could play darts in his playroom, where the poster was also up. Wallace hit the bullseye with every dart going right to the center of the target. He then took aim and hit the bullfighter right between the eyes. Russ was shocked that Wallace would do something like that, and he knew it wasn’t a mistake, but he felt it was a message that he had wall space, so why didn’t he put his own (Russ’s) artwork up? Russ presumed this was the message, as Wallace gave me a message about collecting comic books. Wallace never told Russ why he did it, nor, like me with my precious comic collection, apologized or explained for such destruction of a personal object(s).

Russ has a remarkable life, with an acting career that is top-notch, that goes from the Hollywood star system to West Side Story to the Independent films of the 1960s to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. That, and him dropping out of Hollywood to focus on making art and participating in Topanga life with my father, Dean Stockwell, George Herms, Dennis Hopper, and the citizens of San Francisco, the poets Jack Hirschman and Michael McClure, is a pretty amazing adventure. I would recommend this book if you are a Russ film fan, but also for his personal insights into Topanga Canyon life and his loving thoughts on my father, Wallace Berman. Russ’s Dancing On The Edge is a win-win approach to one’s past and present. It’s a great ride, so enjoy the book.

The book is available at all online shops and in your favorite bookstore.