Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Russ Tamblin. In a long and
Speaker 1: varied career, He's been a child actor and acrobat and
Speaker 1: MGM studio star who ditched the whole scene to become
Speaker 1: a painter. After that, he was a successful choreographer and
Speaker 1: then one of the stars of Twin Peaks. But you
Speaker 1: probably know him as Riff, hard bitten, vulnerable and leader
Speaker 1: of the Jets. When you're a jet, you're agin all
Speaker 1: the way from your first singer rent to your last
Speaker 1: guy and day West Side Stories. Riff In nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: one was the culmination of a long string of classic
Speaker 1: teen roles. He was Elizabeth Taylor's little brother and father
Speaker 1: of the bride, and the younger version of King Saul
Speaker 1: and Cecil b de Mills, Sampson and Delilah. His through
Speaker 1: role for MGM was the youngest of the namesake brothers
Speaker 1: in Seven Bribes for Seven Brothers, directed by the legendary
Speaker 1: Stanley Donnin, fresh off Singing in the Rain, and you
Speaker 1: can't we count Russ Tamblin's career without mentioning the long
Speaker 1: string of young Tufts before Riff, the young gun Slingers,
Speaker 1: the future Criminals, and the good for nothing Tony Baker,
Speaker 1: who's really an undercover cop in the now classic anti
Speaker 1: marijuana be movie High School Confidential. Hey you torching up. Look,
Speaker 1: don't be a dry kitten. We don't want to get
Speaker 1: caught with a reefer again. Had enough of the poke
Speaker 1: and all of that jazz. I'll get my kicks out
Speaker 1: of you these days. However, he keeps it classy. You
Speaker 1: got your martini. This is like so old Hollywood said,
Speaker 1: as they come to my podcast and I get here
Speaker 1: and they're like, he's in there. He's having a martini. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that'll help me to yak a little. Tamblin spent
Speaker 1: his earliest years in the middle class Inglewood neighborhood of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, son of a chorus girl and what he
Speaker 1: calls a Broadway song and dance man who came West
Speaker 1: to seek fame and fortune. The family arrived just in
Speaker 1: time for the Depression. Eddie Tamblin made a few movies, though,
Speaker 1: a good thing for his son's future and for American cinema.
Speaker 1: That's where I really got turned on. I think when
Speaker 1: I was living in Englewood. One of his old movies
Speaker 1: was playing at a theater there, so I went to
Speaker 1: see him and I saw him up on the screen
Speaker 1: and he was just like you do you know that?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I want to be there. And my
Speaker 1: father said no, no, Um, my father did not want
Speaker 1: me to be in show business. So what did he
Speaker 1: want you to do? Well? He didn't care. He was
Speaker 1: not doing that well at that point, it was in
Speaker 1: the thirties. He did wanted to end up like him.
Speaker 1: He had a hot dog stand. He sold hot dog
Speaker 1: We had dinner that we used to go and eat
Speaker 1: hot dogs at his hot dogs stand. And why didn't
Speaker 1: you stay away? Meaning when he said I don't want
Speaker 1: you to do this, why did you persist? Um? There
Speaker 1: was a theater in Englewood. I was about ten years old,
Speaker 1: and I used to go to the Saturday morning matinees
Speaker 1: with all the other little kids, and it was filled
Speaker 1: with kids yelling and screaming because of seeing my father.
Speaker 1: I would get so excited and run up on the
Speaker 1: stage and I would just like jump around and go
Speaker 1: into a and I wasn't really dancing, but I would
Speaker 1: jump around and make all the kids laugh, and they
Speaker 1: were roaring, and I'd see that the owner of the
Speaker 1: theater come running down the island. I'd leave off the theater,
Speaker 1: and I was very very fast, so I could crawl
Speaker 1: into the seats and disappear, and he couldn't find me.
Speaker 1: And I came again. It was maybe like the second
Speaker 1: or third time. Uh, Saturday morning. He was waiting for
Speaker 1: me backstage, and I got up on the stage and
Speaker 1: he came out and he grabbed me by the arm,
Speaker 1: took me back in his office and called my mother.
Speaker 1: And my mother knew that, uh, my father did not
Speaker 1: want me to be in show business, so she secretly
Speaker 1: started me in tap dancing lessons at Hold. I was
Speaker 1: about nine. You're a little kid, nine or ten. What
Speaker 1: was it about your mom? Was your mom in the business? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was a show girl. That's where my mother and
Speaker 1: father on Broadway. That's where they met at the road Show,
Speaker 1: one of the shows, and she was in the line
Speaker 1: and she um, she was only like sixteen or seventeen.
Speaker 1: She lied to because she wanted to be in the show.
Speaker 1: I think my mother had my older brother when she
Speaker 1: was seventeen and had me when she was eighteen. How
Speaker 1: many kids in your family? Two brothers, an older brother
Speaker 1: who passed away and a younger brother who has a
Speaker 1: group called the stand Els and uh rock and roll group.
Speaker 1: And he's still around and still doing concerts and uh
Speaker 1: he deaf now, but he goes out, doesn't anything, and
Speaker 1: he yells all over. But when you come and you
Speaker 1: start making films, your first film as the Boy with
Speaker 1: the green bean hair, isn't that Dean Stockwell, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was Dean. We became friends and I think that's when
Speaker 1: I was like nine or nine or ten. How do
Speaker 1: they find you then to be in a film? Oh?
Speaker 1: I did a play at the corn at theater. The
Speaker 1: first thing I did was a play directed by Lloyd
Speaker 1: Bridges called The Stone Jungle, and I had a great
Speaker 1: part in it, and I end up getting killed in
Speaker 1: it and and it was killed a nine year old
Speaker 1: boy in this play. Oh yeah, it was about kids
Speaker 1: to go to a rock quarry and uh, there were
Speaker 1: good actors in it. A talent scout came and then
Speaker 1: he brought me over to audition for a couple of parts.
Speaker 1: And the Boy with green hair, Joseph Losi, I think,
Speaker 1: directed it, and uh introduced me to him, and uh,
Speaker 1: I tried out for a couple of parts and didn't
Speaker 1: get anything, and finally they just said, would you like
Speaker 1: to be one of the kids in it? So I
Speaker 1: said yeah, and so I became one of the background
Speaker 1: and kids in it, and that was my first movie.
Speaker 1: You know, I always think of young people working in films,
Speaker 1: and we have all kinds of protections now when we
Speaker 1: have all kinds of laws and rules with the Union
Speaker 1: to protect young people and tutors and how many hours
Speaker 1: they can work. But when you were a kid, what
Speaker 1: was that like? How did they treat you? Were they
Speaker 1: affectionate and well? It was okay except for for Cecil b.
Speaker 1: De Mill. Working for the Mill was Samson and Delilah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you then? About ten? I think I was
Speaker 1: ten years old. I played King Saul as a boy.
Speaker 1: You did four movies and this you do Boy with
Speaker 1: the Green Hair, Rain of Terror, Kid from Cleveland. Your
Speaker 1: fourth movie is Samson and Delilah. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: sap for those epic movies. And it's Demil obviously, so
Speaker 1: you see the other directors they might have been a
Speaker 1: little more coddling and a little warmer to you. What
Speaker 1: was Demill like? The Mill was like like you would expect.
Speaker 1: He wore short pants, I guess, with high socks. He
Speaker 1: had a stick. The voice of God, Samson and Delilah
Speaker 1: was the Mill. So that was that was what general. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And when I went in for the audition, I auditioned
Speaker 1: with a paramount actor and it was this room. Um,
Speaker 1: I remember it was a room and there was like
Speaker 1: a big window, one way mirror. And when I finished
Speaker 1: the scene, the doors came bursting open and out came
Speaker 1: the Mill with his entourage, and he said, you got
Speaker 1: the part, my boy, And uh, that was that was
Speaker 1: a big one for him. You get to spend any
Speaker 1: time with Victor maturege, you get to meet the adult.
Speaker 1: What was he like? It was funnier than hell. He
Speaker 1: was wild. People told me some p wouldn't even repeat
Speaker 1: the stories I've been told about him. I've heard some
Speaker 1: pretty He came in with a black eye one time,
Speaker 1: and you know, and they had to put makeup on
Speaker 1: his eye. And I asked him, I said, Jesus Vic,
Speaker 1: how the hell did you get that? He says, I
Speaker 1: went home last night and my wife punched me in
Speaker 1: the eye, and I said, what's that for? You said,
Speaker 1: that's for what you're gonna do. He was very mischievous.
Speaker 1: He moved signs so that people would drive the wrong way,
Speaker 1: and you know he was crazy. Oh yeah. And then
Speaker 1: one of the things was was Hetty Lamar, and I
Speaker 1: thought she was gorgeous in it, claimed Delilah. And I
Speaker 1: remember sitting in a dressing room one time and mature.
Speaker 1: I never forget this. His dog was with him. The
Speaker 1: dog came into the dressing room and he went over
Speaker 1: and started to lick Hetty Lamar's legs and he says,
Speaker 1: get away from there. If I can't do that, you
Speaker 1: can't do it. Hetty Lamar, Oh my god. She took
Speaker 1: me to lunch one time. At on the lunch you
Speaker 1: would like to go to lunch? I said, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: So I went to lunch with Hetty and she said, oh,
Speaker 1: let's stop by this stage. I want you to see
Speaker 1: something you'll you'll like. So we go into the stage
Speaker 1: and it was Dan Martin and Jerry Lewis's first movie,
Speaker 1: My friend Irma and everybody. He was just in hysterics.
Speaker 1: Jerry was smoking a cigarette and he got a bunch
Speaker 1: of ashes under the end of the cigarette, and at
Speaker 1: one moment he reached down an unsipped the pants and
Speaker 1: flashes and everybody was just cracking up. He was like
Speaker 1: that constantly, I'm gonna steal that. I love. That is
Speaker 1: then a good one. Now, you know, you know these
Speaker 1: movies Boy with the Green Hair, Sampson, and Ala, these
Speaker 1: are straight dramas. But then you get to do Seven
Speaker 1: Brides and had you done much you know, your mother
Speaker 1: wanted you to learn how to tap dance. Had you
Speaker 1: done much hoofing, and you were much into the musical
Speaker 1: world on stage. Well, let me explain to you how
Speaker 1: I got it. To tell me. Okay, I did a
Speaker 1: movie at Warner Brothers called Retreat Hell. Joseph H. Lewis
Speaker 1: directed it, and I played a young marine in it.
Speaker 1: And I had worked for him before in uh one
Speaker 1: of his classic film the Wall Movies. Um, it was
Speaker 1: a class crazy crazy. I think we're on a game
Speaker 1: show here, and it was. It had one of the
Speaker 1: classic bank robbery scenes in it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you ever saw it, but it was. It was the best.
Speaker 1: The King Brothers came and said, Hey, I'm sorry, Joe,
Speaker 1: you gotta shoot this in like a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: We don't have the time, we have the money, broke,
Speaker 1: so he didn't know what to do, so he just
Speaker 1: stuck a camera in the back seat of the car
Speaker 1: and shot over the back of their heads and they
Speaker 1: actually drove to the bank all in one take, and
Speaker 1: he parked the car that kept the camera in there
Speaker 1: and showed him going in and then finally he came
Speaker 1: out and there was like a policeman. Then I kept
Speaker 1: jumped in the car and they drove. It was all
Speaker 1: one shot, and they said that was one of the
Speaker 1: best bankrupt scenes. It was by accident. So he took
Speaker 1: the film that I did, Retreat Hell, which was a
Speaker 1: Korean war film, and he showed it to MGM, and
Speaker 1: I guess MGM was looking for actors to sign at
Speaker 1: the time, so they signed me under contract and the
Speaker 1: first movie I did it was to Take the high Ground.
Speaker 1: I played a comedy character in it, and it was
Speaker 1: a basic training movie where Richard Widmark teaches us all
Speaker 1: how to and Karl mull and teach us how to
Speaker 1: become good soldiers, which was great, and uh Simn Brides
Speaker 1: came up. It was like the next film there and
Speaker 1: Michael Kidd told the studio that he wanted all the
Speaker 1: six brothers to be great dancers. And the studio said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, we have actors under contract here. So
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. You can have four great dancers
Speaker 1: and two actors that are under contract. And I was
Speaker 1: one of the actors that was under contract. And the
Speaker 1: other actor was Jeff Richards who was a baseball player
Speaker 1: before he became an actor who hated dancers. He is
Speaker 1: one of the brothers. I said, let's go visit our
Speaker 1: brothers without rehearsing. And he says, oh Jesus, do I
Speaker 1: have to go over there and talk to all of
Speaker 1: those fags. Oh god, yeah, that's how we felt. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we go over there and Michael Kidd came up
Speaker 1: to me and he said, somebody told me you're a
Speaker 1: tumbler that or an acrobat. I did a backflip for
Speaker 1: him right on the spot. He says, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we'll use it in the number. And I said, no,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I'm not dancing with Jack dem Loss
Speaker 1: from New York City Ballet and Mathematics and Mark Platt
Speaker 1: and I've never had any dance trading except for the
Speaker 1: tap dancing. I said, I can't dance. He said, look,
Speaker 1: this is just square dancing. All you gotta do is
Speaker 1: lift your legs. So we do this number called Going
Speaker 1: Courting Janie Powell trying to make gentleman out of us,
Speaker 1: teaching everybody how to dance, and uh to get a
Speaker 1: really professional dancer to look awkward, It's hard to do
Speaker 1: because they automatically stand up in the fifth position. So
Speaker 1: Michael had had the choice of either putting me way
Speaker 1: in back of these great dancers. I ended up in
Speaker 1: front of all the dancers looking awkward, just going crazy,
Speaker 1: jumping around and then flipping up and falling down on
Speaker 1: the floor saying keep your dancing. You know. That was
Speaker 1: the end of the number. That number was just made
Speaker 1: for me because I was learning how to do in Courton.
Speaker 1: Going Courton was the number. And then, of course the
Speaker 1: other big number was the Barn Dance number. We were
Speaker 1: dancing on planks and stuff like that. That was up
Speaker 1: my alley because I could do flips. I always get
Speaker 1: the impression that those films it was a lot of work. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was all one take. There were no cuts in it.
Speaker 1: How was Donna? I'm a big admirer of his film
Speaker 1: you are I thought he was overrated? Yeah, Well, we
Speaker 1: had to shoot a bunch of stuff over again that
Speaker 1: he did in that they put snow on everybody's faces
Speaker 1: and it just looked like they forgot to put makeup
Speaker 1: on in certain places. And I know he's done some
Speaker 1: good films, but it was really Michael films. Other people
Speaker 1: you think made him look good. Yeah, other people made
Speaker 1: him again. And gene Kelly, you know, he was a
Speaker 1: friend of gene Kelly's. When we had finished the Barn
Speaker 1: Dance number and it was pretty well choreographed and everything,
Speaker 1: we came back from lunch and Stanley came on the
Speaker 1: stage with gene Kelly and said, I want you all
Speaker 1: the run through the whole number from top to bottom
Speaker 1: for Jeane. So we we did, and he was wonderful.
Speaker 1: He just said, hey, guys, all I can tell you
Speaker 1: is there's nothing else for you to do but cut
Speaker 1: yourself in bleed. But let me just say this, beyond
Speaker 1: the music, beyond Bernstein, who I worship. When I think
Speaker 1: of West Side Story, I think of a young Natalie Wood.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I remember is that you're not
Speaker 1: the male lead in the show, and yet and I'm
Speaker 1: not asking you pop off that screen man like ten
Speaker 1: million dollars end to end. You kind of Sergeant Krupkey.
Speaker 1: You gotta understand it's just all bring an update that
Speaker 1: gets us out of hand. Our models, all junkies, our fathers,
Speaker 1: all our drunks. Naturally, Officer, you got old swagger, you
Speaker 1: become one of the stars of the film. Was that
Speaker 1: Robert Wise's intention or did that just happen in the
Speaker 1: cut of the film? Um, it was weird. I was
Speaker 1: in the Army when um uh and on tour for
Speaker 1: Tom Thumb. When I went to New York and I
Speaker 1: saw a West Side story and I said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I want to do this. I bought the album, took
Speaker 1: it back to UH, to Oklahoma where I was at
Speaker 1: Fort So, how long are you in the Army? For
Speaker 1: two years? You didn't have to go overseas on Oklahoma
Speaker 1: and the whole time you were in Oklahoma and I
Speaker 1: fucked up? What? Yeah, that's a good question, shooting blanks
Speaker 1: at a sign that said I am the enemy? You know,
Speaker 1: I mean the last thirty days. I took leave and
Speaker 1: did a simmer Un in Arizona with Glenn Ford, and
Speaker 1: then I had to go back to the Army, finished
Speaker 1: it up, and I drove back and what happened was is.
Speaker 1: I went over to United Artists where they were shooting,
Speaker 1: and I auditioned as Tony. And I even auditioned with
Speaker 1: with Mickey Callan who played Riff on Broadway. He played
Speaker 1: my part on Broadway. I auditioned with several girls Anna
Speaker 1: Murial Baghetti, uh was several actresses that were they were
Speaker 1: off for the part of Maria and and I had
Speaker 1: the same agent as as Robert Wise, so I had
Speaker 1: a really close connection, you know, and I kept checking, well,
Speaker 1: how's it going. Had they picked Tony? Is not yet,
Speaker 1: Bob isn't sure what he he's not sure yet. But
Speaker 1: finally he called me and he said, well, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but they picked Richard Baymer to play the part of Tony.
Speaker 1: But they said Richard. Yeah, I had no idea who
Speaker 1: he was. They said, but they've offered you the role.
Speaker 1: They've offered you the role of and I said Riff.
Speaker 1: I said no, no, no, no. He said, you don't
Speaker 1: want to do it, and I said, yes, I do
Speaker 1: want to do it. You know, it's like really really quick.
Speaker 1: I said, I really want to be in this film.
Speaker 1: But I said, I don't think I can handle the
Speaker 1: dancing is like incredibly difficult for Riff. But am I
Speaker 1: glad I didn't do it. I mean, it's not a
Speaker 1: good part, Tony. But when they offered me the part
Speaker 1: of Riff, they wanted to see me both Bob and
Speaker 1: Jerry Robbins. So I go to the studio and I
Speaker 1: go in to see them and they're both sitting there
Speaker 1: and the first thing that Jerry says to me, he says, now, Russ.
Speaker 1: He says, I've seen your musical Seven Brides and the
Speaker 1: Fastest Gonna Live where you dance on shovels. And he says,
Speaker 1: on all your films, even comedies, you do tumbling. But
Speaker 1: I kept to tell you right now, there'll be no
Speaker 1: tumbling in this movie. There'll be none. And he said,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to do straight dancing. That's the way
Speaker 1: the part is for Riff. And I said, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll do That's what he told me. And I was
Speaker 1: so Jerome. Robbins was because he was taken too long.
Speaker 1: We were doing shots in New York, going like dancing
Speaker 1: down two blocks, you know, and then of the West Sideway.
Speaker 1: Then he then he would come back and get this
Speaker 1: and he would say that was fine. And Robert Wise.
Speaker 1: He would say that was terrific, that was great, printed
Speaker 1: We're all done, And Jerry said, no, no, no, I'd
Speaker 1: like to do one more, but I would like all
Speaker 1: the dancers to do it on the other foot. So
Speaker 1: Jerry so Robbins was the choreographer, not the director. Robbins
Speaker 1: well the co director, but but they had an agreement
Speaker 1: that Bob Wise would would do the dramatic scenes and
Speaker 1: and uh, Robin Robins numbers, so do it on the
Speaker 1: other foot. Now you may not know what that means.
Speaker 1: That means instead of stepping on the left and kicking
Speaker 1: to the right, you gotta step on the right, kick
Speaker 1: to the left. You gotta do with the other way.
Speaker 1: And so every all these dancers are walking around crazy.
Speaker 1: So we were there in New York for Oh my God.
Speaker 1: We are there for a month late, and by the
Speaker 1: time he got back to l A, they closed the
Speaker 1: production down. They said that's it. He had it in
Speaker 1: his option that if it didn't work out for a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time that he could be let go.
Speaker 1: He was just gone. By the time we came back
Speaker 1: to work, he was gone. And all the dancers were
Speaker 1: like depressed. They've been complaining the whole time complaining about
Speaker 1: how they'd rather have Jerry Robins and complaining, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not like calling them names or anything. There was there's
Speaker 1: a book written his biography is Dancing with the Devil,
Speaker 1: you know. So, I mean, he just was a prick.
Speaker 1: So it was until after he was fired that one
Speaker 1: of his assistants, Tony Mordente, married Rivera, you know Tony,
Speaker 1: and Tony took over. So Tony said, let's put some
Speaker 1: tumbling back in the in the in the film, let's
Speaker 1: put So that's when I in the dance all number.
Speaker 1: I did the round off back with a full twist,
Speaker 1: kept dancing and everything. And so later on Jerry Robins
Speaker 1: had a show called Jerome Robbins Broadway and the kid
Speaker 1: that was playing riff did a flip on the stage
Speaker 1: and I saw that, and I almost had a heart attack.
Speaker 1: I turned to buy, I said, did you see that?
Speaker 1: So I couldn't wait to get back to stage, you
Speaker 1: know what. I met him and he was so happy
Speaker 1: to meet me, and I said, now I gotta ask you,
Speaker 1: how were you able to do a flip on the stage.
Speaker 1: He says, that was part of the audition. So I
Speaker 1: give myself a pat on the back for that. Were
Speaker 1: you ever seriously injured doing the work? You've done only
Speaker 1: once in a Wonderful World of Brothers Grim, which was
Speaker 1: in cinerama. So it was hard to do and I
Speaker 1: had to roll down a hill and jump over the
Speaker 1: camera and I think I hit the top of the
Speaker 1: camera and cut my like Tom Cruise and mission impossible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you know when you were doing the movie what
Speaker 1: the movie was going to be? Did you know? I
Speaker 1: knew I was doing a classic movie, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know that it was gonna end up history as history
Speaker 1: and as big as it was. It's an epic film,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of big stars, so like Glenn Ford,
Speaker 1: there's like tons of them that are big stars that
Speaker 1: have never really had an epic phil you know that
Speaker 1: they could hang their shirt on a big movie. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think Georgia Carriss, you know, think what else has
Speaker 1: he done? West Side Story is his premier and because
Speaker 1: of that, we got to go to Grummin's Chinese and
Speaker 1: get our hands and feet as it should cement, you know,
Speaker 1: which was pretty pretty much of a trip. Actor dancer
Speaker 1: West Side Story star Russ Tamblin another Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Guest who came up through the old Hollywood studio system
Speaker 1: is Robert Osborne, who, before he was the host of
Speaker 1: Turner Classic Movies, was a member of Lucille Ball's stable
Speaker 1: of actors at Desilu Studios in the nineties. It didn't
Speaker 1: pay us much money at all, but it was like
Speaker 1: a masterclass for me because Lucy took us under her wing.
Speaker 1: Now DESI at this point was womanizing. He wasn't around much,
Speaker 1: so she would show us I love Lucy, show she'd
Speaker 1: done bad ones and show us why they didn't work.
Speaker 1: They show us a good one and why it did work.
Speaker 1: I wanted to share with something. The rest of my
Speaker 1: interview with Robert Osborne is in our archives that Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing dot Org Tamblin talks life after Riff coming up.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin. You're listening to Here's the Thing,
Speaker 1: and we're back with my guest, Russ Tamblin. West Side
Speaker 1: Story director Robert Wise made a surprising choice to follow
Speaker 1: up his musical mega hit. It was a genre film
Speaker 1: co starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom, a supernatural horror
Speaker 1: project called The Haunting Tamblin decided to join the cast,
Speaker 1: but it took some convincing. I don't even think I
Speaker 1: wanted to do it at the beginning, because I was
Speaker 1: the one person in the haunting that that wasn't one
Speaker 1: of the strange people that had some sort of psychological
Speaker 1: damage damage, you know. I was just a guy that
Speaker 1: was going to inherit. The house turned it down at first,
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth, but then MGM said, you know,
Speaker 1: Bob really wants you, and unfortunately we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: put you on what is it where they where you
Speaker 1: don't get paid for a bunch of months, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I said, well, their salary, Maybe i'll read
Speaker 1: the script again. So I decided to do it. And
Speaker 1: I was in the south of France and then doing
Speaker 1: some other movie when he offered it to me. So
Speaker 1: I flew back to England and uh, and that's where
Speaker 1: we did the haunting. And we did it just in
Speaker 1: this amazing place which was in Stratford upon Avon, and
Speaker 1: they found this house that had been it was actually
Speaker 1: like a big manner that had been haunted for you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of years, and it was all run down and
Speaker 1: there were weeds growing everywhere, and uh, it was an
Speaker 1: incredible place. So it was it was quite amazing. So
Speaker 1: what was the set of that on the Haunting? It
Speaker 1: was incredible. I mean a lot of it was shot
Speaker 1: at Elstree. The the interior of the house was shot
Speaker 1: at Elstreet where they could really really work it out
Speaker 1: better when we mainly use the outside of the hotel,
Speaker 1: uh for um for shooting the openings and everything. But
Speaker 1: I had this experience one night and we were staying
Speaker 1: there the night. We only stayed there one night, and
Speaker 1: my bedroom was right above where they were shooting, where
Speaker 1: the entrance was, so there were arc lights and they
Speaker 1: were shooting out front and I wasn't working then and
Speaker 1: and I these lights kept coming on and I could
Speaker 1: hear the noise, and ah, ship, I'm gonna go just
Speaker 1: take a walk in the back and see there was
Speaker 1: supposed to have been a ghost in the back. And uh,
Speaker 1: there was like a path that went up and there
Speaker 1: was a little graveyard up there, and there was like
Speaker 1: a eight year old that was murdered. And so I
Speaker 1: decided I'd walk up there. And they say, well, that's
Speaker 1: where you where the ghost is, you know, So and
Speaker 1: I would said I'd love to see a ghost. I
Speaker 1: thought that would be really really cool. So I go
Speaker 1: out the back and it was pitch dark. I couldn't
Speaker 1: see a thing, so I had to walk backwards because
Speaker 1: the arc lights from the other side of the building
Speaker 1: were lighting up the stone path, so I could walk
Speaker 1: backwards and see where I was where I was going.
Speaker 1: I got up to a certain point and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I felt like somebody put a brick of
Speaker 1: ice on the back of my neck. I swear to god,
Speaker 1: I never told anybody this, never told any of the
Speaker 1: cast and getting the exclusive and I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: if I turn around right now, I'm going to see
Speaker 1: a ghost. I mean I felt that really strongly. Because
Speaker 1: of that, it was like freezing right in the back
Speaker 1: of my neck. So instead I just high tailed it
Speaker 1: back and went to bed. And I thought, you could
Speaker 1: really run back. I can't that. I can't tell anybody
Speaker 1: about this ever, and I didn't didn't tell any I
Speaker 1: was in my house on Long Island. Someone told me
Speaker 1: that my house had a ghost. And one night I'm
Speaker 1: laying in bed and I hear these voices in my house.
Speaker 1: I swear to god, I heard people talking and I
Speaker 1: heard a woman like raising her voice, and I listened
Speaker 1: to it, and I listened to it. It's two in
Speaker 1: the morning, a's three in the morning, and I'm insomnia.
Speaker 1: I got have bed in zomnia and I jumped out
Speaker 1: of my bed. I swear to god, I jumped out
Speaker 1: of my bed and I started screaming. I started screaming
Speaker 1: at the top of my lungs. Come on, you want
Speaker 1: to funk with me? Come on, show yourself. Don't you
Speaker 1: fucking hide for me? Come on out and showed me
Speaker 1: your face. I go nuts in my bedroom of my
Speaker 1: house on Long This is about twenty years ago. Anyway,
Speaker 1: very soon in the timeline of the business, paint your
Speaker 1: wagon as a flop, Finian's Rainbow as a flop. And
Speaker 1: in that seem easy Rider comes up and it's the
Speaker 1: death of the musical as we know it in from Hollywood.
Speaker 1: How did you feel during that period? Whre you get
Speaker 1: to the late sixties and everything becomes the countercultural thing
Speaker 1: in Nicholson and five Easy Paces and all everything becomes
Speaker 1: a little more. I dropped out. I actually dropped out
Speaker 1: of show business. UH, moved to to Panga and UH
Speaker 1: and got into fine art as opposed to do that.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I was out for years. For several years,
Speaker 1: I did nothing. Uh. The last movie I did, I
Speaker 1: think was The Long Ships, a movie with Sydney Portier
Speaker 1: and and wind Mark and and um. Then I dropped
Speaker 1: out and I went I went up to to Panga
Speaker 1: and got into I met an artist, Wallace Berman. I
Speaker 1: got involved with like Alan Ginsburg and uh, Michael McClure,
Speaker 1: the poet, uh. And I got involved with a lot
Speaker 1: of those people, and I got turned onto fine art
Speaker 1: as opposed to the performing. You've got quite a few
Speaker 1: credits after them. Yeah. Yeah, but there b movies. I
Speaker 1: did them just for some money so I could support myself.
Speaker 1: But I didn't give a funk what I did. I
Speaker 1: just did them, you know. I did him in there,
Speaker 1: made up my own line and a lot of them,
Speaker 1: and uh, they were happy to have you. Yeah, Oh,
Speaker 1: they were thrilled to have me. But I did well
Speaker 1: in the fine art. I did had shows and I
Speaker 1: did we still doing that soul art well when I
Speaker 1: get a chance. I've been writing my book for the
Speaker 1: last twenty years, by the way, it's called Dance on
Speaker 1: the Edge. When's it coming out early next year? We
Speaker 1: finished it, and Bonnie is is putting in all of photos. Now,
Speaker 1: we got tons of photos that we're putting. Tell you
Speaker 1: one of the stories about West Side Story. When um
Speaker 1: we finished and and I was friends with Natalie and
Speaker 1: UH and r J. And they came out to the
Speaker 1: beach house one time to have dinner. And we had
Speaker 1: dinner and we were we were drinking and UH and
Speaker 1: and Tony Bardente was came came to. He was a
Speaker 1: friend of Natalie's. And so we're all sitting around, We're
Speaker 1: having a few drinks, and I got this crazy idea.
Speaker 1: It was just because I had done it one time
Speaker 1: at Anthony Quinn's house up in Oxen RD. He had
Speaker 1: a big ranch and I went there and we were
Speaker 1: out in the back and he was barbecuing and and
Speaker 1: he said, let's play. You ask somebody a question and
Speaker 1: you have to tell the truth. So I said, let's
Speaker 1: play that. So we started doing it with Natalie and
Speaker 1: and r J. We went around the room and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna liven up. So I thought for sure that
Speaker 1: I knew the answer to this. So I said to Natalie.
Speaker 1: I said, Natalie, and that if you had your choice
Speaker 1: of getting an Academy Award for west Side story getting
Speaker 1: an Academy Award. But in order to get the Academy Award,
Speaker 1: you would have to divorce r J, you know? Or
Speaker 1: would you rather keep your marriage with r J? You know?
Speaker 1: And and so she thought about it for a second.
Speaker 1: She said, I'll take the Academy award. That's a true story.
Speaker 1: I was so surprised. I mean, I thought, sure, did
Speaker 1: RJ nod? He pounded the table, he ethically, broke a
Speaker 1: bottle again, he rang the back. And I was living
Speaker 1: at the beach out, a beach out, and he ran
Speaker 1: down to the beach and Tony went to help him.
Speaker 1: And I was sitting there with Navig. I said, Ned,
Speaker 1: why did you say that? She said why? She said, well,
Speaker 1: I thought about it, and I thought, you know, it
Speaker 1: maybe my only chance to get an Academy ward. I
Speaker 1: could always marry r J again. But they came back up,
Speaker 1: and uh, I thought about that story when you know,
Speaker 1: with that big deal that they had on the yacht
Speaker 1: where she drowned and they had a big fight and
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah, and I don't know what. He was
Speaker 1: very much in love with her. Yeah, you could tell
Speaker 1: he was a little Oh yeah, he was. He was
Speaker 1: really possessed by But I went go to dinner with
Speaker 1: people in New York and I noticed to play a game,
Speaker 1: and I'd say, and my friends back then, this is
Speaker 1: like ten fifteen years ago. They were all ten years
Speaker 1: older than me, So I'm fifty there, sixty there, seventy,
Speaker 1: and I'd have like, I went with a friend of
Speaker 1: mine and his wife and two couples that were friends
Speaker 1: of his. So I'm gonna table. There's eight of us there.
Speaker 1: I'm the youngest one that everybody's in their seventies. And
Speaker 1: I turned to this woman who was very an Bancroft
Speaker 1: kind of salty, sat the New York Dame. Uh, And
Speaker 1: I said to her, I said, uh, I love Danny.
Speaker 1: And the game I played with m do you want
Speaker 1: to know your husband or your wife, your partner you're
Speaker 1: married to in the next life when you die, will
Speaker 1: you see them again? And the first person I turned
Speaker 1: to was this woman who was like this and Bancroft type.
Speaker 1: I said, you, Julia, you and Irving here, I said,
Speaker 1: do you before I even opened my mouth because she
Speaker 1: was oh god, no, my god. Forty years with him
Speaker 1: is enough. You think I'm going to see him on
Speaker 1: the other side for eternity. Oh christ, I thought, what
Speaker 1: an honest thing to say in front of your husband
Speaker 1: that when you're dead, they're I always obsessed about that, like, well,
Speaker 1: I know my wife and my kids on the other side,
Speaker 1: will I see my dad? Blah blah blah real quickly, Um,
Speaker 1: how do you get dialed into David Lynch and Twin Peaks?
Speaker 1: How did you get pulled into that? I was living
Speaker 1: with Dan Stockwell and Dean and I were living up
Speaker 1: in Laurel Canyon. I just divorced my second wife and
Speaker 1: uh moved in with and that two of us were
Speaker 1: living there. And then I went to do a play
Speaker 1: and Dean and Dennis Hopper did Blue Velvet. And so
Speaker 1: Dennis said he was gonna have a birthday party for
Speaker 1: David Lynch and and so I went with Dean to
Speaker 1: Dennis's place, and uh, and Lynch was getting cards and
Speaker 1: gifts and stuff. And he opened up this one card
Speaker 1: and it was a guy standing in the center with
Speaker 1: these naked women around him, you know, with all these
Speaker 1: naked women, and he sort of laughed and everybody laughed,
Speaker 1: and it was like a funny thing, you know, And
Speaker 1: I was standing next to him. He said, wouldn't you
Speaker 1: love to be this guy is funny like that? And
Speaker 1: it was an opportunity and I said to him, I said,
Speaker 1: what I would really loved, David, is to work with
Speaker 1: you sometime. And he looked at me and he said,
Speaker 1: the next project. I do the next project. And it
Speaker 1: was it was like a year later that I got
Speaker 1: a call from my agent. Remember, David Lynch wants to
Speaker 1: see you, and so I went in. He remembered, and
Speaker 1: I went in to see him, and uh, he said
Speaker 1: the part that And I'll never forget what he's head was.
Speaker 1: And I went home and told Bonnie later what he
Speaker 1: said to me, not the part I want you to
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of you for. The part I want you
Speaker 1: to do in this film is his eccentric character called
Speaker 1: Dr Jacoby. I want you to do that in the film.
Speaker 1: So I went home and I kept thinking about it
Speaker 1: all the way home. And what he said. I didn't say,
Speaker 1: I want you to audition or try out, or I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of you the part I want you to do.
Speaker 1: And I went on when I told Bonnie and said,
Speaker 1: that's what he said. So my agent called and said, yeah,
Speaker 1: he wants you to do it. He don't have a
Speaker 1: part yet written for Dr Jacoby, but they wrote a
Speaker 1: scene in for the pilot, and I decided to do
Speaker 1: something nuts. Dean told me Dean had worked with him.
Speaker 1: He said, David loves something that's out there, you know,
Speaker 1: So I decided to Uh, I put air plugs in
Speaker 1: my ears. I figured he's a psychiatrist. So when I
Speaker 1: get off the elevator in the one scene and the
Speaker 1: agent Cooper says to me, Agent Cooper, I said, Gary Cooper,
Speaker 1: that was about the only scene I had. But after
Speaker 1: the pilot, Lynch loved it, and so they picked it
Speaker 1: up and I'm going to shoot it a year later.
Speaker 1: And that's when I went to Venice and I wanted
Speaker 1: to find some crazy glasses. So I narrowed it down
Speaker 1: to a blue pear or a red pair, and then
Speaker 1: finally I stopped. I was looking in the mirror and
Speaker 1: I said, oh my god, that's it. So I had
Speaker 1: a pair of glasses made with one red lens and
Speaker 1: one blue lens, and that was my Jacoby showed him
Speaker 1: to Lynch. I said, the blue lens affects the creative
Speaker 1: side of the eye. On the logical side of the
Speaker 1: eye was a red lens to give it some light.
Speaker 1: So I explained all this to him and he says,
Speaker 1: I love it. But let's not tell anybody why you're
Speaker 1: wearing those glasses. Let's keep it a secret. He loves secrets.
Speaker 1: Let me just say this. Here's my last quick question.
Speaker 1: Do everybody knows uh? Because you have you now have
Speaker 1: a multigenerational show business family. Uh that your Amber Tamblin's dad.
Speaker 1: Did you ever give her any advice about the business
Speaker 1: you ever want the advice you about the bis? Uh?
Speaker 1: She did a she did a soap opera, General Hospital
Speaker 1: that she was on. I wasn't working, so I used
Speaker 1: to take her. My mother was taking her for a while,
Speaker 1: passed away. Then I took her and I used to
Speaker 1: stand next to the camera and when she would finish
Speaker 1: a scene. You know in soap opera the director is
Speaker 1: not there, directors in a booth. Yeah, And I used
Speaker 1: to stand next to the camera and when she would
Speaker 1: finish a scene. The one piece of advices I gave her,
Speaker 1: whatever you do, don't get caught acting. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: main thing. Don't get caught acting. That should be the
Speaker 1: name of your book. Don't get caught acting. Russ Tamplin,
Speaker 1: thank you from the bottom. Thank you. It's such an
Speaker 1: honor to be interviewed by question. Russ Tamblin on a rich,
Speaker 1: exciting life in the movies. This is Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing, A ban a school
Speaker 1: post