This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast more what you hear
weekday afternoons on the Drive. You've known him in a lot of things,
from Seven Brides to Seven Brothers, Tom Thom Peyton Place and Everybody's Favorite West
Side Story. Russ Hamblin has lived a lifetime in Braun Broadway and in the
movies, and now he's decided to sit down and write a whole book about
it, and I think it's a long awaited memoir. Russ Hamblin is joining
us to talk about his new book, Dancing on the Edge, And are
you Russ dancing on the Edge? Yes, I think so. I think
I may have fallen off a couple of times, but I have been hello
to everybody in Oklahoma. I spent a lot of time there at Fort Cell
Wow in the Army. I was at Fort Cell and I had a good
time there. I enjoyed Oklahoma and the people, uh and had had a
good time. Whenever you're in that area, you always inevitably hear the boom
boom boom of artillery practice. Yeah, that's right. Well, I was
one of the ones that uh that that that at that time, well,
I was in a tank division. So I used to was forget what it's
called now, but I had to do uh in in in the tank.
I had to work it out to tell them where to aim, otherwise I
would have blown the city up. I mentioned you what have well, your
adventures in show business kind of went back to acrobatics. Uh yeah, I
said, gave a lot of credit to acrobatics. I just used acrobatics in
every genre that there is from In in musicals, I made made it look
like I was a good dancer. I faked a lot, but I could
do a flipping. People say, boy, he's a great dancer, but
he was actually a good acrobat. In the Westerns, I could jump on
horses backwards and forwards. In comedy, I could take pratfalls, fall down
and jump back up again fight scenes. So I give a lot of credit
to acrobatics. That's really good for an actor because it helps you. It
helps you a lot. Russ Tamblin is with us. His biography is out
and it's called Dancing on the Edge. You also were starring in films where
I mean we didn't have CGI like we do now. But in Tom Thumb,
I mean you had to utilize and work with some the special effects of
the day. That's very true. In fact, in Tom Thumb, I
was the one that George Palell I mean because it was George pell who did
tests with me against the green background and a blue background to find you try
and figure out what the best color is, and they finally figured out that
it was a blue screen. It's used all the time. Now. I
didn't know that they were doing that at that point in filmmaking. Well Tom
Thumb was when it started, but they used several processes. One was blue
screen and in another words they'd made dolls and that was about it. Russ
Hamblin with us Dancing on the Edge is his memoir. It was, Oh,
I guess it was about a year ago. We had one of your
co stars on, George Chakrash. He talked about what a great friendship you
two had, even though on screen you arrivals were. We became better friends
after the movie. While we were making it, we didn't. We didn't.
They didn't like us even speaking to us because we were, you know,
one against the other. But George is. One of the problems with
George is he's such a sweet man. He's just really, really nice and
it's it was hard to to look at him and think of him as somebody
bad. That was good acting for both of you, it was. And
that was one of the things too, that I think you really got a
chance to stretch your facial expressions in that film because there were a lot of
close ups of you and you had to You had to act hate, you
had to act desperation, and you could always see what was going on in
your face. Yeah. I used to describe my character Riff as somebody who
looked like he was on uppers all the time. Russ Hamblin's with Us and
Dancing on the edge of his memoir where he talks about his long and uh
and in whole film careers singing and did you sing a lot as a young
person and then getting into musicals? I did sing a lot, but I
didn't wasn't considered a singer per se. And as a matter of fact,
the one who who handled the singing for West Side Story also handled the singing
for for a movie I did called Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and they
and so they dubbed a lot of the dancers voices they don't because he just
he like he had his little group of singers, and he liked to use
them whenever he can, so you know he'd have I think he tried to
to get one of his singers a voiceover for he Also he choreographed guys and
dolls and he wanted to dub Frank Sinatra's voice. So yeah, some people
they just don't give up. They don't quite get it. Seven Brides for
Seven Brothers was working with all that great Johnny Mercer music as well. Yeah,
and I've said that they should make another one now, a Mormon version
called seven seven Brides for One Brother. Russ Damblin's with us and his memoir
is called Dancing on the Edge. You know him from several films. Also
father of Amber, who's had a very successful career in film on her own.
Yes, she certainly has. I mean it used to be, you
know, Russ Tamlin's daughter. Now it's Amber Tamblin's father. When she wanted
to get into the show business, did you say, honey, I'm trying
to get out, man, just about close enough. I tried to keep
her out and I thought, well, if she went on a few interviews,
she'd get tired of it real. But her first interview that she went
on was for General Hospital and I said, oh good, she'll this will
make her quit, yeah, make her not want to do it, And
she got the part. So she was on that show for seven years.
More inside stuff from Russ hamblin Dancing on the Edge. He says, memoir
it's available everywhere you get books. Thank you for all the great entertainment,
Russ, and it's a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. Good
to talk to you too. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews,
the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons
from five to seven. And I Heart to be Media Presentation