Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1958)

“Russ, What’s Your Side of the Story?” by RUSS TAMBLYN as told to MARCIA BORIE A columnist says: “Private Tamblyn has a private war with the Army.” A coworker: “He’s a screwball kid.” An acquaintance: “He didn’t even try to make his marriage work — he has no sense of responsibility!” Some of the rumors about me are true — some definitely are not. I’m not making excuses, but I want the record straight! Look — I’d be a stupid jerk if I said that I liked Army life. Anybody that can enjoy what it represents is nuts. I mean, I hate war and killing and shooting; so I won’t just mouth some words and say that being in the Army is my ideal way of life. Yet I have a duty, an obligation to defend my country, and I’ve made up my mind to do the best job I possibly can. As long as guys are required to serve time in the Army, I will accept it as being necessary for the survival of our country. Some people who’ve known me for a while find it easy to believe the stuff that’s been written about how I’m a rebel in khaki. But I’m not like I used to be any more. I’m a different person. I’ve found myself — or at least I’m on the right road now. Eight months ago, when I got my 1-A draft status and with it the initial shock of realizing that I would be called up, I decided then to accept whatever faced me. I adjusted myself, geared myself mentally to winding up things and getting ready to go in. I’d finished “Peyton Place” and signed to do “tom thumb” in Europe, and from then on I didn’t make any plans. The Army didn’t call me right away, and as soon as I got back from Europe M-G-M cast me in “High School Confidential!” I finished that just under the wire before I was ordered to report. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Only, eight months ago a lot of other things happened to me — more than I could take. An awful lot of people thought I was acting like a jerk after that, and I suppose I was. But haven’t you ever gotten to a point in your life where you just don’t care any more? I did. I got to that point where I didn’t care about anything — how I acted in public, what I did, what I said. I just didn’t give a darn. You know, it was funny how I got that way. Funny? Strange, I mean. I’ve been in show business for twelve years and for a few of those years things went along . smoothly; everything went my way. Finally, I had a beautiful wife, a home of my own; my career was progressing; what guy could want more? Then all of a sudden my world began to collapse around me. My marriage started to go on the rocks first, and during those last months with Venetia I realized that I hadn’t worked in almost a year. You know, I never dated much before I met p Venetia. She was the first girl I ever fell in love with. She and I were both very young, too immature. Yes, I admit it. We just couldn’t handle things; couldn’t cope with what it was that was pulling us farther and farther apart. Marriage was a sacred thing to me, something of tremendous importance. Besides, by nature I’m full of drive, consumed with a passion to do everything I undertake successfully. I hate to fail — at anything! Believe me, Venetia tried, I tried hard but somewhere along the line we goofed. One night I came home and found the living room dark. But I heard a little sound and I turned the lamp on. Venetia was sitting there, crying, sort of huddled. She looked up at me and said, “Isn’t it a shame that we weren’t meant for each other?” My heart broke. I guess we’d both known for a while that we weren’t going to make it. Now we had to admit it, and we decided to get a divorce. That’s how the two weeks started, the most awful two weeks in my life. Everything happened to me in fourteen days’ time. I got my draft notice. I had an automobile accident. My grandmother had a heart attack. We discovered that my father had cancer of the brain, and we were going to lose him. (He died soon after that.) All in just two weeks. That’s when I got to the point where I didn’t care any more. I reached a stage in life that I’ve read about in books; a point in the road where some people commit suicide, some become alcoholics and some find a way out by being converted to a very orthodox religion. I was a walking zombie. Nothing fazed me, nothing touched me. I was already dead inside. Only my body kept functioning; it didn’t seem to want to admit that there was nothing inside, no feelings, no plans, no nothing. I indulged in self-pity. Sure I did, why deny it? I gave everyone a rough time, but I wasn’t going out of my way to act rude, although it naturally seemed that way. It’s just that I didn’t care, and this attitude made me seem sullen, resentful, aloof, rebellious. One night, when I really couldn’t take things any more, I got into my car and drove down along the ocean near Santa Monica until I came to that little cafe, The Point. I went in and sat at a rear table by myself, having a drink and looking out the window at the rocks and the sea and the miles of nothingness. The sea looked like I felt: dark, angry, endlessly going on and on without any apparent aim or purpose. I just sat there for what seemed like hours. I was oblivious to anything until I heard laughter. I turned around and at the next table were two couples. Two nice-looking young guys with a couple of beautiful chicks, laughing and talking and having a ball. I took one look at them and all they seemed to have — just being alive and happy — and I walked out of that place. I got back in my car and drove straight home. I got undressed and stretched out across my bed and started thinking. And then it came over me — I had nothing left. My faith was broken; my marriage was over; my father was dead; my career was at a standstill. But as I kept thinking it dawned on me that maybe I was at a point in my life that was good for me. I had nothing. Now was the time when I could prove to myself if I really had what it took. I was at a crossroads: I could go ahead, along a new path; or I could stay where I was, which was nowhere; or I could sink further into bitterness and oblivion. I locked myself in my apartment for two weeks. For two weeks I sat and thought and wrote down every thought that came into my head. I wrote and wrote until I had a book -length sheaf of papers with every innermost thought, feeling, desire all there in words before me. Then I read it over and over again. I learned that I had been doing a lot of things not the wrong way perhaps — but indifferently. I hadn’t devoted enough time to thinking things out. I had gone along for years accepting things people said at face value, not questioning, not trying to find out for myself whether they were right or wrong. I spent those two weeks alone and I came out of my “exile” with a whole new set of values, a whole new scheme for living. The heck with the past! From that moment on, I figured, I was going to start fresh. There and then I determined to find things out for myself. The writing was, I guess, a form of self-analysis. Now that I knew I had been wrong, it would be easy to change. I built up a whole new set of convictions, a new faith, new beliefs. I discovered among other things that I didn’t know an awful lot about women. While I’d considered myself a great Don Juan, I really had a lot to learn. First and foremost, I had to find myself! Often, you can find yourself by forgetting yourself and your own private problems for a time. While I’d been shut away in my apartment, my mother had been at home, a lonely place with my father gone. She didn’t want to go anywhere, she said, but now I persuaded her that new surroundings were just what she needed. So I took her to Europe. We rented a car in Paris and had a ball doing the continent together: France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy. After our tour, I had to go to England to make “tom thumb.” Later, I heard that I struck some of the people in that company as pretty much of a screwball, pulling practical jokes, doing crazy stunts, acting like a kid. Well, I guess I was a wacky type when I really was a kid — tearing around in a souped-up jalopy, haunting be-bop joints, stopping at a drive-in and ordering hotcakes with catsup on top just to see the waitress turn green. But I’ve gotten past that stage. While I was working on “tom thumb,” I just felt in good spirits. After all I’d gone through