Veteran Hollywood character player and occasional lead since entering films as a 13-year-old in Joseph Losey's "The Boy With Green Hair" (1948) starring child star Dean Stockwell. Tamblyn proved capable as an eager juvenile in such diverse films as "Gun Crazy" (1949), playing John Dall's firearms-obsessed protagonist as a teen; Cecil B. DeMille's "Samson and Delilah" (1949); and Vincente Minnelli's Spencer Tracy-Elizabeth Taylor pairings "Father of the Bride" (1950) and "Father's Little Dividend" (1951). He later won acclaim for his remarkably acrobatic dancing ability in such screen musicals as "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" (1954), "Hit the Deck" (1955) and "West Side Story" (1961). In the latter Tamblyn played Tony's troublemaking friend Riff.
The self-taught hoofer also turned up in a number of masculine movies--Westerns, war films, sports pictures. Tamblyn garnered an Oscar nomination in a supporting role as a mama's boy in the hit melodrama "Peyton Place" (1957). Still boyish in his mid-20s, he proved a terrific "tom thumb" (1958) in the lavish George Pal-directed musical fantasy. A five-inch tall Tamblyn was dazzling dancing opposite Pal's animated wooden figures. Tamblyn starred as the new kid in town in the teen exploitation "classic" about the dangers of dope, "High School Confidential" (1958). This project would prove prophetic for the course of Tamblyn's career from the mid-60s on. Some bright spots followed: "West Side Story"; Pal's "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" (1962); and a memorable turn as a freckle-faced urban hipster confronted by the forces of the supernatural in Robert Wise's classic ghost story "The Haunting" (1963).
By the mid-60s, Tamblyn's Hollywood career had begun to decline with roles in several less-than-stellar international co-productions. By 1970 he was an exploitation star in films that ran the gamut from good-humored (Inoshiro Honda's "War of the Gargantuas" 1970) to risible (Al Adamson's "Satan's Sadists" 1970) to inexplicable (Dennis Hopper's oddity "The Last Movie" 1971). Tamblyn, who had once acted for such major Hollywood directors as Minnelli and Stanley Donen, was now favored by fringe genre auteurs like Al Adamson ("Dracula Vs. Frankenstein"; "The Female Bunch" both 1971) and Fred Olen Ray ("Commando Squad" 1987; "The Phantom Empire" 1989). He was also involved with "Human Highway" (1982), a very strange feature project directed by veteran rocker Neil Young, both as an actor and co-writer (with Young, Stockwell and several others).
A bearded and nearly unrecognizable Tamblyn made a minor comeback with a recurring role on "Twin Peaks" (ABC 1990-91) as oddball psychiatrist Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, professional confidant (and secret paramour) of the slain Laura Palmer. The cult series from David Lynch also reunited Tamblyn with Richard Beymer, "West Side Story"'s Tony. He had a small but memorable role in "Cabin Boy" (1994) as Chocki, a half-man/half-shark creature who takes a liking to Chris Elliott.