My thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for providing me with an advance copy of this book.

I am a big fan of Russ Tamblyn so I've been eagerly awaiting this book, which he has been writing for many years, I've seen all this major movie roles and remember him fondly from Twin Peaks. What makes him unique, and what should have made this book unique as well, is that he is one of the last major performers from the Golden Age of MGM Musicals. He even co-starred with Spencer Tracy in two movies.

Because of all that potential I was deeply disappointed in this book. It is simply not in the same league as Kirk Douglas's "The Ragman's Son" or the Shirley MacLaine and Shelley Winters memoirs, which were unsparing accounts filled with fabulous and revealing anecdotes. Dancing on the Edge is not revealing and is dull for long stretches.

The problem may be that the passage of time has dulled Mr. Tamblyn's memory, or perhaps he just wasn't very observant in the first place. Another problem is organic. Much of his life after Hollywood was spent in Topanga Canyon creating art, and we get that in copious and very tedious detail. It might interest an art aficionado but not anyone interested in Mr. Tamblyn's movie career.

We get one brief anecdote on Spencer Tracy. We get little on his spectacular performance in the landmark musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He got to know one of the co-stars, who turned out to be a drunk, but barely mentions any of the others, who included some of the finest dancers of their era. One of his costars, Jacques D'Amboise, wrote a wonderful memoir that has all the great qualities this book lacks: self-reflection and great anecdotes.

West Side Story is the biggest disappointment, So much has been written about the making of that movie and Mr. Tamblyn adds little. Given that the cover shows him performing in that film, you'd think he would say more about it. One gets the impression that while the movie was made he just didn't pay much attention to what was happening. If he did, he has either forgotten it or doesn't care to write about it.

He talks about Peyton Place, in which he gave a superb and sensitive performance and was nominated for an Oscar, but mainly it's an account of his affair with the leading lady and his friendship with Arthur Kennedy. Little is written on the films in which he had notable secondary roles, like Hit the Deck. At one point in the book he describes how he "personally reminisced" with two of his Hit the Deck costars about the movie. That was frustrating. Why didn't he reminisce about that film in this book? After all, this is his autobiography and that is why people are reading it.

Likewise, there was nothing on Take the High Ground, a war movie in which he gave a clever and comedic performance. He co-starred with Richard Widmark, Karl Malden and other well-known performers. He has nothing to say about working on that film and just mentions it in passing.

What we do get is a lot of dreary stuff about his love life and endless discussion of his "art career," which he took up after his movie career faltered. Yet that is his where we get the most detail, that and his buddies like Dean Stockwell and the artist Wallace Berman. He goes on and on about Berman, His career took an upturn with Twin Peaks in 1990, but again he provides little in the way of insights into himself or his costars.

Finally, he talks about his daughter Amber, managing her career, but there is nothing on how she supported him, which she wrote about in a New York Times article in 2021, in which she expressed solidarity with Britney Spears, She went into some detail on that. She wrote that supporting her parents damaged their relationship. You can read about that in Wikipedia but it is not even mentioned here.

Altogether a missed opportunity.