Rick Vallin

Who was Rick Vallin?

Rick Vallin was an actor who appeared in more than 150 films between 1938 and 1966.

Born Eric Efron in Russia, Vallin came to America while still young. He started his Hollywood career with an uncredited part in the film Freshman Year. He later joined the Pasadena Playhouse in 1942, and the same year received his first co-star billing in the film The Panther's Claw together with Sidney Blackmer, and showed promising leading man material in Secrets of a Co-Ed with Otto Kruger. But what was seeming to be a career pointed to stardom, turned later into secondary roles in several B-movies and cliffhanger serials. For the most part, Vallin interpreted the hero's dullish sidekick, a secondary villain, or a prominent ethnic figure. In the minds of studio filmmakers, he had a tight B-movie image and found any advance to the "A" ranks almost impossible.

By the mid-1930s, Vallin had moved considerably down the credits list, until he became a mainstay in the Columbia Pictures serials and appeared in a few of the Bowery Boys 1940s capers. His successful union with Columbia also kept him active in minor roles in three Johnny Weissmuller's Jungle Jim movies, playing both sinister villains and savage natives.