She was the younger sister of prima ballerina Maria Tallchief and was the first Native American to be named "première danseuse étoile" in the Paris Opera Ballet.

[1][2] Tallchief was born October 19, 1926, in Denver, Colorado, while her parents, Alexander Tall Chief and his wife, Ruth (née Porter), were on a family vacation with her older siblings, brother Gerald and sister Maria.

[3] She grew up in Fairfax, Oklahoma,[3] until 1933, when her family moved to Los Angeles so she and her sister could train in ballet dancing.

In the book American Indian Ballerinas, Lili Cockerille Livingston wrote that Tallchief had her professional debut with Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant's Ballet Theatre as a first year soloist, in 1944.

[9] In October 1997, she and her elder sister Maria, along with Moscelyne Larkin, Rosella Hightower, and Yvonne Chouteau, were named Oklahoma Treasures at the Governor's Arts Awards.