Tallulah Bankhead

She's was a total,complete, absolute drunken cunt.

Like Ethel Merman and Carol Channing, she never learned how to dial it down a notch for the silver screen.

It's not as if she was liberated when sober. The booze provided the platform for her views.

How about giving us the title of the biography?

The book is "Tallulah! The Life and Times of a Leading Lady" by Joel Lobenthal.

So... anyone who did witness one of her stage performances?

Her performance in "Lifeboat" is a perfect blend of absolute stillness and focus paired with Tallulah unleashed.

I love the story where one of her weekend guests is woken by the butler with a large vodka. Tallu sweeps by and says "better drink it dahling, there won't be any more served until after breakfast".

Or to the bishop at a church service: "lovely outfit dahling but your handbag is on fire" - meaning the item containing the burning insence.

"Do you have two fives for a ten?"

She wasn't a true actress. She was a personality actress.

Thanks r5/OP, sounds good, I will check it out.

When they were fitting Tallu into her skintight Black Widow costume on Batman, she exclaimed "well, there goes one ball!"

When asked if Monty Clift was gay, she said " well I don't know Darling. He's never sucked MY cock!"

When they put a costume over her head and it got stuck, she said "that reminded me of being in the back of a taxi with those two nuns,"

Tallulah was a Democrat at a time when every white voter in the South was a Democrat, including sheet-wearing Klan members.

Southerners didn't abandon the Democratic Party until after the big Civil Rights victories of the mid-60s under LBJ.

"When I was 12, I was raped in our driveway. It was terrible—all that gravel ..."

"My father was always warning me about men and alcohol. He never said a thing about women and cocaine."

Earl Wilson: "Miss Bankhead, have you ever been mistaken for a man on the phone?"

Tallu: "Why, no, dahling, have you?"

One Christmas Eve, she was in St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC, and when she went up to kneel at the front railing for communion, she looked up and saw the most grotesque crucifix staring down at her -- a tortured, bleeding, suffering Christ.

So she said, "Smile, Dahling -- it's your BIRTHday!"

Any more Tallulah? Please keep them coming. Very funny.

Ted Hook, Bankheads live-in assistant came home one night and found that Tallulah, who smoked in bed, had flicked a live ash onto the pillow Delores, her dog slept on.

After several failed attempts to awaken her from her slumber, he finally got a response when he urgently screamed "Miss Bankhead, Delores is on FIRE!"

"Well for Christ sake, PUT HER OUT!" Bankhead bellowed and then promptly went back to sleep.

Tallulah was interviewed by a woman from one of those "ladies' magazines," and the uptight, haughty woman clearly disapproved of Tallulah and her lifestyle and didn't keep it from her either. After the interview, Tallulah walked the woman to the elevator which was full of people and just as the doors were closing Tallulah said to her "dahling, you were the nicest lesbian I've ever met!"

r12, now you know you fucked up for trying to saying Tallulah was like every racist southerner.

She was in a Batman two-parter. I believe she'd had a stroke.

Did she go out with any famous women?

I think she screwed Greta Garbo and Billie Holiday.

Didn't they say she slept with Hatti McDaniel? I also heard Garbo, Holiday, and I think Crawford.

• I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late start without me.

• I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic and the others give me a stiff neck or lockjaw.

• Cocaine isn't habit-forming. I should know -- I've been using it for years

Ester Williams said Tallulah went up to Ester and Rock Hudson and Tallulah said, who shall I pick to have sex with? Ester Williams laughed out loud when Tallulah said that.

I think Tallulah's father was a politician in the south.

I think she died broke because she was not good managing her money at all.

Tallulah had a threesome with Billie Holiday and male black club performer. I don't remember who the male was.

Her estate was worth 2 million. A reporter said to her that she was in a lot of junk to which she replied Yes, but I got paid for it.

OP, Tab Hunter in his autobiography devotes an entire chapter on working with Ms. Bankhead in Tennessee Williams' "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore." The title of the chapter: "Train Wreck."

Apparently, at this point in her life (62 yrs), Tallu was more gay icon than actress. During rehearsals she was unprofessional, disruptive, prima donna-ish, and a major pain in the ass. Hunter grew increasingly agitated with her antics and blew up at her. When the play finally opened on Broadway, he quickly realized what Tallu had known all along -- it didn't matter what the play was about, or what the other actors had to say, Tallulah's gay fans came to see their goddess do her schtick. So she camped it up, turning innocent phrases into double entendres, arching her brow, and throwing them knowing glances. She turned Williams' drama into a one-woman play, and the audiences loved it. The critics, however, didn't. The show closed after five performances.

When Tallulah met Joan Crawford, they were introduced by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.--who was married to Joan at the time. Tallulah reportedly took Crawfard by the hand and said "Delighted to meet you dahling. I've already had him...I believe you're next!". Bankhead also had a long-term relationship with actress Patsy Kelly, and she "knocked boots" with Louise Brooks.

Her's a nice article by someone who knew her, OP...

Tallulah's father was Senator Bankhead from Alabama.

Tallulah once allowed Vincent Price to give her sleeping husband a blow job while she stood and watched.

When her husband, the well endowed actor John Emery, began to wake, Tallulah shouted, "Let him finish, dahling, I almost got lockjaw sucking you last night".

I just remembered I have her 1948 film A ROYAL SCANDAL filed away - must rescue it and wallow, she plays Catherine the Great and its by Otto Preminger, produced by Lubitsch, and has Anne Baxter supporting. Must be a wow ....

When I was a very young man in the sixties in New York I was in a gay bar in Greenwich Village called CARR's that was temporarily the "in" place for the hip crowd; a quiet cozy place. One night Tallulah Bankhead came in with two "escorts", obviously gay men acting as bodyguards. They were well dressed up and apparently out slumming and Tallulah spotted me sitting alone at the bar--in a dark blue suit--and waved me over to her table. I was an attractive young man at the time and this upset her escorts greatly, as I was more attractive then they. She pulled out a chair at the table and patted the seat to invite me to sit beside her. Granted I was 19 and starstruck to meet this legend; being gay I knew even at that age who she was although she was well past her prime. I was overwhelmed--speechless--at her interest in me as she rattled on as if we were old friends. I sat no more then six inches from her for about 10 minutes conversing and she was immaculately dressed, very elegant and expensively dressed, hair and makeup perfection. In the soft light of the bar you could tell she was old, but even up that close there was something quite beautiful about her face. The camera never caught it, she was not photogenic, but in person even at that age you could see instantly what all the shouting was about "in person" on stage. The personality was pure Tallulah, pitch perfect to what you ever heard or saw of her on the screen or radio or TV. I remember saying something about THE LITTLE FOXES and she was amazed someone my age even knew about it. She did most of the talking as well she should; a monologue--witty and intelligent--on her upbringing in Alabama, her father etc. Yes, looking back I suppose she was roaring drunk at the time, but also perfectly in control of her situation; delightful really. It was obvious this woman was use to--demanded to be--the center of attention. While she seemed enthralled with me (why?) because she was probably bored, I was getting glaring eyes from her escorts to go away and not encourage her. She wanted me to stay and go bar-hopping with them but her "guards" made it clear I was to leave. I politely stooexcused myself and I always remember her farewell. "God Dahling, but it's hot in here!" (it was summer before bars were air-conditioned) she exclaimed, and in a swift slight-of-hand hiked up the side of her as she sat next to me, and snapped the elastic of her black lace panties at me, with an audable "snap" and then lowered her skirt in a gesture so fleeting and deft--theatrical one might say--one could hardly believe it had happened. I stood, bid a polite goodnight and she graciously shook my hand and the trio left the bar.

At about this same period in my life I knew a fellow who had tickets to what I believe was Bankhead's last Broadway appearance. It was New Years day in the sixties, and the show was a production of Tennessee Williams' "The Milktrain Doesn't Stop Here". It only ran for one or two performances and got shredded by the critics, and my friend said you must come because it's the last performance. I don't know what the other performances were like, but this being the final one and in view of the dreadful reviews, the production became travesty and a full-blown homage to Tallulah. The theatre was packed with gay men applauding her EVERY move and gesture. She was ad-libbing most of what I saw because she brought the house down with every line, and this couldn't possibly be the words Tennessee Williams wrote, although there was a thread or remnant of a Williams plot you could still discern. I can't remember anything other then how beautiful she looked on stage--at fifty feet. She had a death scene in something like a swan bed that beggers description in hilarity and unrepentent glamour. I would have to say everything written about her was true. She lived up to her reputation. BUT . . . there was something more that you felt in her presence, that made you toss out your better judgement and just worship at her shrine. There was intelligence there.

Bump, dahhhhhling.

She's buried at the edge of the Chesapeake Bay in a beautiful cemetery in Eastern Maryland.

Wow, r34. Great stories. Thank you.

[quote]She's buried at the edge of the Chesapeake Bay in a beautiful cemetery in Eastern Maryland.

If by "the edge" you mean "five miles away."

[quote]Tallulah's father was Senator Bankhead from Alabama.

No, her father was Congressman William Bankhead of Alabama who became Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Her grandfather and her uncle were Senators.

I saw 'Lifeboat' last night.

Was Tallulah Bankhead really bi in her personal life?

My favourite characters of this movie are those of Hume Cronyn and Mary Anderson. They had a nice aura.

And yes, John Hodiak is very sexy in this movie. Like a handsome ape!

Hitchcock is always peculiar and classy with his work.

'Don't think I don't know who's been spreading gossip about me . . . After all the nice things I've said about that hag [Bette Davis]. When I get hold of her, I'll tear out every hair of her mustache!' -Tallulah Bankhed

Wow...lol! Tallulah could get really edgy!

I just read this article about her:

She was wildly promiscuous, with both men and women – she once tried to list all her lovers and got to 185 before the doorbell rang. She had at least four abortions in her twenties, but in 1933 she was rushed into hospital with violent abdominal pains and was so critically ill that one newspaper published her obituary. Eventually she was found to be suffering from advanced gonorrhoea and given a hysterectomy. It didn't curb her wit – as she left the hospital, she told her consultant, "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!" and threw herself into affairs with the artist Rex Whistler, the playwright Clifford Odets and the actor Burgess Meredith. But she later told a friend that she didn't feel anything during sex, and this is borne out by a comment in Odets's diary that: "She suffers from an awful and big sense of 'insufficiency'. She feels all people are aware of that lack and she compensates for it by giving you her sex instruments for your use and possible pleasure. That is her way of binding you to her."

Perhaps this "insufficiency" also explains her lifelong habit of exhibitionism. As a young woman, she was always turning cartwheels to reveal that she wore no knickers; later, she simply took her clothes off at parties. The comic actress Beatrice Lillie complained: "I can't stand it when she lifts up her dress." The actors' union Equity had to reprimand her for flashing at the audience in The Skin of Our Teeth, and Hitchcock, faced with similar complaints on the set of Lifeboat, said that he was never sure whether to refer the matter to the hairdressing or costume department.

By her fifties Bankhead was drinking heavily – adding "spirits of ammonia" to her tea – and also using massive doses of barbiturates to sleep. When she went to bed, her maid would tape her wrists together to prevent her taking more pills if she woke in the night. Inevitably, her speech became slurred, her timing poor, and her last Broadway appearance, as Flora Goforth in The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, closed after just five performances. The director, Tony Richardson, described her in his memoirs as "the most unpleasant person I've ever worked with – or let's blame it on her senility and decay". She died in 1968 of emphysema, pneumonia and malnutrition – the latter because, like many alcoholics, she never bothered to eat.

[quote]One account in McLellan's books says that Bankhead liked to apply some of Dietrich's signature hairdressing gold dust to her pubic hair, open the door and flash anyone who passed by, asking them what they thought she had just finished doing. The author speculates that the two stars shared more than champagne during this time, though of course, there is no proof.

R34 Thank you so much for the stories. Reading them, I was transported away... visualizing the events unfolding. Just wonderful.

If Tallulah spoke well of Bette and then Davis stabbed her behind her back, she had the right to be choleric with Davis.

You can't provoke a wild feline like Tallulah Bankhead and then expect that she won't strike back!

Gloria Swanson and Tallulah Bankhead at the Celebrity of the Year awards, New York, 1951.

Did she and Dietrich....?

Was Lifeboat written for Tallulah? Hard to imagine anyone else doing that role justice.

r15 reminds me of another story of Tallulah in church. When the priest walked by holding that little gold container of burning incense, Tallulah exclaimed "Dahling, your DRESS is DIVINE, but your PURSE is on FIRE!"

Tallu had a THING for women of color, and chased Billie Holiday (success), Hatti McDaniel (rumored to be a success), Lena Horne (unsuccessful).

Once, at a party, one of her friends brought along a young man who boldly told Bankhead that he wanted to make love to her that night. She did not bat an eye and said, "And so you shall, you wonderful, old-fashioned boy."

Another version of the story holds that Bankhead met Chico Marx at a party before her reputation had overturned the presumption that William B. Bankhead's daughter would be disgusted by Marx's typically crude (yet generally effective) approach. According to Dick Cavett, after Marx had been cautioned to be on his best behavior with Bankhead, the two first spoke at the punch bowl.

"Miss Bankhead."

"Mr. Marx."

And, as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Chico told her, "You know, I really want to fuck you." She replied, "And so you shall, you old-fashioned boy."

And the story of her on the elevator, when a drunk came up to her and mumbled, "I sure would like a little pussy." She replied, "Me too, mine's as big as my hat."

Another elevator story: Somebody asked her, "Did you pass gas?" She replied , "Sure, do you think that I smell like that all the time?"

I love a good apocryphal Tallulah Bankhead story. One of my favorites:

A stewardess on a TWA flight asked her, "Miss Bankhead, would you like some of our TWA coffee?" She replied, "I really wouldn't care for any, dahling, but I'd just [italic]love[/italic] some of your TWA tea!"

I think she was an incest survivor and acted out accordingly.

The exhibitionism, promiscuity, drinking to oblivion, joking about sex constantly---all earmarks to that sort of situation.

The second hour long Lucy-Desi special is not to be missed. Tallulah was drunk/high the entire time and acted circles around Lucy...

So Lucy was in the closet R55?

I don't believe that Tallulah is drunk or high in that Lucy/Desi Comedy Hour. She is too on the mark and seriously funny to be in an altered state. She nails every scene she is in. It is a classic episode.

Tallulah was good at doing cartwheels. Sometimes she'd be asked to do a few at parties. If she was wearing a wide skirt, she'd say, "Let's play now-you-see-it-now-you-don't." she would take off her panties and commence doing a series of cartwheels across the room. The guests immediately realized what she was talking anout.

The comment about Bette Davis came from The Big Show, Tallulah's radio program on NBC in the early fifties, when the networks were giving primetime radio a last shot after the advent of TV. Tallulah was the host of a variety show with weekly guest stars. She got the job when All About Eve reinvigorated her fame. Since she had been seen almost universally as the model for Margo Channing, she invited Davis, in the spirit of good fun and better publicity, to be her guest on the premiere show. A decade earlier, after Davis had starred in successful film adaptations of two Bankhead plays, Dark Victory and The Little Foxes, Tallulah tried to manufacture a public feud that would attract attention for her -- an actressy version of Benny vs. Allen. But Davis refused to play along and, whenever asked about her, replied with praise (which she meant). So Davis declined to appear on Tallulah's radio program, and Tallulah proceeded to make fun of her on air every week. It was the next best thing to having her there. The Big Show, however, didn't last long, and neither did Tallulah's post-Eve heat (or, for that matter, Davis's).

Two more things, and then I'll shut up:

(1) Contrary to the myth, Bankhead and Davis didn't despise each other. They barely knew each other but supposedly had a reasonable amount of respect for each other's talent. The rumors of a feud were fabricated by Bankhead for publicity. On the other hand, many people who worked with Bankhead hated her: Lillian Hellman, Fredric March and Florence Eldridge, Elia Kazan, Tab Hunter. And Davis really did despise Miriam Hopkins, Joan Crawford, and Faye Dunaway.

(2) Mankiewicz said that the story in All About Eve wasn't inspired by anything that had happened to Bankhead but by a much less malicious incident between Elisabeth Bergner and Irene Worth during the Broadway production of The Two Mrs. Carrolls. Davis said that Bankhead wasn't on her mind when she played Margo. She happened to be wearing her hair long when she was offered the part, and just before filming began, she had damaged her throat (and deepened her voice) in a shouting match with her soon-to-be ex-husband. Of course, the rumored decade-old feud between Bankhead and Davis played a part in fanning speculation.

Too much information, right? Sorry.

Daaaaaaarling. Bump.

Author (and lesbian) Lee Israel had to be super careful and tip-toe around Tallulah's lesbianism in her 1971 book bio even though Bankhead was dead.

The Big Show on Youtube:

R60,

[quote]Davis said that Bankhead wasn't on her mind when she played Margo.

Yes, Davis claimed that, but I don't believe it for a minute. Margo's look and style and bitchiness were pure Tallulah (esp. during that period). Movie critics and audiences at the time immediately recognized this and duly commented on it, which I believe was what led to Bette's disclaimer. Also, according to the book "All About All About Eve," Bankhead was briefly considered for the part of Margo, but Joe Mankiewicz blanched at the thought of having to direct such disruptive, undisciplined star, and Edith Head even said herself that she used Bankhead as her inspiration for Margo's wardrobe.

I've been told that in R60 I distributed bad information: The story behind All About Eve had nothing to do with Irene Worth. It was inspired by something that occurred between Elisabeth Bergner and a young woman, unknown to her at the time, who showed up one night during the London production of The Two Mrs. Carrolls, insinuated herself into Bergner's life, and tried, like Eve, to replace her.

And it wasn't Mankiewicz who knew about the incident but Mary Orr, an occasional actress who wrote "The Wisdom of Eve," the short story on which Mankiewicz based his screenplay.

You really shouldn't believe anything I say.

R64, you may be right. Of course, Mankiewicz wrote the part for Claudette Colbert, who sounded and looked nothing like Bankhead. In fact, Anne Baxter was cast partly because she resembled Colbert -- the shape of her face, her hairstyle, her voice, her mannerisms. So at least what's on paper probably wasn't inspired much by Bankhead. Still, you may be right about Bette Davis and what inspired her. In any event, whomever she had in mind, she gave a great performance. She elevates the movie by engaging the audience viscerally, in a way that the screenplay and the other actors, entertaining and witty as they are, don't.

She was the Zsa Zsa of her time. Zsa Zsa was 15 years younger.

Also originated the role of Sabina in "The Skin of Our Teeth" to much acclaim.

Great story tells of Eleanor Roosevelt coming to Tallu's apartment for a visit. In the middle of the conversation, Tallulah went to the bathroom (to pee or take a dump, who knows?), leaving the door open and simply continued to chat.

She was also a huge baseball fan.

There's an early talkie starring her, Charles Laughton, and Gary Cooper (the title of course escapes me at the moment) that's quite good. And also her screen version of "The Cheat" where she gets branded by her Eurasian lover.

"Die, Die, My Darling" of course is a real treat.

R66, Yes, Davis delivered one of the greatest and most iconic female performances with AAE. So iconic, in fact, that the Margo Channing persona has become so closely associated with Bette that that's how many people remember her as (or has Baby Jane Hudson!). What they don't realize is, at the time, Bette's transformation into Margo was astounding, and gave her the glamour and allure that, for better or worse, pushed her into the camp pantheon occupied by glamour queens Crawford and Dietrich (perhaps it began with "Now Voyager" but AAE definitely cemented her fate). The inspiration -- Tallulah, on the other hand, outside certain circles, is largely forgotten. I remember several years ago when the Tallulah episode of "The Lucy & Desi Hour" came on on "Nick at Nite," my roommate at the time, who was no classic movie buff, thought Tallu was Bette Davis. When I told him it was Tallulah Bankhead, he goes, "Why is she imitating Bette Davis? Is she supposed to be Bette Davis?"

No, she most definitely wasn't, r67. You haven't been listening.

FYI, Youtube has recordings of Bankhead's radio performance of ALL ABOUT EVE, and she essays the role of 'Margo Channing' as Herself, replete with [italic]dahhh-lings[/italic] and [italic]how divine![/italic], never wavering from the Tallulah persona. 'Karen Richards' is played by Mary Orr, the one who wrote the short story the screenplay is based on. Orr later described Tallu as a complete bitch.

Someone here mentioned A ROYAL SCANDAL. This movie can currently be found on youtube. (I say "currently" because old films posted on youtube frequently disappear. But, based on what I've seen, Fox is fairly lax about removing its classic films unless they are ones that can still bring in streaming/dvd revenues.)

Valerie Harper does a wonderful job playing Bankhead in 'Looped'

Tallulah entertains the troops in 'Stage Door Canteen'

Bette Davis getting the role of Margo Channing at the 11th hour is the greatest lucky accident in film history. It is my all-time favorite performance by an actress, ever.

Interesting article at link.

She gave anal to Milton Berle.

[quote] She gave anal to Milton Berle.

My, she WAS experienced.

At a Christmas holiday party, Tallulah disappeared into her kitchen, from which was heard the most god-awful sounds, demarcated by Tallu's well-known dirty mouth. A seeming eternity later, La Tallu appeared, carrying a large silver tray, upon which were arranged charred lumps of who-knows-what(which turned out to be burned cookies) She announced to one and all, "Fuck Betty Crocker!!!"

She earned big money in those early talkies with Gary Cooper and Bob Montgomery at the depths of the Depression. She died rich, a $2 million dollar estate in the late Sixties.

My sixth grade teacher was a never married, withered, sour, bitter, strict school marm of an old woman who retired at the end of our term together. One week, for Current Events, gay little me brought in Tallulah Bankhead's obituary and told the class of this Great Artist.

For my efforts, Tallulah and I were both denounced in front of the class, shamed, admonished, and warned sternly about the evils embodied by Miss Bankhead. An indignant note about my transgression was sent to home to my mother. My mother read it, rolled her eyes, and asked to see the obituary. I explained that it was taken from me by the teacher. My mother told me she would handle this and I was not to worry about it. Yay, Mom!

When I was 16, for my birthday I asked for Judy Garland's Carnegie Hall album. And got it. My mother was the best.

You and I would have been friends, R81.

This thread is a treasure.

In the mid-50's Tallulah was doing the try-outs for "Streetcar" at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami and fighting with the author over her role. Trying to bring her around, Tennessee Williams gave her a beautiful and expensive alligator handbag as a peace offering. She wasn't willing or able to end the tiff so she threw it back at him, saying, "A lady never travels in brown."

Lucy and Desi claimed Tallulah was drunk during the entire rehearsals of the Comedy Hour and it made Lucy crazy because she wanted to rehearse everything and Bankhead didn't. They were worried when it came time to taping and as everyone can see, Bankhead is brilliant. During rehearsals, they brought her some Swanson's chicken that was just being marketed. Bankhead said fried chicken was her favorite dish and she raved about that Swanson's chicken all night.

Two famous Bankhead stories/lines. Because she went commando, she was a problem during "Lifeboat". She was using a ladder and they had to get someone to tell her to put some panties on. They wondered if it was going to be the wardrobe mistress, the make-up artist or the hairdresser.

Another occasion at a wedding: Tallulah: Commiserations. I've had both of you and there's not a decent fuck between you.

Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah's bater on on Bankhead's radio show (early 50s) extracts part 1

“OH Marlene, Marlene, how simply wonderful to see you again.”

“Thank you, Tallulah.”

“How long has it been, I was thinking only the other day that it’s been twenty ...”

“Careful darling, careful. People are listening!”

“Weeks?”

“Oh, yes, darling — weeks.”

“Tallulah, guess who I saw the other day? Claude. I ran into him on the street.”

“Hard, I hope.”

“Why, Tallulah precious he was so crazy about you.”

“Oh, no. He was crazy about you.”

“Of course not darling, everybody knows he was crazy about you.”

“Well, now that I think about it, he was crazy about me.”

“Yes. He was crazy.”

“Dear old Claude. Does he know you’re a grandmother now? Oh, excuse me darling, he knew you were a grandmother then, of course!”

“Tell me Tallulah, what’s new. I hear so little about you, now that you’ve hidden yourself away in radio.”

“Well, Marlene, if you could read, you’d know I just had a big spread in Colliers magazine this week.”

“Well, you need a big magazine Tallulah. Fortunately I can still make the slimmer magazines. I was just in the Woman’s Home Companion.”

“Really, darling? Did they rename it the OLD Woman’s Home Companion? Now let’s face it darling — look at you. False eyelashes, rouge, mascara ...”

“Yes, darling. But everything else is all me. Now, what are we arguing about. Let’s tell the truth. There’s no use denying it. I’m not as young as I used to be. Everybody knows I’m a mother and now a grandmother. I don’t care if everybody knows how old I am.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Of course, Tallulah.”

“Well, then, how old are you?”

“Thirty-Two.”

“Thirty-Two?!!! Now just a minute, Marlene, do you mean you’re only one year older than I am?”

“Now, Marlene. I happen to know you have a daughter who’s been married for a few years and has two children.”

“Isn’t it amazing? One year on her birthday, I turned around and there was my daughter, three years older than I am.”

“Oh, why don’t we stop this stupid quarreling?”

“Of course Tallulah, would you like me to do a number?”

“Why, yes. You perform such miracles with numbers. Why don’t you sing ‘Falling In Love Again'? Just the way you sang it 35 years ago. Before you were born, darling!”

Another time (extracts part 2):

SEVERAL MONTHS later, Miss Dietrich and Miss Bankhead were at it again:

“Now I have to introduce one of the most divine, glamorous women in the world. This woman, despite the fact that she’s a grandmother, gets more wolf whistles than anyone I know. So here she is ... Whistler’s Grandmother!”

“Tallulah, I wish you’d stop referring to me as a grandmother. You’re overdoing it.”

“Don’t talk to me about overdoing it, talk to your daughter!”

“By the way, Tallulah, I had a letter from what was once the wonderful city of Paris, before you got there.”

“Oh, Paris, what a time I had.”

“Did you buy any new gowns? — that one you’re wearing intrigues me.”

“Oh, it’s the new color, ‘battleship grey.’”

“Battleship grey? That’s lovely. But isn’t it a bit tight around the boiler room?”

“Not at all, it’s just my size, 12.”

“What size is that?”

“12”

“What size?"

“I told you twice, 12!”

“Oh, twice twelve. That is more your size.”

“Marlene, I’m going to make a statement, and I want you to answer, true or false. Will you do that?”

“Of course.”

“That figure you have, it’s not all yours.”

“False.”

“Yeah, that’s just what I thought. Now, don’t make any more cracks about my gown. I paid a pretty penny for it. The prices; I was soaked in every shop in Paris.”

“Yes, I heard you were soaked all over Paris.”

“Oh, now let’s stop. Marlene, whatever happened to that divine man you used to go out with, what was his name, Jesse?”

“Oh, we split up.”

“Really darling, for good?”

“No, only temporarily. He got married.”

“Marlene, don’t you find that the man problem gets tougher every year?”

“You’re so right Tallulah. You know I wouldn’t admit this to anyone else, but one day last week, I actually had lunch alone.”

“Nooooo?” Well, if you think that’s bad, and as long as you opened up to me, one day a month ago I had breakfast alone!!”

“Well, it’s really a shame. Men seem to be disappearing. In a few years they’ll be extinct.”

“They sure do.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that Tallulah. They are all probably hanging out in the back room somewhere, and personally I want to see what the boys in the back room will have.”

“Well, that's really sneaky. We've been talking here all this time, and it's just been a way to work in a music cue. All, right Marlene, go see what the boys in the back room will have.”

I remember Boy George saying, in the 80s. that Tallulah was his idol.

[quote]Southerners didn't abandon the Democratic Party until after the big Civil Rights victories of the mid-60s under LBJ.

Southerners elected Jimmy Carter governor in 1972. The myth that the parties "switched places" is a trick designed to let the Democrats off the hook for being the party of slavery, segregation, and the KKK.

In 1860 every Republican in the USA was an abolitionist while every slave owner was a Democrat. The Republican platform was based on the idea that the person who performed the labor was entitled to the fruits of that labor. The Democratic platform was based on the idea that a person who did not perform labor was entitled to take away the fruits of that labor from the person who performed it.

Flash forward 150 years and the Republicans are still the party that says the government should have limited rights to take away the fruits of a person's labor, while the Democrats are veering toward outright Socialism. The parties never switched sides.

$2 million in the 60s was quite a substantial amount of money. Good for Tallulah!

R8 The punchline to an old, wonderful joke, repeated here for the children...not that they'd have a clue who Adlai Stevenson was:

"There was the time she was in Washington for a Democratic Convention honoring her "divine friend, Adlai Stevenson"... And during a long speech by some senator she (Tallulah) had to go to the john, but found when she was settled in for the duration that there was no toilet paper at hand. "So I looked down and saw a pair of feet in the next stall. I knocked very politely and said: 'Excuse me, dahling, I don't have any toilet paper. Do you?' And this very proper Yankee voice said: 'No, I don't.' Well, dahling, I had to get back to the podium for Adlai's speech, so I asked her, very politely you understand, 'Excuse me dahling, but do you have any Kleenex?' And this now quite chilly voice said: 'No, I don't.' So I said: 'Well then, dahling, do you happen to have two fives for a ten?'"

It's like she was specially created to be the favorite of gay men. She was

a) crude and fond of toilet humor

b) an exhibitionist

c) bisexual

d) a drug addict and an alcoholic

e) bitchy

f) supremely talented, but slipping after 1945, and

g) a good liberal

I love Tallulah and I imagine the answer MUST be "yes" but is her autobiography worth reading? There are also 2 biographies that may (or may not!) be better to get plenty of gossip, one by Joel Lobenthal and the other by David Bret, can anyone give some insight?

Beginning in the 50s Estelle Winwood was one of Tallulah's regular booty calls.

At 84, Estelle played a woman who was enamored by crooked Zero Mostel in the comedy The Producers (1967). Her last film would be the detective spoof Murder by Death (1976). When Estelle was asked, on the occasion of her 100th birthday, how she felt to have lived so long, she replied, "How rude of you to remind me!".

On appearing in the Mel Brooks classic The Producers (1967): "Oh, that dreadful picture. I can't bear to watch it, even on a small television. I must have needed the money - living in Hollywood weakens one's motives. It reminds me of the saying that nobody ever went broke underestimating the American public's taste".

Yeah, but The Producers is a classic! One of Mel's best, maybe the best. And Zero was so talented, was missed out on so much the years he was blacklisted (I think, over a decade.) Charming, handsome, Gene Wilder's first major role too.

When weary of Bankhead's habit of walking round her apt. naked Estelle Winwood said 'But Tallulah, you have such lovely frocks!'

Oh, Estelle!

The film Die! Die! My Darling! is one nutty thriller

Do yourselves a favor and read her autobiography, which was a huge bestseller in 1952. It’s full of wonderful stories and anecdotes and is told in brilliant phraseology that captures the tenor of her wit. In that sense I’d compare it to Quentin Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant. It’s that good.

Here it is.

It has arrived.

Divine

Miss Bankhead barged down the Nile last night as Cleopatra and sank.

Her 'autobiography' is a very funny read. It reads like Patrick Dennis's "LITTLE ME" and I can't imagine that there is much in Miss Bankhead's book that is true. But it is fun to read.

"Didn't they say she slept with Hatti McDaniel? I also heard Garbo, Holiday, and I think Crawford."

She never slept with Garbo. Garbo never went for raucous drunks.

Kenneth Anger said she slept with Hattie McDaniel. Maybe that was true. Who knows?

I never heard that Bankhead and Joan Crawford ever got it on. I think that may be just an unsubstantiated rumor.

She DID get hot and heavy with Billie Holiday for a while. When Holiday's autobiography came out, Bankhead threatened legal action if anything unflattering towards her appeared in the book. This offended Holiday, who wrote her a letter saying she had no intention of writing anything negative about her and that she was surprised at her behavior, since she thought they were friends. I guess Bankhead didn't want her lust for Holiday to be revealed. This is from "Tallulah!" The Life and Times of a Leading Lady":

Tallulah’s relationships, of course, seldom observed clear-cut boundaries, and it appears that during the late 1940s she and Holiday were also lovers. Perhaps they had been all along. Holiday later told William Dufty, who ghost wrote her autobiography, that when Tallulah visited backstage at the Strand Theatre, the thrill she took in exhibitionistic sex made her insist on keeping Holiday’s dressing room door open. Holiday later claimed that Tallulah’s brazen show of affection almost cost her her job at the Strand.

John Levy was also Holiday’s lover as well as her manager at the time, and although he was one of the abusive strong men to whom Holiday gravitated, Levy was intimidated by Tallulah and her connections. When Tallulah came around, all he could do was get out of the way. Once at a nightclub he sat at a nearby table watching Tallulah express her affection to Holiday. “Look at that bitch, Carl, look at that!” he exclaimed to musician Carl Drinkard. “That bitch is going out of her fucking mind, she’s all over her.”

Other favorite Tallulah stories:

She told a friend that her doctor had advised her to eat an apple every time she had the urge to drink. She arched an eyebrow and added, "But really, dahling, sixty apples a day!"

After seeing Tenessee Williams' play "Orpheus Decending," she went backstage and told him, "Dahling, they've absolutely ruined your perfectly dreadful play!"

At a Hollywood party, Tallulah was enjoying herself immensely until her archenemy Joan Crawford made an entrance decked out in a fab gown and bedazzled with glitter in her hair. They avoided each other for most of the night, but Crawford kept leaving little piles of glitter wherever she went, and pretty soon it was not uncommon to hear people murmur, "Look where Joanie’s been!”, followed by a few giggles and sips of champagne. All this time, Tallulah was making a little collection of glitter from Crawford's trail, and when most everyone is comfortably ensconced in the main room, she turns and throws her skirt over head, her pubic hair a-sparkle with glitter, and bellows, “LOOK WHERE JOANIE'S BEEN!"

Tallulah’s friend Estelle Winwood was funny on this episode of “Love American Style” with Arte Johnson and cute Marlyn Mason.

Estelle on Broadway with Bela Lugosi in The Red Poppy(1924). Legend has it that Bela cracked three of Estelle's ribs during a scene of passionate love making in the play.

There's enough for all of us, Batdoll! Bring me the boy with the green undies!

I just heard some great anecdotes about her by the woman who was hired to be her "personal :handler" backstage during her run of The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. This meant she was to make sure Bankhead didn;t get into any trouble or misbehave too badly.

During the first dress rehearsals, she noticed to her alarm Bankhead was rubbing [italic]lighter fluid[/italic] on her head backstage. The handler panicked, and went to the show's producers, who told her that she shouldn't be alarmed: this was Bankhead's secret personal trick for ensuring her hair was manageable and stayed in place but also that it looked luxuriant and glossy.

She also had to bring Bankhead something to bite into during costume changes backstage: this was to ensure Bankhead did not cry out when her rings were taken off by her dresser for one scene, because her fingers had sores and burn marks all over them (from her various afflictions and constant smoking).

r88 You pathetic troll. Trump is a racist - just like Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes. Do you see a pattern here? And of course, Trump is president because the racist Deplorables voted for him. The Republicans have definitely replaced the Democrats as the party of racism. Your pathological lies can't disguise that fact.

Lee Israel wrote a good biography

[quote]Lee Israel wrote a good biography

Did she? Did she really?

The appeal of Tallulah Bankhead stories to gay men is the idea of being a complete mess in public (and also being very raunchy), and yet have the wherewithal to still be extremely witty. Most gay men (especially those who grew up before Obergefell) are embarrassed by the physicality of gay sex, and worried growing up about what would happen if that were exposed publicly. The joy in Tallulah stories was that she was extremely uninhibited about her body and its earthy functions, yet was (in popular legend) the master of any social situation where she might be otherwise stigmatized by being witty.

Apocryphal Tallulah Bankhead stories:

*Norman Mailer became famous in the post-War period for his novel "The Naked and the Dead," where he repeatedly uses the word "fug" as an obscenity euphemism (as in "Go fug yourself'). At an NYC party, he is introduced to Tallulah Bankhead, and she says upon being introduced, "Oh, dahling, so [italic]you're[/italic] the one who can't spell!"

*Two gay men in the 30s are having an argument in a fancy restaurant over 19th century poetry. Tallulah comes by to say hello, and one of them says, "Oh Miss Bankhead, maybe you can help us. We're having an argument: which is greater, Browning or Kipling?" She responds, "Well, I'm sure don't know, dahling... I've never [italic]kippled![/italic]"

Miss Bankhead lived in London from 1922 to 1931 and became the toast of the West End. However, her scandalous sex romps with the school boys at Eton nearly got her thrown out of Britain. MI5 had been spying on her activities and branded her "an extremely immoral woman" and "a danger to public morality." The school headmaster, however, wishing to avoid a public scandal, refused to cooperate with the investigation.

R30 That guy can't decide if she was a lesbian or bisexual

R34, until recently Carr's was Village Square Florist.

Back in the mid 70s, there was a very talented young guy who told TB and Bette and Joan and Sophie Tucker stories like those at r115. He had all the voices done to cartoon perfection. He had us howling with delight. So talented. I often told him he should turn it into an act. Such good memories. He passed with AIDS.

She had a hot affair with Billie Holiday. She made a spectacle of herself in some club where Holiday was performing, being quite affectionate towards her. An onlooker said "the bitch is all over her!" Later when Holiday came out wit her memoir she threatened legal action if she were mentioned in it. Understandably annoyed, Holiday wrote her this letter:

Dear Miss Bankhead:I thought I was a friend of yours. That's why there's nothing in my book that was unfriendly to you, unkind or libelous. Because I didn't want to drag you, I tried six times last month to talk to you on the damn phone, and tell you about the book just as a matter of courtesy. That bitch you have who impersonates you kept telling me to call back and when I did, it was the same deal until I gave up. But while I was working out of town, you didn't mind talking to Doubleday and suggesting behind my damned back that I had flipped and/or made up those little mentions of you in my book. Baby, Cliff Allen and Billy Heywood are still around.

My maid who was with me at the Strand isn't dead either. There are plenty of others around who remember how you carried on so you almost got me fired out of the place.

And if you want to get shitty, we can make it a big shitty party. We can all get funky together!

I don't know whether you've got one of those damn lawyers telling you what to do or not. But I'm writing this to give you a chance to answer back quick and apologize to me and to Doubleday. Read my book over again. I understand they sent you a duplicate manuscript. There's nothing in it to hurt you. If you think so, let's talk about it like I wanted to last month. It's going to press right now so there is no time for monkeying around. Straighten up and fly right, Banky. Nobody's trying to drag you.

Billie Holiday

Bump

"I don't know, dahling, he never sucked my cock."

She will be played by Natasha Lyonne in the upcoming movie about Billie Holiday

119 are you thinking of Kenny Sasha?

Tallulah's last words on her hospital deathbed were "Codeine.... Bourbon...."

First of all, the line "He never sucked my cock" was about Tab Hunter, not Monty Cliff.

Another interesting fact is that the part in the Lucy/Desi Comedy Hour was written for Bette Davis. I can't remember why she didn't do it.

And I've always wondered that since Anne Baxter was hired to play Eve opposite Colbert, because of the resemblance, had Bette gotten the part originally, who would they have cast as Eve?

R126, Davis dropped out of the Luci-Desi Comedy Hour episode at the last minute because of illness or injury, I forget which. But it makes Bankhead's replacing her kind of ironic if you think in terms of how Davis got the AAE part. I think the episode title is "The Celebrity Next Door." And as mentioned above, she was drunk and late to all the rehearsals, which infuriated both perfectionist Lucy and producer Desi. They thought the episode was going to be a disaster.

And then Tallulah showed up for the filming and was just brilliant. Thank God so many of her scenes were with old pro Vance, who just instinctively knew how to handle the situation. Their scenes together are better than Tallulah's scenes with Lucy.

Tallulah was the Hostess With the Mostes', 1966

r126, Wallace Beery.

I find it so funny that her father was Speaker of the House. Was he some proper southern gentleman politician, just totally appalled by this daughter and all her very public antics? Or was he okay with it?

[quote]Thank God so many of her scenes were with old pro Vance, who just instinctively knew how to handle the situation.

No, they weren't.

Yep, Vance with her instinctive and impeccable comedy timing and years of stage experience knew how to just run with it while Lucy sometimes seems very uncomfortable with something different from what was rehearsed.

As mentioned above, Tallulah's uncle and grandfather were US Senators and her father a multi-term Congressman who ended up Speaker of the House. Her family was considered Southern Aristocracy. She was the black sheep.

Although someone way back in the thread posted that her NBC Radio variety hour was a flop, the reality was much more complicated. NBC hired her to compete with Jack Benny's show, the highest rated show on radio. Her show had a huge budget (Meredith Willson and his orchestra!) and got top performers. She did make a decent impact on Benny's ratings although she never topped him. Nevertheless the show was considered a big hit. But she insisted on hiring friends, both performers and creative talent, who had been blacklisted by the House HUAC committee. She was warned many times by the suits at NBC to stop but refused. Despite the show's good ratings, NBC finally canceled it after two seasons to stop her. Though she had a carefully cultivated public relations reputation as a bitch, she was actually quite generous and loyal with her friends.

That early '50s blacklist was very real and many people suffered.

R34, yours is one of finest posts ever recorded on DL. It was brilliant and you’re an incredible writer. Do you have more stories to share? Could you tell us your experiences, as a gay man in the early 1960s? What was it like growing up in the 1950s?

Lee Israel wrote a brilliant biography of Tallulah Bankhead. I highly recommend it.

Back in the mid 70s when I first came to New York, every one told me to avoid Carr's because it was a "wrinkle bar." I went once anyway out of curiosity and yeah, it was worse than The Townhouse. But lots of very old men offered to buy me lots and lots of drinks.

^ I turned them all down but with a smile and even some pleasant conversations. I was just curious not a gold digger.

R137 How much is her homosexuality mentioned in that book?