Today is Tallulah Bankhead's birthday. Were she still alive, she'd be 105. But that doesn't make her any less fabulous. She was truly one-of-a-kind. Though she was in less than 20 films, her star burned its brightest on the stage and in society's social affairs. She was even a member of the Algonquin Round Table.
Her well respected father was the Speaker of the House but that didn't stop Miss Bankhead from becoming one of the most outlandish ladies of her time. Her antics shocked people wherever she went and her husky gin voice always made her the center of attention.
Not considered by Hollywood moguls as beautiful, the roles she created on stage were often given to more glamorous actresses when the plays were made into movies. Thus most of her performances are lost as memories fade.
Here she performs with Lucille Ball on "I Love Lucy."
Some famous Tallulah quotes:
On seeing a former lover for the first time in years: "I thought I told you to wait in the car."
"I'm as pure as the driven slush."
On why she called everyone "dahling": "Because all my life I've been terrible at remembering people's names. I once introduced a friend of mine as Martini. Her name was actually Olive."
"My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine."
Lord Alington was dining out with his wife when his former lover, actress Tallulah Bankhead, entered. As she passed, the peer hurriedly looked the other way. After a few moments, the actress, known to be completely uninhibited, left her table and going over to her former paramour, asked huskily: "What's the matter, darling. Don't you recognize me with my clothes on?"
"Cocaine isn't habit-forming. I should know - I've been using it for years."
“I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic and the others give me a stiff neck or lockjaw.”
"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!"
“The less I behave like Whistler's mother the night before, the more I look like her the morning after.”
"I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late start without me.”
"They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum."
"The only reason I went to Hollywood was to fuck that divine Gary Cooper."
In 1933, Bankhead nearly died following a five-hour emergency hysterectomy for an advanced case of gonorrhea, which she claimed she contracted either from George Raft or Gary Cooper. Only 70 pounds when she left the hospital, she stoically said to her doctor, "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!"
When actor Earl Wilson asked Tallulah "Have you ever been mistaken for a man on the telephone?" Tallulah replied "No, have you?"
She wrote in her autobiography, "I think the Republican party should be placed in drydock and have the barnacles scraped off its bottom." Some things just don't change.
Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead had adjoining dressing rooms at Paramount in 1932. Marlene wore gold dust in her hair. Tallulah got some, put it on her pubic hair, showed herself to people and asked, "Guess what I've been doing?" Here is a famous radio sketch she did with Marlene.
I LOVED her uninhibited laugh. For a great example, click on this brilliant sketch when she was on Milton Berle's show .
Happy birthday, Tallulah.
You made this world a funnier and more interesting place.
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