Dahling Tallulah
Dahling Tallulah
Well known for her plays, films, television and radio shows and for her no barriers life-style, Tallulah Brockman Bankhead named after her paternal grandmother, who, in turn, was named after the town of Tallulah Falls in Georgia, was born on January 31, 1902 in Huntsville, Alabama.
As part of a prominent Alabama political family (daughter of Congressman William Brockman Bankhead, niece of Senator John H. Bankhead II, and granddaughter of Senator John H. Bankhead) she was sent to various schools, including a year at a Catholic convent school in an attempt to keep her out of trouble.
Tallulah started her career at only 15, when she won the Picture Play movie-magazine beauty contest and convinced her family to let her move to New York. Part of the prize for winning the Picture Play contest was a minor role in the movie Who Loved Him Best.
Then, her father used his influence to help secure Tallulah's first stage appearance, a non-speaking, walk-on part in the play The Squab Farm. Over the years she said: "A mute child in a flop. That was my beginning." However, this was enough experience for Tallulah to know that her heart lay in the theater.
In 1923, she made her debut in England, on the London stage. She was a hit from the day she first appeared in The Dancers. She continued to be a success for eight years in a row, appearing in twenty-four plays. London gave her the fame that she so desperately wanted.
By the end of the decade she was one of England's best-known actresses and equally well known for her sharp wit and outrageous private live, endless affairs with both men and women, drinking, heavy smoking and drug taking. Tallulah was quoted as saying "The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner" and "My father warned me about men and booze but he never said anything about women and cocaine".
In 1931 Hollywood Beckoned in the form of Paramount Pictures who offered her $50,000 a film for four films so Tallulah sailed for New York in January of 1931 where the first three films were to be made. Tallulah was always more interested in the stage and after the films failed she returned to Broadway. Then in 1936 she did a screen test for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind and was devastated when the part was given to Vivien Leigh.
She returned to Broadway and won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Performance for the role Regina in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes in 1939. She won the same award in 1942 for her performance in Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, in which Tallulah played the role of Sabina.
Returning to movies, in 1944 she played in Alfred Hitchcock's movie, Lifeboat, as the cynical journalist Constance Porter. The performance is widely acknowledged as her best on film, and won her the New York Screen Critics Award. On 16th November 1950 NBC broadcast Screen Director's Playhouse radio dramatization of Lifeboat in which Tallulah played the same role for radio as she originally played on screen. In 1951 she also starred in two other productions by Screen Director's Playhouse, Dark Victory and Humoresque, which I will add to RUSC.
In November of 1950, NBC radio introduced The Big Show, and asked Tallulah to be the host. Although not totally convinced, she agreed and the show was an outstanding success. The Big Show ran for two years and Tallulah was named radio's Woman of the Year for 1951.
Tallulah's career was in decline by the mid-1950s, mostly because of her outrageous behavior. Her last TV appearance was on May 14, 1968 on The Tonight Show, where she chatted with Paul McCartney and John Lennon about baseball and music.
Tallulah Bankhead died on December 12, 1968 in New York City, at the age of 66. Her last words, a final episode of her wild life, were "Codeine...bourbon...” She is buried in Saint Paul's Churchyard, Chestertown, Maryland.
To read a more in depth article on the life of Tallulah Bankhead including some wonderful photo's, quotes and anecdotes click on the link for Tallulah a Passionate Life.
Happy listening my friends,
