Tallulah
What a name she had: Tallulah Bankhead.
What a voice she had. Even among the many dramatic and flamboyant personalities who used to populate Hollywood and the theater in the 30s and 40s, Bankhead was more unpredictable than most as well as more licentious.
Here’s an example of that latter quality of hers. This anecdote is about something that occurred during the making of Bankhead’s very first film, the aptly-titled “Tarnished Lady,” made in 1931:
Bankhead behaved herself on the set and filming went smoothly, but she found film-making to be very boring and did not have the patience for it. She did not like Hollywood, either; when she met producer Irving Thalberg, she asked him, “How do you get laid in this dreadful place?” Thalberg retorted, “I’m sure you’ll have no problem. Ask anyone.”
Thalberg, by the way, was an extraordinarily remarkable man who basically made Hollywood what it was in its golden age, and did it all at a very young age (with compromised health) while charming the birds off the trees.
I only saw Bankhead in one film, and that was when I was a child: “Lifeboat.” But she made a deep impression on me in it (as did the fact that William Bendix, whom I knew from the TV comedy “Life of Riley,” played a serious role). I had found some great clips from the movie to put in this post, but in the last couple of days they seem to have disappeared, as these things are apt to do. Instead, here’s a documentary about the film, with a brief bit about Tallulah that I’ve highlighted. Note that John Steinbeck had the main writing credit:
You can watch most of the entire film for free here. Unfortunately, though, the last few minutes and the first few minutes are missing. Here’s a $2.99 version; I’m assuming it’s all there.
I read this about her year ago, and always thought it was a great story:
Tallulah Bankhead was getting nonsense from an upstart young actress who declared she could upstage Tallulah anytime. “Dahling,” said Miss Bankhead, “I can upstage you without even being onstage.”
The next night, she set out to prove it.
While the upstart actress acted a long telephone conversation, Miss Bankhead made her exit – not before placing her champagne glass on the edge of the table, precariously balanced half-on, half-off.
The audience began to notice the dangling glass, and whisper in a hubbub. The actress was completely upstaged. And Miss Bankhead nowhere in sight.
Afterward, the secret was revealed: Miss Bankhead had put sticky tape on the bottom of the glass.
It just struck me that in her youth, Tallulah looked as if she could have been one of the Mitford sisters.
Here is an amusing clip from The Big Show (1951 radio show) featuring Tallulah, Judy Holliday, Groucho Marx, Bob Hope and others where Tallulah’s film career is mentioned in a roundabout way.
I had read a long time ago that during filming of “Lifeboat” she did not wear panties. True or not, don’t know.
I followed the link and discovered this:
Charming.
Glancing at the photo of her taken when she was 27 or 8, it pretty much already tells the tale.
Some of my older buddies used to have a coarse saying which I cannot repeat here, regarding an especially unappealing woman, something to the effect of “I wouldn’t X her with your X on a bet”.
When you first encounter them, and before looking too close, nihilists sometimes appear to be interesting, in a perversely quasi-philosophical way. They’re so uninhibitedly, outrageously, entropy embracing, and seemingly intellectually so, that you wonder what particular Nietzschean insight it is that they have discovered which remains invisible to most others.
But to paraphrase Bankhead on the matter, again from the Wiki link “there’s usually less there than meets the eye”: Alcoholic, drug addicted, dissipated mentally-ill libertines are not usually motivated by philosophy or special insights so much as narcissism.
They don’t see further than most, their sight is shorter.
Her last thoughts were gibberish. What a way to go.
DNW:
Yes, Tallulah burned her candle at both ends, and in the middle, too.
And it gave quite a light.
Did you ever watch “Lifeboat,” though? She was awfully good in it. What a personality! She was 42 years old when she made it, and for someone who’d led the life she had led she looked pretty darn good.
From a 2005 piece in the New Yorker:
All very sad to me.
My favorite Tallulah story involves Groucho Marx. I forget what led up to it, but I believe they were conversing at a Hollywood party, and Groucho said, “Well, what I’d really like to do is have sex with you.” (I think he phrased it in an earthier manner.) “And so you shall, dear boy,” she said. “So you shall.”
Bilwick:
That’s a great story.
The thing about Bankhead was that she wasn’t just an ordinary slut who slept around unceasingly. It was that she had a droll wit about it. Did she enjoy herself? Who knows. There was obviously a compulsiveness to the behavior. But I like to think that she at least had a lot of fun.
I recall reading a collection of Dorothy Parker reviews from her days as a columnist. Her mention of Ms. Bankhead was that in such and such play, her emotions onstage ran the gamut from A to B.
Always thought it was the most clever insult.
Well, I’ve watched parts of it a couple of times. Without cheating and looking it up: I recall the Life of Riley guy Bendix, as you mentioned; and a second tier lead named Hodiak, I think it’s spelled, and who played cavalry guys as I recall; and some thin older weaselly guy with glasses I always hated as a kid when I saw him in old movies – he played cranky newspaper men – and some heavy set European guy with a round face, and her.
I don’t recall any details … just images. What little of substance I remember is that I thought it would be a good thing if they all died. An opinion I admit, which fails the test both of critical appreciation, and maybe of a broad humanism as well …
So, on your recommendation, I’ll take another look as an adult, and see whether I even have the characters right. Hitchcock … so it should be good, correct?
By the way, if you like offbeat movies, or like me appreciate viewing the location backgrounds as much as the story on occasion, try “La ragazza con la pistola”.
DNW:
Well, with “Lifeboat” there are certain stock characters, some conventional stuff from the era, and of course there’s not much change of scenery.
And perhaps it’s the sort of thing you have to see as a child (as I did) to really like it. But I really liked it. And Bankhead absolutely made the movie. I found her performance riveting. Bendix was very good too, and Walter Slezak (the German). I’d be curious what you think of it now.
JuliB:
That was not about Tallulah. It was about Katherine Hepburn. Here’s an in-depth discussion of the remark.
According to that New Yorker article I linked to above, she was “commanding” in Lillian Hellman’s play The Little Foxes:
Too bad she didn’t get to do the movie version.
I’ll watch it.
I should have cheated.
“Cavalry guy”? Looks like he made a number of movies where he played a GI. Where I got the memory of him playing a cavalryman, I cannot say.
Historical Hollywood Legend says that Miss Bankhead teased/tortured Hitchcock during his directing of “Lifeboat” by coyly ‘flashing’ him with pantyless views up her skirt on the boat. Torture..? Fun..? Both..??
Anecdote – Late in life, Tallulah was in a department store elevator. Young woman beside her says, “Aren’t you Tallulah Bankhead?” and she replies, “I used to be, dahling, I used to be”.