I just watched Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT, starring the late, great Tallulah Bankhead

[MrScorpio]

If you've never read her bio, you're in for quite a surprise.

First some quotes:

Earl Wilson: "Have you ever been mistaken for a man on the telephone?" Tallulah: "No, have you?"

"I Was there in the South of France When Zelda , poor darling, went off her head. She had gone into a flower shop and suddenly for her all the flowers had faces. Of course, some flowers, such as pansies, *do* have faces."

On seeing a former lover for the first time in years: "I thought I told you to wait in the car."

"I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education."

"The only man in theater who can count on steady work is the night watchman."

"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."

"Acting is a form of confusion."

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."

"If you want to help the American theater, don't be a performer--be an audience."

"It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time."

"I'm as pure as the driven slush."

"I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water - I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone."

"My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine."

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

"Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it."

"No man worth his salt, no man of spirit and spine, no man for whom I could have any respect, could rejoice in the identification of Tallulah's husband. It's tough enough to be bogged down in a legend. It would be even tougher to marry one."

"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!"

"Say anything about me, dahling, as long as it isn't boring."

"I've tried several varieties of sex, all of which I hate. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic; the others give me a stiff neck and/or lockjaw."

Some notable portions of her bio in Wiki

One of Tallulah's most notorious events was an interview that she gave to Motion Picture magazine in 1932. She was obviously letting off steam from her frustrated attempt at a movie career and she ranted wildly about the state of her life and her views on love, marriage, and children. The part that got the studio heads standing on their heads was this quote:

"I'm serious about love. I'm damned serious about it now. . . . I haven't had an affair for six months. Six months! Too long. . . . If there's anything the matter with me now, it's not Hollywood or Hollywood's state of mind. . . . The matter with me is, I WANT A MAN! . . . Six months is a long, long while. I WANT A MAN!"


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She was outspoken, uninhibited, and it's said that any who met her never forgot her. By the standards of the interwar years, Tallulah was quite openly bisexual, <8> but she successfully avoided scandal related to her affairs, regardless of the gender of her lovers. She was known to have stripped off her clothes on several occasions while attending parties, which shocked people in attendance, but nonetheless she remained magnetic to those who knew her well.

Rumors about her sex life have lingered for years, and she was linked romantically with many notable female personalities of the day, including Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Eva Le Gallienne, Hattie McDaniel, and Alla Nazimova, as well as writer Mercedes de Acosta, and singer Billie Holiday.<9>

However, later reports show that Bankhead disliked de Acosta greatly, finding her unattractive, and was most likely never involved with her sexually, on one occasion telling friends that de Acosta looked like "a mouse in a topcoat". She was reportedly extremely excited when she was first able to meet the elusive Garbo, but whether they were sexually involved has never been determined beyond a doubt. The two women played tennis together often, and were said to have enjoyed one another's company, but even though Garbo has since been publicly identified as having had intense relationships with other women, she was extremely protective of her private life and secretive about her lovers. Bankhead was married to actor John Emery from 1937 to 1941.


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MI5 investigation of Eton school scandal

Recently declassified papers thrust Tallulah in the limelight of public scandal posthumously. She had been investigated by MI5 amid rumours she was corrupting pupils at Eton. The documents alleged that she seduced up to half a dozen public schoolboys into taking part in "indecent and unnatural" acts. This rumor had sent shockwaves through the 1920s British establishment.

The documents compiled by the British Aliens and Immigration Department allege that the investigation was scuttled by a determined cover-up by Eton's headmaster, Dr C.A. Alington. The allegations were based purely on gossip and word of mouth. It appears that they were assembled by MI5 at the urgings of a Home Office minister.

The dossier, assembled when she was 32, contains allegations that while in Britain the actress:

* performed indecent acts with under-age boys from Eton College
* was a lesbian who was also promiscuous with men
* was thrown out of her home by her father because of immoral conduct
* moved in a social circle which was a centre of vice.

In the whole of the file there was no credible evidence that Miss Bankhead had any "abnormal" sexual tendencies, or that any grounds existed to keep her out of Britain.

The report that a group of Eton boys took part in a sex session with her at an hotel in Berkshire was discreetly investigated by police and the headmaster was interviewed. However, nothing was discovered except that a couple of boys had been dismissed for breaking school rules on riding in a car.

However, the investigator known only as FHM wrote: "The headmaster is obviously not prepared to assist HO (Home Office) by revealing what he knows of her exploits with some of the boys, i.e., he wants to do everything possible to keep Eton out of the scandal."


More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallulah_Bankhead

This woman was a sexual force of nature... Damn, I bet she was fun to party with!

[kay1864]

1. Cool, thanks!

Hadn't heard of her much before this. I'd forgotten she was in Lifeboat (only saw it once).

Here's some more pics (all from the same source)

Age 20-21


Age 27



Age 30











Age 34


Age 40


Age 50

[formerrepuke]

2. An anecdote about her from Marlon Brando:

...taken from memory, but it goes something like this-

Early in her career, Tallulah was among many other young women trying to make it on the Broadway stage. One producer was known to have the ability to secure good roles for girls..as long as they 'paid the price' on the casting couch. If 'paying the price' wasn't degrading enough, this producer was extremely ugly, making 'payment' especially difficult for those who were determined enough to go through with it.

Soon enough, Tallulah got a good role, and her friends asked her how she managed to do it. "I went to Mr. XXX's office and 'paid the price'..in fact, I went down on him." However could you do such a thing??- he's soooo incredibly ugly...the other girls wanted to know.

"Dahlings- anything to get away from that face."

Maybe its not true- but it sure is a good story.

[LisaM]

3. Her father was Speaker of the House

and she grew up in Montgomery, Alabama with Zelda Fitzgerald. She's actually a very interesting person outside of her electric personality.

[meegbear]

4. meegbear's favorite, a reporter asking her if Cary Grant was gay ...

"I don't know, he never sucked my dick". :spray:

[kay1864]

5. More sexual quotes

Tallulah herself was not very interested in making films. The opportunity to make $50,000 per film, however, was too good to pass up. She later said, "The only reason I went to Hollywood was to fuck that divine Gary Cooper."

George Cukor was the director and he and Tallulah became fast friends. Tallulah behaved herself on the set and filming went smoothly, but she found film-making to be very boring and didn't have the patience for it. She didn't like Hollywood either. When she met producer Irving Thalberg, she asked him, "How do you get laid in this dreadful place?"

Two more films (My Sin, The Cheat) were made in New York with the same lackluster results before Paramount decided to move Tallulah out to Hollywood. Riding with her on the train was Joan Crawford and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Tallulah told her, "Dahling, you're divine. I've had an affair with your husband. You'll be next."

[kay1864]

6. Just remembered one more, from Lifeboat

During the filming, the actors had to climb a ladder to get to the lifeboat set. Tallulah never wore underwear and delighted in shocking her fellow actors by climbing the ladder ahead of them.

A woman reporter visiting the set was outraged by Tallulah's behavior and complained to studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, who sent a man to talk to Hitchcock about the situation. Hitchcock, who was always amused by Tallulah's antics, refused to interfere and told the man that it wasn't his department. The man asked, "Well, whose department is it?"

Hitchcock mused for a moment and then said, "Makeup, or perhaps hairdressing."

[MrScorpio]

7. Goes to show that Britney is no innovator

She can't even flash with half the class of Tallulah

[Hell Hath No Fury]

8. Another story...

Heard this many times from theatre teachers over the years:

Tallulah was on Broadway in a show playing second banana to a female lead whose talents she found questionable. The two disliked each other immensely and there was a great deal of tension and fighting between the two. One fight centered around the female lead's "talent", and Tallulah tells the lead she could upstage her without even being onstage. The next performance, Tallulah carries a glass full of water on stage for their scene together and, before she walkes offstage, places it very carefully hanging of the edge of a table. During the rest of the scene, the audience was focused on the about-to-fall glass and not the lead actress. :)

Tallulah was an original!

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

9. I wish more of her work was available on DVD

I just watched Lifeboat,too - about a month ago.
Would love to more stuff from her youth.