Beginnings in New York (1917–1922) At 15, Bankhead submitted her photo to
Picture Play, which was conducting a contest and awarding a trip to New York plus a movie part to 12 winners based on their photographs. However, she forgot to send in her name or address with the picture. Bankhead learned that she was one of the winners while browsing the magazine at her local drugstore. Her photo in the magazine was captioned "Who is She?", urging the mystery girl to contact the paper at once. Congressman William Bankhead sent in a letter to the magazine with her duplicate photo. Arriving in New York, Bankhead discovered that her contest win was fleeting: she was paid $75 for three weeks' work on
Who Loved Him Best and had only a minor part, but she quickly found her niche in New York City. She soon moved into the
Algonquin Hotel, a hotspot for the artistic and literary elite of the era, where she quickly charmed her way into the famed
Algonquin Round Table of the hotel bar. She was dubbed one of the "Four Riders of the Algonquin", consisting of Bankhead,
Estelle Winwood,
Eva Le Gallienne, and
Blyth Daly. Three of the four were non-heterosexual: Bankhead and Daly were
bisexuals, and Le Gallienne was a
lesbian. At the Algonquin, Bankhead befriended actress
Estelle Winwood. She also met
Ethel Barrymore, who attempted to persuade her to change her name to Barbara. Bankhead declined, and
Vanity Fair later wrote "she's the only actress on both sides of the Atlantic to be recognized by her first name only." Bankhead's father had warned her to avoid alcohol and men when she got to New York; Bankhead later quipped "He didn't say anything about women and cocaine." The Algonquin's wild parties introduced Bankhead to marijuana and cocaine, of which she later remarked "Cocaine isn't habit-forming and I know because I've been taking it for years." Bankhead did abstain from drinking, keeping half of her promise to her father. In 1919, after roles in three other silent films,
When Men Betray (1918),
Thirty a Week (1918), and
The Trap (1919), Bankhead made her stage debut in
The Squab Farm at the
Bijou Theatre in New York. She soon realized her place was on stage rather than screen, and had roles in
39 East (1919),
Footloose (1919),
Nice People (1921),
Everyday (1921),
Danger (1922),
Her Temporary Husband (1922), and
The Exciters (1922). Though her acting was praised, the plays were commercially and critically unsuccessful. Bankhead had been in New York for five years, but had yet to score a significant hit. Restless, Bankhead moved to London.
Fame in the United Kingdom (1922–1931) In 1923, she made her debut on the London stage at
Wyndham's Theatre. She appeared in over a dozen plays in London over the next eight years, most famously in
The Dancers and at the
Lyric as Jerry Lamar in
Avery Hopwood's
The Gold Diggers. Her fame as an actress was ensured in 1924 when she played Amy in
Sidney Howard's
They Knew What They Wanted. The show won the 1925
Pulitzer Prize. While in London, Bankhead bought herself a
Bentley, which she loved to drive. She was not very competent with directions and constantly found herself lost in the London streets. She would telephone a taxi-cab and pay the driver to drive to her destination while she followed behind in her car. During her eight years on the London stage and touring across UK theatres, Bankhead earned a reputation for making the most out of inferior material. For example, in her autobiography, Bankhead described the opening night of a play called
Conchita: In the second act. ... I came on carrying a monkey. ... On opening night, the monkey went berserk. ... (he) snatched my black wig from my head, leaped from my arms and scampered down to the footlights. There he paused, peered out at the audience, then waved my wig over his head. ... The audience had been giggling at the absurd plot even before this simian had at me. Now it became hysterical. What did Tallulah do in this crisis? I turned a cartwheel! The audience roared. ... After the monkey business I was afraid they might boo me. Instead I received an ovation.
Career in Hollywood (1931–1933) '' Bankhead returned to the United States in 1931, but Hollywood success eluded her in her first four films of the 1930s. She rented a home at 1712 Stanley Street in Hollywood (now 1712 North Stanley Avenue) and began hosting parties that were said to "have no boundaries". Bankhead's first film was
Tarnished Lady (1931), directed by
George Cukor, and the pair became fast friends. 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. After over eight years of living in Great Britain and touring on their theatrical stages, she did not like living in Hollywood; 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." Although Bankhead was not very interested in making films, the opportunity to make $50,000 per film was too good to pass up. Her 1932 movie
Devil and the Deep is notable for the presence of three major co-stars, with Bankhead receiving top billing over
Gary Cooper,
Charles Laughton, and
Cary Grant; it is the only film with Cooper and Grant in the cast, although they share no scenes together. She later said "Dahling, the main reason I accepted [the part] was to fuck that divine Gary Cooper!" Later in 1932, Bankhead starred opposite
Robert Montgomery in
Faithless.
Return to Broadway (1933–1938) Returning to Broadway, Bankhead worked steadily in a series of middling plays which were, ironically, later turned into highly successful Hollywood films starring other actresses. 1933's
Forsaking All Others by Edward Barry Roberts and Frank Morgan Cavett—a romantic comedy-drama in which three friends sustain a love triangle lasting several years—was a modest success for Bankhead, running 110 performances, but the
1934 film version with Joan Crawford was one of that year's bigger financial and critical successes. Similarly, Bankhead's next two short-lived plays,
Jezebel by Owen Davis and
Dark Victory by George Brewer Jr. and Bertram Bloch, were both transformed into high-profile, prestigious film vehicles for
Bette Davis. Bankhead persevered, even through ill health. In 1933, while performing in
Jezebel, Bankhead nearly died following a five-hour emergency hysterectomy due to
gonorrhea, which she claimed she had contracted from either
Gary Cooper or
George Raft. Weighing only when she left the hospital, she vowed to continue her lifestyle, flippantly telling her doctor "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!" Bankhead continued to play in various Broadway performances over the next few years, gaining excellent notices for her portrayal of Elizabeth in a revival of
Somerset Maugham's
The Circle. However, when she appeared in Shakespeare's
Antony and Cleopatra with her then-husband
John Emery, the
New York Evening Post critic
John Mason Brown memorably carped, "Tallulah Bankhead barged down the Nile last night as Cleopatra – and sank." In a private memo written in 1936,
David O. Selznick, producer of
Gone with the Wind (1939), called Bankhead the "first choice among established stars" to play
Scarlett O'Hara in the upcoming film. Although her 1938 screen test for the role in black-and-white was superb, she photographed poorly in
Technicolor. Selznick also reportedly believed that at age 36, she was too old to play Scarlett, who is 16 at the beginning of the film (the role eventually went to
Vivien Leigh). Selznick sent
Kay Brown to Bankhead to discuss the possibility of Bankhead playing brothel owner Belle Watling in the film, which she turned down.
Critical acclaim (1939–1945) Regina and Sabina '' (1939) Her brilliant portrayal of the cold and ruthless, yet fiery Regina Giddens in
Lillian Hellman's
The Little Foxes (1939) won her
Variety magazine's award for Best Actress of the Year. Bankhead as Regina was lauded as "one of the most electrifying performances in American theater history". During the run, she was featured on the cover of
Life. Bankhead and playwright Hellman, both formidable women, feuded over the
Soviet Union's
invasion of Finland. Bankhead (a strong critic of communism from the mid 1930s onwards) was said to want a portion of one performance's proceeds to go to Finnish relief, and Hellman (a communist who had defended the
Moscow Trials of 1936, and was a member of the
Communist Party USA in 1938–40) objected strenuously, and the two women did not speak for the next quarter of a century, eventually reconciling in late 1963. Nevertheless, Bankhead called the character of Regina in Hellman's play "the best role I ever had in the theater". Bankhead earned another
Variety award and the New York Drama Critics' Award for Best Performance by an Actress followed her role in
Thornton Wilder's
The Skin of Our Teeth, in which Bankhead played Sabina, the housekeeper and temptress, opposite
Fredric March and
Florence Eldridge (husband and wife offstage). About her work in Wilder's classic, the
New York Sun wrote: "Her portrayal of Sabina has comedy and passion. How she contrives both, almost at the same time, is a mystery to mere man." She also clashed with
Elia Kazan on
The Skin of Our Teeth and during rehearsals of
Clash by Night she called the producer,
Billy Rose a "loathsome bully" who retorted, "How could anyone bully Niagara Falls?"
Lifeboat 's
Lifeboat (1944) with
Henry Hull 's
Lifeboat (1944) with
Hume Cronyn, Henry Hull, Bankhead,
John Hodiak,
Mary Anderson and
Canada Lee In 1944,
Alfred Hitchcock cast her as cynical journalist Constance Porter in her most successful film, both critically and commercially,
Lifeboat. The film takes place entirely on a small boat, and was shot in a large water tank on a studio lot. During filming, the actors were sometimes battered by water-spraying machines and fans. Bankhead wrote in her memoirs that she was "black and blue from the downpours and lurchings". At one point, she contracted
bronchial pneumonia, halting production for a number of days. Bankhead famously did not wear underwear during production, which became apparent when she climbed up or down the ladder leading to the water tank. A widely repeated anecdote has it that Hitchcock, when pressed to do something about this, mused that he was unsure whether it was a matter for the wardrobe department, makeup, or hairdressing. Her superbly multifaceted performance was acknowledged as her best on film and won her the
New York Film Critics Circle award. A beaming Bankhead accepted her New York trophy and exclaimed: "Dahlings, I was wonderful!"
Renewed success (1948–1952) Bankhead appeared in a revival of
Noël Coward's
Private Lives, taking it on tour and then to Broadway for the better part of two years. The play's run made Bankhead a fortune. From that time, Bankhead could command 10% of the gross and was billed larger than any other actor in the cast, although she usually granted equal billing to
Estelle Winwood, a frequent co-star and close friend from the 1920s through Bankhead's lifetime.
Late career (1952–1968) Bankhead wrote a bestselling autobiography
Tallulah: My Autobiography (Harper & Bros.) that was published in 1952. Though Bankhead's career slowed in the mid-1950s, she never faded from the public eye. Her highly public and often scandalous personal life began to undermine her reputation as a terrific actress, leading to criticism she had become a caricature of herself. Although a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, and consumer of sleeping pills, Bankhead continued to perform in the 1950s and 1960s on Broadway, in radio and television, and in the occasional film, even as her body got more and more
frail from the mid 1950s up until her death in 1968. In 1953, Bankhead was enticed into appearing in a stage act at the
Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. She was paid a generous $20,000 per week for her appearances, reciting scenes from famous plays, reading poetry and letters that had the audience in stitches, and sang. Las Vegas critics bet her act would flop, but instead it was highly successful. She returned to the Sands for three years.
Addiction, illness and icon status Around this time, Bankhead began to attract a passionate and highly loyal following of gay men, some of whom she employed as help when her lifestyle began to take a toll on her, affectionately calling them her "caddies". Though she had long struggled with addiction, her condition now worsened – she began taking dangerous cocktails of drugs to fall asleep, and her maid had to tape her arms down to prevent her from consuming pills during her periods of intermittent wakefulness. In her later years, Bankhead had serious accidents and several psychotic episodes from sleep deprivation and
hypnotic drug abuse. Though she always hated being alone, her struggle with loneliness began to lapse into a depression. In 1956, playing the truth game with
Tennessee Williams, she confessed, "I'm 54, and I wish always, always, for death. I've always wanted death. Nothing else do I want more."
The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show Bankhead's most popular and perhaps best remembered television appearance was the December 3, 1957 episode of
The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show. She played herself in the classic episode, "The Celebrity Next Door". The part was originally slated for
Bette Davis, but Davis had to bow out after cracking a vertebra.
Lucille Ball was reportedly a fan of Bankhead and did a good impression of her. By the time the episode was filmed, however, both Ball and
Desi Arnaz were deeply frustrated by Bankhead's off-camera behavior during rehearsals. It took her three hours to "wake up" once she arrived on the set and she often seemed drunk. She also refused to listen to the director and she did not like rehearsing. Ball and Arnaz apparently did not know about Bankhead's antipathy to rehearsals or her ability to memorize a script quickly. After rehearsals, the filming of the episode proceeded without a hitch, and Ball congratulated Bankhead on her performance.
Last years on stage In 1956, Bankhead appeared as
Blanche DuBois (a character inspired by her) in a revival of
Tennessee Williams'
A Streetcar Named Desire (1947). Williams (a close friend) had wanted Bankhead for the original production, but she turned it down. He called her Blanche "the worst I have seen", accusing her of ruining the role to appease her fans who wanted
camp. She agreed with this verdict, and made an effort to conquer the audience which her own legend had drawn about her, giving a performance two weeks later of which he remarked: "I'm not ashamed to say that I shed tears almost all the way through and that when the play was finished I rushed up to her and fell to my knees at her feet. The human drama, the play of a woman's great valor and an artist's truth, her own, far superseded, and even eclipsed, to my eye, the performance of my own play." The director remarked that her performance exceeded those of
Jessica Tandy and
Vivien Leigh in the role. However, the initial reviews had decided the production's fate, and the producer pulled the plug after 15 performances. Bankhead received a
Tony Award nomination for her performance of a bizarre 50-year-old mother in the short-lived
Mary Chase play
Midgie Purvis (1961). It was a physically demanding role and Bankhead insisted on doing the stunts herself, including sliding down a staircase banister. She received glowing reviews, but the play suffered from numerous rewrites and failed to last beyond a month. Her last theatrical appearance was in ''
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore'' (1963), a revival of another Williams play, directed by
Tony Richardson. She had suffered a severe burn on her right hand from a match exploding while she lit a cigarette, and it was aggravated by the importance of jewelry props in the play. She took heavy painkillers, but these dried her mouth, and most critics thought that Bankhead's line readings were unintelligible. As with
Antony and Cleopatra, the nadir of her career, she only made five performances, and in the same unhappy theater.
New media Among her last radio appearances was in an episode of the
BBC's
Desert Island Discs with
Roy Plomley in 1964. Bankhead, at 62 and audibly suffering from breathing difficulties from
emphysema in the interview, frankly spoke of how hopeless she would be on a desert island, admitting that she "couldn't put a key in the door, dahling. I can't do a
thing for myself." In the interview, host Plomley spoke of Bankhead's glory days as the most celebrated actress of 1920s London. Later he recalled of their interview, "She was a very frail and ailing old lady, and I was shocked to see how old and ill she looked as I helped her out of a taxi. She had come from her hotel wearing a mink coat slung over a pair of lounging pyjamas, and she leaned heavily on my arm as I supported her to the lift. Her eyes were still fine, and there was still beauty in the bone structure of her face beneath the wrinkles and ravages of hard living. Her hands shook, and when she wished to go to the loo she had to ask Monica Chapman to accompany her to help her with her clothing." Her last motion picture was a British
horror film,
Fanatic (1965).
Fanatic was released in the U.S. as
Die! Die! My Darling!, which she protested, thinking it was exploiting her famous catchphrase, but did not succeed in getting it changed. During the screening she held privately for her friends, she apologized for "looking older than God's wet nurse" (in the film she wore no makeup and dyed her hair grey, and the director used very claustrophobic close-ups to accentuate her age and frailty). She called the B-movie horror flick "a piece of shit", though her performance in it was praised by critics and it remains popular as a cult film and with her fans. For her role in
Fanatic, she was paid $50,000. She also appeared in NBC's famous lost
Tonight Show Beatles interview that aired on May 14, 1968. Sitting behind the interview desk and beside
Joe Garagiola, who was substituting for an absent
Johnny Carson, she took an active role during the interview, questioning
Paul McCartney and
John Lennon.
George Harrison and
Ringo Starr were not present and were in England at the time, as noted during the interview. ==Personal life==