Tallulah Bankhead

[foxy]

A new Broadway play starring Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead called "Looped" starts previews February 19th.

 

Ask most young gay guys who Tallulah Bankhead is and see if you get a blank look. I usually do.

 

Supposedly when she was asked if Rock Hudson was gay she replied "I don't know dahling, he never sucked my cock".

 

This could be a very funny show. I've got my fingers crossed

[Guest DuchessIvanaKizznhugg]

So many quotes.......

 

She certainly was a master of the one-liner............

 

“If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

 

“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.”

 

“(on seeing a former lover for the first time in years) I thought I told you to wait in the car.”

 

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

 

“There is less in this than meets the eye”

 

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

 

“The less I behave like Whistler's mother the night before, the more I look like her the morning after.”

 

“Television could perform a great service in mass education, but there's no indication its sponsors have anything like this on their minds.”

 

“I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic and the others give me a stiff neck or lockjaw.”

 

“Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time.”

 

“My father warned me about men and booze but he never said anything about women and cocaine.”

 

“(on why she called everyone "darling") Because all my life I've been terrible at remembering people's names. Once I introduced a friend of mine as 'Martini'. Her name was actually 'Olive'.”

 

[+ Oliver]

"Dahling"

 

...This could be a very funny show. I've got my fingers crossed ...

 

foxy - I do hope it is, too. Would give me an excuse to go to NYC - and that's always a good thing!

Duchess - love the quotes, and I can just hear the gravely voice saying them.

[foxy]

The photo of Valerie Harper in the NY Times looked good, like the real Bankhead. I always liked her on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show". I'm tempted to say it can't miss. Hope I'm not proven wrong.

[GoodFella69]

Sassy Lady!

 

http://etcetera.typepad.com/etc/images/2007/04/02/bankhead_2.jpg

At 47, I guess I'm a bit too young to remember Tallulah Bankhead (she died in 1966), but her quotations are hilarious. After reading this thread, I checked out her bio online--what a fascinating and eccentric character! Valerie Harper will be the perfect actress for this role (loved her as Rhoda when I was growing-up).

 

Bankhead's bio on Wikipedia alludes to her purported bisexuality: "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, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Eva Le Gallienne, Laurette Taylor, and Alla Nazimova, as well as writer Mercedes de Acosta, the wealthy Betty Carstairs, and singer Billie Holiday."

[+ Hoover42]

I think she was also quoted as saying:

 

I adore your gown, but your purse is on fire

Said as an Anglican priest passed her pew during a midnight mass, and

 

All I have to say is, "Fuck Betty Crocker."

After her cook spent hours cooking dinner for guests only to have the stove catch fire and the oven explode.

[Guest alanm]

I remember Tallulah Bankhead from her appearances with Jack Paar on "The Tonight Show," and local talk shows in Boston where I grew up. But, my my most vivid memory was Bankhead on the Lucy-Desi Hour in December 1957. That show was the same as "I Love Lucy," with longer episodes. She played herself as the Riccardo's new next door neighbor, who was talked into participating in the PTA school play ("PT what, darling?" was one of her lines).

 

As has been writtten often, Lucy thought Tallulah did not know her lines, and was worried that the show would be a disaster in front of the live studio audience. In fact, once the filming begin, Bankhead was so good that she actually got more laughs than Ball.

 

Bankhead was a very good actress, not just a person who said witty things and had an interesting love life. Good luck to Valerie Harper. This might be difficult to pull off.

[JackTwist]

Never heard of Tallulah, but she sounds like a real hoot! Surprised to read she was born in Alabama. Did she speak with a Southern accent? If so, it will be interesting to see how well Valerie Harper pulls that off.

[jackcali]

Another great quote. Bankhead met Norman Mailer in 1948 shortly after his first novel "The Naked and the Dead" was published and became a sensation. That book, about soldiers in WW2, was hailed as a realistic depiction of men in battle, including the language that they used. To get past his publisher's censors who wouldn't allow obscene words, he used the word "fug" or "fugging" as a substitute. After being introduced to him, Tallulah said "Oh, yes, you're that boy from Harvard who doesn't know how to spell "fuck".

[+ Charlie]

Jack, it's hard to believe that you never heard of Tallulah--are you sure you're gay? Her father was a longtime Congressman from Alabama and the Speaker of the US House, so she started her career with a distinct social advantage.

[KMEM]

Which she managed to flaunt at every opportunity. I haven't thought about MS. Bankhead for a long time and I hate to admit I was an adult when she did some of the things mentioned in this thread but I throughly enjoyed her personality, sense of humor and "presence".

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[Guest alanm]

I mentioned that Tallulah Bankhead was a good actress, and a larger than life personality. She had two major hits on Broadway: The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman and The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder.

 

Great actresses with strong personalities took on one or the other of those two roles, such as Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Stockard Channing, Vivien Leigh and Mary Martin. Davis and Martin became so frustrated that they gave up, and essentially tried to give the performance as Bankhead.

 

To this day, those two plays are still most closely associated with Tallulah Bankhead.

[+ Lucky]

I hate to be the contradictorian, but doesn't Valerie Harper have enough of her own public image that audiences seeing this show, especially those unfamiliar with Bankhead, will simply be seeing Valerie Harper playing a character? If she can make her audiences forget Valerie Harper, Rhoda, and whomever else, and actually see Tallulah Bankhead on that stage, then she will have pulled off a theatrical wonder.

[jackcali]

I agree, Lucky. She'll really have to work to pull this off and make us forget about Rhoda. Also, I think Valerie Harper's New York accent is very real and quite thick, and I can't recall her ever trying to hide it in her television work. If she doesn't get the voice, accent and inflections right, she can't do Tallulah. I wish her luck, because it's not going to be easy.

[AdamSmith]

I adore your gown, but your purse is on fire

 

Was that hers? One of my favorite lines.

 

But I understood it was coined specifically with reference to Cardinal Spellman.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Spellman

[KMEM]

Wow, what a revelation or reference to past history. The Catholic Church IS amazing. Not to go into it here but all those years of sexual fantasy, political intrique and all sorts of things imagined and unimagined. Its' history makes it easy to see why SOME are bitter about the whole thing.

 

OTOH, being a "flamer" seems to fit Cardinal Spellman, doesn't it?

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[edjames]

It's a shame that gay young men today are forgetting some of the major gay idols of the past. They are part of gay history.

Tallulah Bankhead was certainly idolized by gay audiences back in the 40's, 50's and 60's. Her role in Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" is a film classic.

The daughter of an southern politician, she was know as a hard drinking woman with an ascerbic sense of humor, who would frequently entertain guests in her bathroom while she bathed in the tub. She was also know for her naked romps around her apartment and would think nothing of flinging open the door to delivery men while in the buff

The drag perfromer, Charles Pierce, had a hilarious bit in his act where he acted as both Tallulah and Bette Davis having an argument. It was hysterical!

(I guess now the younger audience will all say "Charles, who?" - hint, he guest starred on Designing Woman)

Personally, I'm sorry I missed Kathleen Turner playing Tallulah a few years back on stage. She would have great to see perform the role.

 

ED

[seeker630]

Not sure Valerie Harper is that familiar.

 

I hate to be the contradictorian, but doesn't Valerie Harper have enough of her own public image that audiences seeing this show, especially those unfamiliar with Bankhead, will simply be seeing Valerie Harper playing a character? If she can make her audiences forget Valerie Harper, Rhoda, and whomever else, and actually see Tallulah Bankhead on that stage, then she will have pulled off a theatrical wonder.

I don't recall her having much of a presence since her series in the 70's.

[mansniffing]

Tallulah Bankhead Quote

 

RE QUOTE:

 

"Supposedly when she was asked if Rock Hudson was gay she replied "I don't know dahling, he never sucked my cock"."

 

The QUOTE is accurate except for Rock Hudson. It was Johnny Ray the singer she was asked about. She and Johnny Ray were great friends.

[foxy]

Thanks for the correction. It's a terrific quote.

 

As for "Lifeboat", for those who've never seen it, it's a wonderful film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

 

My favorite scene is where they use Tallulah's diamond bracelet as a fishing lure and it sinks to the bottom of the sea. She had a great line but I don't remember it. I need to go rent the movie and see it again. It's been a long time.

 

As for Valerie Harper, I'll buy a ticket and let you all know. I will certainly go see it. I hope she's done her homework. The audience will be very gay I'm sure. That should keep it entertaining.

[+ deej]

I don't recall her having much of a presence since her series in the 70's.

 

In pop culture, sure. Outside of NYC, you don't hear a lot about the actors working in live theater and it's my impression she's been working pretty steadily there.

[foxy]

I just found the bracelet scene in "Lifeboat" on YouTube. A little different than I remembered. They have a bunch of other scenes from the movie. Just go to YouTube and type in "Lifeboat" and you'll find it.

[Luv2play]

Tallulah also appeared in some of Noel Coward's plays. Before he met her he only knew her by reputation and he thought she might ham it up too much with her well-known antics on stage. But when he first saw her performing I believe in Chicago he was very taken with her, so much that when the show went to Broadway he cast her as the star for a year's run.

 

She was so grateful that she gave him a Jasper Johns' painting that was worth a small fortune, as he was an art collector. He was thrilled to have it until several years later when she asked for it back, claiming she had just loaned it to him. He returned it but their relationship went downhill from there.

 

I too wish I had seem Kathleen Turner when she played Tallulah in Miami about a decade ago. I tried to get tickets but it was sold out. The show was only there for 2 weeks, sadly.

 

Tallulah was well known for bedding both men and women. Her conquests were legion, including Joan Crawford, Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and many others I forget.

[Lookin]

The drag perfromer, Charles Pierce, had a hilarious bit in his act where he acted as both Tallulah and Bette Davis having an argument. It was hysterical!

(I guess now the younger audience will all say "Charles, who?" - hint, he guest starred on Designing Woman)

 

For those too young to have noticed, GoodFella69's picture really is Charles Pierce as Tallulah.

 

http://etcetera.typepad.com/etc/images/2007/04/02/bankhead_2.jpg

 

My favorite Tallulah story, of which there are several versions, is her response to the irrepressible Chico Marx on their first meeting:

 

CM: "You know, I really want to fuck you."

TB: "And so you shall, you old-fashioned boy."

 

Another, just discovered this morning: “I was raped in our driveway when I was eleven. You know darling, it was a terrible experience because we had all that gravel.”

 

Could she really have said all these things? When did the woman find time to sleep?

 

Also, I think Valerie Harper's New York accent is very real and quite thick, and I can't recall her ever trying to hide it in her television work.

 

Could be wrong, but I think I recall her on a talk show after she left Rhoda and being amazed that she didn't really have an accent at all. Thought to myself, she really is a good actress.

 

I hope she has a nice long run.

[body2body]

This play had it's first perfomances at the Pasadena Playhouse (with Valerie Harper) in 2008. It was well reviewed in Los Angeles. I saw it with a friend and we were both expecting it to be "Camp" but it was deeper. Harper does much more than an impression.

The play is set at a looping session, where she required to re-record a single line of dialog from her last fillm. The play is both very funny, and sadly touching.