Bankhead, Tallulah (1903–68), actress. Born in Huntsville, Alabama, she used her family's influence (her uncle was a U. S. Senator) to land a walk‐on part in her first Broadway show,
Squab Farm (1918). After a brief fling in films, Bankhead replaced others in such plays as
39 East (1919),
Footloose (1920),
Danger (1921), and
Her Temporary Husband (1922), and originated parts in
Nice People (1921) and
The Exciters (1922), but her career seemed stalled so she left for England where, for the next eleven years, she played increasingly important roles. Bankhead returned but found only modest success as the jilted bride Mary Clay in
Forsaking All Others (1933), the fatally ill Judith Traherne in
Dark Victory (1934), the sultry Sadie Thompson in a revival of
Rain (1935), and the cheated‐on wife Monica Grey in
Something Gay (1935). She had better luck as the emotional actress Muriel Flood in George
Kelly's
Reflected Glory (1936) but was roundly panned as the Queen of the Nile in a revival of
Antony and Cleopatra (1937). However, her greatest performances soon followed, including Regina Giddens in
The Little Foxes (1939), the sibyl‐like servant Sabina in
The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), and Amanda Prynne in a free‐slugging revival of
Private Lives (1946), a character she played in various venues for four years. Bankhead's later roles were actress Sophie Wing in
Foolish Notion (1945), the Queen in
The Eagle Has Two Heads (1947), the mother determined to legitimatize her children in
Dear Charles (1954), and the prankish society doyen
Midgie Purvis (1961). Her last Broadway appearance was as a typical Tennessee
Williams lady in his
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1964). In her last years, when major Broadway success eluded her, she appeared regularly on radio, calling everyone “dahling” in her deep baritone voice and behaving seemingly like a parody of herself. Bankhead's performances occasioned some of the wittiest criticism ever elicited, most famously John Mason
Brown's dismissal: “Tallulah Bankhead barged down the Nile as Cleopatra and sank. As the serpent of the Nile she proves to be no more dangerous than a garter snake.” Elliot
Norton, on the other hand, recalled of her Regina in
The Little Foxes, “A woman driven by Furies, driven and driving . . . cold, calculating and calmly cruel, yet absolutely true and fascinating. . . . Her laughter was a silver ripple on ice, the glint of a glacier. Her wrath . . . was the rumbling of thunder with flashes of lightning.” Autobiography:
Tallulah, 1952.
