Her signature greeting, “DAH-ling!!!”, has been imitated for decades, but never with the attitude that Tallulah gave it. In truth, she used the greeting because she was terrible at remembering names, once quipping that she had introduced a friend of hers as “Martini”. Her name was “Olive”.
Born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1902, to a prominent political family, Tallulah discovered at an early age that theatrics were the key to getting the attention she craved. As a child, she was boisterous and prone to tantrums. Today, she would probably have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Happiest when all eyes were upon her, she entertained her classmates, family, and friends by imitating teachers and memorizing literature and plays, which she recited very dramatically. As a young teen, she was an avid reader of fan magazines, and at 15, she submitted her photo to “Picture Play” magazine for a contest whose prize included a trip to New York and a small part in a movie. Unfortunately, in her haste to send in her photo, she had neglected to include her name and address. When the magazine published photos of the finalists, her picture appeared with the caption “Who is She?”, and a plea from the editors for the mystery woman to contact them at once. Her father, although reluctant, agreed to let her go to New York with her aunt as a chaperone.
In New York, she took rooms at the Algonquin Hotel, and her vivacious personality and enthusiasm attracted the friendship of many of its illustrious guests: actors, playwrights and theater patrons. For the next five years, she would appear on the New York stage, but without scoring any major roles.
Tallulah, then, spent eight years on the London stage. This brought her the roles she wanted and the fame she had been seeking. She was especially popular with teenage girls and young women, who would often camp out for days for seats at her openings, hoping for seats in the gallery. They imitated her dress and her mannerisms, calling each other “Dahling”. They became known as the “gallery girls”. Tallulah was delighted, and acknowledged her devoted fans both onstage and off, sometimes pausing during their enthusiastic cheering to call “Thank you, dahlings,” from the stage.
In England, Tallulah’s outrageous antics grew even wilder. Her drug and alcohol use became as legendary as her promiscuity. She once claimed that she had a ravenous appetite for sex, but not for a particular type, and so she bedded anyone who was interested, man or woman. At the same time, her professional life continued to flourish. Although her plays were often critical failures, they stayed open on the strength of Tallulah’s popularity alone. In the fall of 1930, she received a lucrative offer from Paramount Studios to return to America and work her magic in Hollywood. Although she wasn’t really interested in a movie career, her poor financial management had taken its toll on her fortune, and she reluctantly left England for the USA.
In the late ’30s and ’40s, Tallulah conquered American film and stage, establishing herself as a full-fledged public “personality”. Her affairs were legendary, and her name became a household word. Like stars who came later, Elvis, Cher, and Lucy, she achieved that unique status of having her name so synonymous with her style and personality, that “Tallulah” alone identified her, in the public mind.
In her later years, she continued to appear in cameo roles, most notably, on “I Love Lucy”, and she performed in an extravagant show in Las Vegas, and a popular radio show. She was becoming a caricature of herself. The public expected outrageous behavior from her, and she rarely disappointed them. Although her age was beginning to show, she was always ready to display her body. Guests at her home were frequently entertained by Tallulah performing on top of the piano, dressed in nothing but a string of pearls. She began to surround herself with young men, mostly gay, and frequently red-headed. She called them her “caddies”. A series of caddies took care of her until her death from pneumonia in 1967.
Tallulah Bankhead was a woman of wit and character. She lived life on her own terms and never apologized for it. She said it best herself: “Let’s not quibble! I’m the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right..”
