Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankheadwas an American actress of the stage and screen, and a reputed libertine. Bankhead was known for her husky voice, outrageous personality, and devastating wit. Originating some of the 20th-century theater's preeminent roles in comedy and melodrama, she gained acclaim as an actress on both sides of the Atlantic. Bankhead became an icon of the tempestuous, flamboyant actress, and her unique voice and mannerisms are often subject to imitation and parody...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActress
Date of Birth31 January 1903
CountryUnited States of America
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..
(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'.
My heart is as pure as the driven slush
They made me sound as if I'd been castrated.
It's the good girls who keep the diaries; the bad girls never have time
If you know your Bible and your Shakespeare and can shoot craps, you have a liberal education.
[To the man who came up to her at a party and exclaimed effusively, 'Tallulah! I haven't seen you for 41 years!':] I thought I told you to wait in the car.
Whatever you have read I have said is almost certainly untrue, except if it is funny, in which case I definitely said it.
I have been tight as a tick! Fried as a mink! Stiff as a goat!
[On being asked in her later years if she were Tallulah:] I'm what's left of her, dahling.
I detest acting because it is sheer drudgery.
I did what I could to inflate the rumor I was on my way to stardom. What I was on my way to, by any mathematical standards known to man, was oblivion, by way of obscurity.
Acting is a form of confession.
Going down on a woman gives me a stiff neck, going down on a man gives me lockjaw and conventional sex gives me claustrophobia.