Word: bankhead
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...Instead of a freestyle skate, Arthur settles for the compulsory short program: a once-over-lightly reprise of her hits from stage (Fiddler on the Roof, Mame) and TV (Maude, The Golden Girls); a funny anecdote about each of the famous people she's worked with (Lotte Lenya, Tallulah Bankhead); and stilted "extemporaneous" banter with her pianist, Billy Goldenberg. The audience leaves to the accompaniment of the theme song from Maude but learns virtually nothing about...
...came from a prominent Alabama political family--her grandfather and uncle were U.S. Senators; her father, William Brockman Bankhead, served as Speaker of the House. After winning a beauty contest at age 15, Tallulah Bankhead moved to New York City, where she became an actress, as well as an attractive side dish at the Algonquin Round Table. She created some legendary stage roles--Regina in The Little Foxes, Sabina in The Skin of Our Teeth--though Hollywood never really took to her (Hitchcock used her best in Lifeboat...
...smoking eventually wore her down, and the actress, who died in 1968, spent her last years parodying herself in TV guest spots (the celebrity who moves next door to Lucy and Ricky Ricardo) and polishing her own fading image. To a fan who asked if she was really Tallulah Bankhead, she reportedly answered, "What's left...
...Broadway musical in the '80s (starring Helen Gallagher) and dozens of female impersonators, the deep-voiced diva is back in no fewer than three plays. Tovah Feldshuh is the star and co-author of Tallulah Hallelujah!, an off-Broadway play in the form of a fictional USO show with Bankhead as host. Nan Schmid, formerly of the Second City improv troupe, wrote and stars in Dahling, in which eight actors portray more than 40 characters in Bankhead's life. And Kathleen Turner, last seen as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate in London, is touring the country in a Broadway-bound...
Granting that the stage bio is among the most debased of theatrical forms (a decent impersonation, a little library research and--presto!--you've got a play), Bankhead offers unusually rich material. The masochistic anecdotes just keep on coming. In Tallulah we learn that the star once fired a young Marlon Brando from her play The Eagle Has Two Heads because she couldn't stand him "yawning and pawing his privates during my speeches." In Tallulah Hallelujah! we find out that she had gonorrhea, wanted the Bette Davis part in Jezebel and turned down the role of Blanche...