Book: Tallulah!: The Life & Times Of A Leading Lady--Joel Lobenthal

I just finished reading a biography of the actress Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968).  The author, Joel Lobenthal, began researching his book while still an undergraduate in college, not publishing until 25 years later.  Bankhead was born in Alabama, and she came from a heritage of Congressmen, lawyers and judges.  Barely 16, Bankhead fled to New York to become an actress, and before she was 20 she was a success on the Lonndon stage, already notorious for what would become her life-long history of profligate sex and alcohol-related escapades. Her lovers crossed every boundary from single men and women, to the married, to other races, to homosexual (male and female), Billie Holliday being one of the most infamous. 

Her major film role was in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, but she is remembered primarily for her stage roles, most notably as Regina Giddins in Lillian Hellmann's Little Foxes, a part Bette Davis later brought to film.  Falling further into her substance abuses, her career faltered in her fifties, and her later years were spent alone and craving an audience.  A woman of wit and a great raconteur, here are some of her notable quotes:

Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice  two  vices at once.

I'm as pure as the driven slush.

 

It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.

 

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

...and on a minor note:  Demi Moore named one of her daughters after her.