TALLULAH BANKHEAD QUOTES II
American actress (1902-1968)
I should be the last woman to thumb my nose at the gentlemen whose judgments make or break a play in New York. They have treated me handsomely. But two or three of them write with a chisel.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
In the theater there are players who can make a production out of eating an apple.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Let's have no beating about the bush. Not every yahoo in a first-night seat is my peer.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
I've tried several varieties of sex, all of which I hate. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic; the others give me a stiff neck and/or lockjaw.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah, Darling
Acting is an astonishingly easy profession. I've given no more thought to my best roles than I have to my worst.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Someone has said that Ethel Barrymore has the reticence born of assurance whereas my monologues indicate my insecurity. The point is moot. It's unlikely I'll ever submit to a psychiatrist's couch. I don't want some stranger prowling around through my psyche, monkeying with my id. I don't need an analyst to tell me that I have never had any sense of security. Who has?
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
My voice has been likened to the mating call of the caribou.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
What would I do where platforms, microphones and screens denied me? That's easy. I'd go to the races.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Acting is a form of confusion.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
attributed, IMDb
Forced to vote for a Davis, I'll take Jefferson and give you Bette.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water -- I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
I've played Private Lives everywhere except underwater.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
attributed, IMDb
No man worth his salt, no man of spirit and spine, no man for whom I could have any respect, could rejoice in the identification of Tallulah's husband. It's tough enough to be bogged down in a legend. It would be even tougher to marry one.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
The author writes a play, then is through with it, aside from collecting royalties. Four weeks of rehearsing and the director's work is done. Theirs are creative jobs. But how would the author feel if he had to write the same play over each night for a year? Or the director to restage it before each performance? They'd be as balmy as Nijinsky in a week. Even the ushers traffic with different people every night. But the actress? She's a caged parrot.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
As a child my name embarrassed me. Ragged by normally named playmates, I'd bawl. In one school I changed to Elizabeth. This alias was annulled once Daddy heard of it.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah, Darling
There are a lot of things about the theater that bore me stiff: trying on costumes, being photographed, going to hairdressers, dieting that I may not overlap the costumes, the wretched dressing rooms, the overheated theaters, the grim mutes who make up benefit audiences who, for all their concern with charity, can't be thawed out with an acetylene torch.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Under oath I'd like to refute the canard that I'm an old chum of Winston Churchill's--a fable that constantly bobs up in print. But he did come to seem me five times when I was playing in Fallen Angels.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Despite all you may have heard to the contrary, I have never had a ride in a patrol wagon.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
There have been only two geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare. But, darling, I think you'd better put Shakespeare first.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
attributed, IMDb