Mae West: Tallulah-ed

MAE WEST posed with actress Tallulah Bankhead at an event during the 1950s.

• • Tallulah Bankhead [31 January 1902 – 12 December 1968] was an American actress, talk-show host and bonne vivante.
• • At 15, Bankhead won a movie-magazine beauty contest and moved to New York. She quickly won bit parts. During these early New York years, she became a peripheral member of the Algonquin Round Table, and was reputed to be a hard-partying girl-about-town.
• • In 1931 her name was tossed out as Paramount Pictures' "next Marlene Dietrich", but Hollywood success eluded her in her first four films of the 30s. Critics agreed that her acting was flat, that she was unable to dominate the camera, and that she was generally outclassed by Dietrich, Carole Lombard, and others.
• • In Hollywood, Tallulah rented a home [1712 Stanley Street], and began hosting frisky parties. On 9 September 1932, she was on the cover of Film Weekly.
• • She was outspoken and uninhibited.
• • In 1932 she briefly expressed interest in spirituality and met with an Indian mystic.
• • In 1933 Tallulah Bankhead nearly died following a 5-hour emergency hysterectomy for an advanced case of gonorrhea, contracted – – she said – – from either actor George Raft or Gary Cooper. Only 70 pounds when she was able to leave the hospital, she stoically said to her doctor, "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!"
• • In 1963 she gave her last theatrical performances in a Tennessee Williams play, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More.
• • Tallulah Bankhead died in New York City in December of double pneumonia arising from influenza, complicated by emphysema, at the age of 66 [12 December 1968] and is buried in Saint Paul's Churchyard, Maryland.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West • • Tallulah Bankhead • •
NYC
Mae West.