American actress (1902-1968)
How many actors could make fifty dollars a week were all forms of amusement barred by edict? Harpo Marx? He could strum his lyre on a ferry boat and pass the hat.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Between you and me, the critics don't know a great deal about acting, either. The more experienced and scholarly can detect feeble plays without a Geiger counter, even though occasionally they hail as masterpieces items which offend the nose of the property man.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Acting is the laziest of the professions. A ballet dancer must limber up two or three hours a day, working or idle. The great musicians practice three or four hours a day, willy-nilly. Opera singers must go easy on cigarettes, learn half a dozen languages. The demands on an actress consist in learning the role, interpreting to the best of her ability the intent of the author as outlined by the director. When not on stage? She sits around chewing her nails, waiting for the telephone to ring.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
For all its flaws and demands, for all its stupidities, the theater will outlive all the mechanical contraptions schemed to ape it.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
A visitor reading all the reviews the day after a New York opening would arrive at the conclusion that these men had not all seen the same play, so conflicting are their judgments.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Asked about my technique, I grow evasive. I'm not aware I have any.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
Ballet dancers, out of their stylized routines, are fish out of water. On a ballroom floor they're as awkward as other clods, muscle-bound, rhythmless.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
I was raped in a driveway when I was eleven.... It was a terrible experience because we had all that gravel.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
attributed, The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood
My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah, Darling
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."
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography
So, darlings, when you read that a stage star has fled the reservation, bolted to Hollywood or taken a stance before a microphone or the TV cameras, don't judge her hastily. It isn't a case of infidelity, it's a case of survival.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah: My Autobiography