Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1931)

Alabama London Conventional Southern aristocracy and the ultra-sophistication of Mayfair evolve a remarkable personality IT is the opening night of "Tomorrow and Tomorrow," the Gilbert Miller production of Philip Barry's new play, which is still running. Tallulah Bankhead, granddaughter of the late Senator John Hollis Bankhead, daughter of Congressman William B. Bankhead and niece of Senator John H. Bankhead, all of Alabama, where for more than one hundred years and not less than five generations the family has been socially, politically, and, as Southern wealth goes, financially important, is to attend the play with George Cukor, the director of her first, and at the time, unreleased American talking picture, "Tarnished Lady." She has just returned to America following her ten years in London, where she established herself as the most popular stage star England has had for many years. All sorts of stories have preceded her return to America, stories of her imperiousness, stories of her temper, stories of her irresponsibilities, stories, in fact, establishing her as a modern of moderns in the matter of individuality, in the matter of living her own life. "T'M going to be a paragon of J-dignity at this opening," she told one of her secretaries as she was being dressed. "It is my first public appearance since my return. Dress me in white, you fool (this is delivered with an infectious playful spirit) and fish out that diamond necklace given me by some member of the aristocracy, whose name I cannot recall!" The theater is well filled, as they walk in. The lights are about to be dimmed for the rising of the curtain. At least three-fourths of the lower floor audience is looking at Tallulah, in white, relieved solely by diamonds, her mocking eyes gazing over the house, her hair, her ash blonde hair — which Ethel Barrymore has described as the most beautiful she has ever seen and a color that the French cannot dye — lovelier than when she left America ten years before. She is a glamorous figure, a well-poised goddess. When suddenly and accidentally George Cukor steps on her train, Tallulah tore lose on him in her own language, and a blue haze went up. At least three-fourths of the downstairs audience heard all. "Oh well, what's the use, my dear," she said after the show, and with an air of relief at having promptly destroyed the new dignified Tallulah and having thereby uncovered the ebullient, domineering, irresponsible, fun-loving person that she is underneath. That is Tallulah Bankhead today — mercurial, independent, funny, tempestuous, and caring little for public opinion provided she is giving a discussable show at Today, she is a positive, definite By J 0 lift O. LsOrlCTl, J /. The only time Tallulah was in danger of having a scene "stolen" from her in "Tarnished Lady" was when this baby platinum blonde appeared personality, ruthless when she wants something or someone in the lines of her career and her emotional life, but generous to the point of complete carelessness towards those whom she likes or for whom she feels some degree of sympathy. In other words, she is the modern American woman who has caught up the new freedom of her generation and made it a part of herself; and in still other words, she has the mind of a man, the mind, in fact, of an adventurous, reckless, pleasure-loving man with a ruddy Elizabethan vocabulary. "She knows all the answers!" So stated the placards advertising her first talkie, "TarnishedLady," wherein she made a personal triumph despite a wavering film. She does, indeed, know all the answers; and the wordings of those answers are expletives and dynamite. That is Tallulah Bankhead today — TT iFa [T is late afternoon at the "airmount finishing school for girls in Washington, D. C, which Tallulah and her sister, Jean, one year older, are attending preparatory to their debut parties to be made in Washington society. Tallulah, who is today twenty-nine years old, is then sixteen. Jean is the flapper of the two; Jean is the pursued and pursuing one; Tallulah is rather plump, a bit of a tomboy and trickster, but very conventional morally and a bit man-shy. In other words, Jean has all the beaux and Tallulah has only a slight scattering. She has, in fact, only one young man whom she really Jean has set eyes on him and likes and who really likes her. wants him for herself. "Jean, now you can't, you mustn't take him away from me! So many boys are crazy about you! He's the only real beau I've got! Please, Jean — !" This last was uttered plaintively, pleadingly, but Jean paid not the slightest attention. And that plaintive, second sister was the Tallulah Bankhead of today as a growing girl, there being practically no connection between the two Tallulahs, save a gnawing theatrical ambition. THAT was the Tallulah Bankhead of sixteen, who was, at the age of seventeen, to make her debut in Washington society, where political, social, and diplomatic worlds meet, and who was five months later to throw away the conventional life, to throw away the conventions of a Southern girl of good birth and family and embark for New York on a stage career. The South is family and tradition ridden and young girls of Tallulah's station are groomed to grow, behave, marry, and settle down to a life of Southern society, in other words, to dance as grandma used to dance. In Tallulah's generation, there have been various rebels, but very few of these younger rebels have carried the rebellion [ please turn to page 110]