Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

for October 1931 57 Miss Bankhead was no stranger in the studios when she made "Tarnished Lady." She worked in pictures in the silent days. Here, at the right, is a scene from a film in which Tallulah appeared with Tom Moore and Alec B. Francis. It was made while the actress was also playing on the New York stage. Below, "San Souci," at the foot of Paris Mountain, near Greenville, South Carolina, the antebellum home of Governor B. F. Perry of that State, later owned by his son, Congressman William Payne Perry, who married Tallulah's "Aunt Louise." It was here that the future star spent part of her childhood days. PART II ONLY for a moment did Tallulah stand, staring wildeyed at her photograph in the magazine. The next moment a small cyclone might have been observed, tearing madly down the Washington streets and over the crossings, heedless of gaping bystanders, heedless of angry motorhorns, heedless of the fact that she hadn't paid for the magazine clutched fiercely against her breast. Into the Bankhead home she burst, shrieking : "Daddy ! Where are you ? Daddy ! Grandmother ! Where are you?" Pallid with terror, they rushed toward her, prepared for disaster. "I've won ! I've won ! I've won !" she gasped. "Glory hallelujah, I've won !" and collapsed, a shaking huddle in her father's arms. After she had been restored to some measure of sanity, she explained what had happened. She had sent her picture in without her name, and she had also written a letter to say that she was sending the picture. But the picture and the letter — naturally, among the thousands received — had never found each other. A family conclave was held on the spot. "You can't get out of it now,'" cried Tallulah, half pleading, half commanding, wholly triumphant. "You've got to let me be an actress now !" "Better let the child go,"' advised her grandmother. "It'll always rankle in her heart if you don't, and you'll have her turning sour on your hands." "No," Tallulah contradicted, "it won't rankle, and I shan't turn sour. Because if you don't let me go, I'm going anyway." And since he could find no answer to that argument, her father wrote for her a letter to the fan magazine. Tallulah at sweet sixteen/ telling them that the fair unknown was his daughter. And received a courteous reply, suggesting that since they had already heard the same story from five hundred other claimants, they would be pleased to have Congressman Bankhead send them a duplicate of his daughter's photograph. Which, a little amused and a little annoyed, Congressman Bankhead did. The immediate result of all this excitement was that Tallulah, chaperoned by her aunt, went to New York and was given a small part in a film. Her first week's salary was $25, and when they gave her the check, she tore it up in a fury. Not because she thought it was too little. Far from it. But because, reared in the grand tradition, she felt herself humiliated by the notion of accepting cash in return for the sacred privilege of practising her art. "Silly as it may sound.'" she says, "the money end of it had never occurred to me. I was so grateful for the chance to act that the idea of taking money for it came as a horrible shock. It was like being tipped. I might add." she continues dryly, "that the shock wore oft. I might also add that that particular check was cashed. My wily aunt Louise picked it up from the floor, and pasted it together again." As such things have a way of doing, Tallulah's skvrocket start fizzled and died. She found herself in a blind alley. The films had nothing to offer her, and the stage not much more. She would get an occasional part that led nowhere. She lived in mortal terror of being called back home. Her family was indulgent, but there was a limit. Aunt Louise couldn't stay with her forever, and they didn't relish the notion of their little white lamb wandering afield unprotected. An independent lamb was of course another story. A lamb with a job who could support herself was in a far better strategic position than one who had to write ignominiously home for funds at the end of each week. "I thought." she said, "I should die of the agony of suspense each time I was called to read a part. I used to go to St. Patrick's and burn candles to the saints and pray desperately to God to let me have the part. I wasn't a Catholic but, as you see, my (Continued on page 104)