Tallulah Bankhead

Biography

Tallulah Bankhead was an American actress who built a career on the stage and worked in film, radio, and television. Born in Huntsville, Alabama, she began in silent films before making her New York stage debut in 1919 in The Squab Farm at the Bijou Theatre. After moving to London, she appeared in more than a dozen plays there, gaining fame in Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted, which won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize. She returned to the United States and won acclaim on Broadway as Regina in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes and as Sabina in Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, earning Variety and New York Drama Critics awards. Alfred Hitchcock cast her in Lifeboat (1944), her most successful film, and she won the New York Film Critics Circle award for it. She received a Tony nomination for Midgie Purvis (1961), wrote a bestselling autobiography, and made her last film, Fanatic (1965). She died in 1968.

66years old at death

Born January 31, 1902Huntsville
Died December 12, 1968New York City
Star sign: AquariusThe sign runs January 20 to February 18
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (birth name)

Movie Career

Films: 5
Career span: 34 years1931 to 1965

Every film, newest first

1965FanaticIMDb rating 6.3
1953Main Street to BroadwayIMDb rating 6.0
1944LifeboatIMDb rating 7.6
1943Stage Door CanteenIMDb rating 6.3
1931My SinIMDb rating 6.5

Genres

Photos

Did you know?!

A first
Bankhead was the first white woman on the cover of Ebony magazine. Only a handful of actresses, and no other stage actress, have appeared on the covers of both Time and Life.
A role that slipped away
Bankhead turned down the role of Blanche DuBois in the original production of A Streetcar Named Desire, though she later played the part in a 1956 revival.
Behind the camera
Bankhead wrote an autobiography called Tallulah: My Autobiography, which was a bestseller. Harper & Bros. published the book in 1952.