Miss Tallulah Bankhead

Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born on January 31, 1902 in Huntsville, Alabama. Her father was a mover and shaker in the Democratic Party who served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from June 4, 1936, to September 16, 1940. Tallulah had been interested in acting and, at age 15, started her stage career in the local theater troupes of Huntsville and the surrounding areas. At age 16, she won a beauty contest and, bolstered by this achievement, moved to New York City to live with her aunt and to try her hand at Broadway. She was offered a role in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), but did not take it after she refused John Barrymore's invitation for a visit to the casting couch. Unfortunately, for the young Miss Bankhead, she did not make any headway on the stages of New York, so she pulled up stakes and moved to London, in 1923, to try her luck there.

For the next several years, she was the most popular actress of London's famed West End, the British equivalent of Broadway. After starring in several well-received plays, she gained the attention of Paramount Pictures executives and returned to the United States to try her hand at the film world. Her first two films, Woman's Law (1927) and His House in Order (1928), did not exactly set the world on fire, so she returned to do more stage work. She tried film work again with Tarnished Lady (1931), where she played Nancy Courtney, a woman who marries for money but ultimately gets bored with her husband and leaves him, only to come back to him when he is broke. The critics gave it a mixed reception. Tallulah's personality did not shine on film as Paramount executives had hoped. She tried again with My Sin (1931) as a woman with a secret past about to marry into money. Later that year, she made The Cheat (1931), playing Elsa Carlyle, a woman who sold herself to a wealthy Oriental merchant who brands her like she was his own property and is subsequently murdered. The next year, she shot Thunder Below (1932), Faithless (1932), Make Me a Star (1932) (she had a cameo role along with several other Paramount stars) and Devil and the Deep (1932). The latter film was a star-studded affair that made money at the box-office due to the cast (Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton and newcomer Cary Grant). The films she was making just did not do her talent any justice, so it was back to Broadway--she did not make another film for 11 years. She toured nationally, performing in all but three states.

She was also a big hit at social affairs, where she often shocked the staid members of that society with her "untraditional" behavior. She chain-smoked and enjoyed more than her share of Kentucky bourbon, and made it a "habit" to take her clothes off and chat in the nude. A friend and fellow actress remarked on one occasion, "Tallulah dear, why are you always taking your clothes off? You have such lovely frocks." She was also famous--or infamous--for throwing wild parties that would last for days. She returned to films in 1943 with a cameo in Stage Door Canteen (1943), but it was Lifeboat (1944) for director Alfred Hitchcock that put her back into the limelight. However, the limelight did not shine for long. After shooting A Royal Scandal (1945) she did not appear on film again until she landed a role in Die! Die! My Darling! (1965). Her film and small-screen work consisted of a few TV spots and the voice of the Sea Witch in the animated film The Daydreamer (1966), so she went back to the stage, which had always been first and foremost in her heart. To Tallulah, there was nothing like a live audience to perform for, because they, always, showed a lot of gratitude. On December 12, 1968, Tallulah Bankhead died at age 66 of pneumonia in her beloved New York City. While she made most of her fame on the stages of the world, the film industry and its history became richer because of her talent and her very colorful personality. Today her phrase, "Hello, Dahling" is known throughout the entertainment world.

Actress (24 credits)

 1967Batman (TV Series)
Black Widow

- Caught in the Spider's Den (1967) ... Black Widow (as Miss Tallulah Bankhead)

- Black Widow Strikes Again (1967) ... Black Widow (as Miss Tallulah Bankhead)

 1966The Daydreamer
The Sea Witch (voice)

 1965The Red Skelton Hour (TV Series)
Mme. Fragrant

- A Jerk of All Trades (1965) ... Mme. Fragrant

 1965Die! Die! My Darling!
Mrs. Trefoile

 1954-1962The United States Steel Hour (TV Series)
Lillian Throgmorton / Hedda Gabler

- A Man for Oona (1962) ... Lillian Throgmorton

- Hedda Gabler (1954) ... Hedda Gabler

 1957General Electric Theater (TV Series)
Katherine Belmont

- Eyes of a Stranger (1957) ... Katherine Belmont

 1957Schlitz Playhouse (TV Series)
Jessie Baxter

- The Hole Card (1957) ... Jessie Baxter

 1953Main Street to Broadway
Talulah Bankhead

 1945A Royal Scandal
Catherine the Great

 1944Lifeboat
Connie Porter

 1943Stage Door Canteen
Tallulah Bankhead

 1932Faithless
Carol Morgan

 1932Devil and the Deep
Diana Sturm

 1932Make Me a Star
Tallulah Bankhead (uncredited)

 1932Thunder Below
Susan

 1931The Cheat
Elsa Carlyle

 1931My Sin
Carlotta / Ann Trevor

 1931Tarnished Lady
Nancy Courtney

 1929Her Cardboard Lover (Short) 

 1928His House in Order
Nina Graham

 1919The Trap
Helen Carson

 1918Thirty a Week
Barbara Wright (uncredited)

 1918When Men Betray
Alice Edwards (uncredited)

 1918Who Loved Him Best?
Nell

Hide Self (24 credits)

 1962-1968The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (TV Series)
Herself - Guest / Herself

- Episode #7.98 (1968) ... Herself

- Episode #7.97 (1968) ... Herself - Guest

- Episode #4.106 (1965) ... Herself - Guest

- Episode #2.107 (1963) ... Herself - Guest

- Episode #1.2 (1962) ... Herself

 1965-1968The Merv Griffin Show (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode dated 30 January 1968 (1968) ... Herself

- Episode dated 4 February 1966 (1966)

- Episode #2.32 (1965) ... Herself

 1967The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #2.14 (1967) ... Herself

 1967Stars for Israel (TV Movie)
Herself

 1966The Andy Williams Show (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #4.23 (1966) ... Herself

 1961-1965What's My Line? (TV Series)
Herself - Mystery Guest

- Episode dated 6 June 1965 (1965) ... Herself - Mystery Guest

- Episode dated 12 February 1961 (1961) ... Herself - Mystery Guest

 1961The 15th Annual Tony Awards (TV Special)
Herself - Nominee: Best Actress (Dramatic)

 1960Gala Adlai on Broadway (TV Movie)
Herself - Performer

 1958-1959The Jack Paar Tonight Show (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #3.66 (1959) ... Herself

- Episode #2.158 (1959) ... Herself

- Episode #2.56 (1958) ... Herself

 1959The Big Party (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #1.1 (1959) ... Herself

 1959The Ed Sullivan Show (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #12.31 (1959) ... Herself

 1959The Milton Berle Show (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode dated 7 January 1959 (1959) ... Herself

 1957The Arthur Murray Party (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #8.24 (1957) ... Herself

- Episode #8.23 (1957) ... Herself

- Episode #8.16 (1957) ... Herself

 1957The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (TV Series)
Herself

- The Celebrity Next Door (1957) ... Herself

 1957The Polly Bergen Show (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #1.6 (1957) ... Herself

 1957The George Gobel Show (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #4.2 (1957) ... Herself

 1957The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (TV Series)
Herself - Guest

- Episode #2.30 (1957) ... Herself - Guest

 1957Shower of Stars (TV Series)
Herself

- Jazz Time (1957) ... Herself

 1955The Martha Raye Show (TV Series)
Herself

- Episode #3.1 (1955) ... Herself

 1954The Colgate Comedy Hour (TV Series)
Herself - Actress

- Episode #4.19 (1954) ... Herself - Actress

 1953Person to Person (TV Series documentary)
Herself - Actress

- Episode #1.8 (1953) ... Herself - Actress

 1953Texaco Star Theatre (TV Series)
Herself - Actress

- Episode #6.5 (1953) ... Herself - Actress

- Episode #6.1 (1953) ... Herself - Actress

 1952-1953All Star Revue (TV Series)
Herself - Hostess / Herself / Herself - Host / ...

- Episode #3.33 (1953) ... Herself

- Episode #3.28 (1953) ... Herself - Host / Actress (Sketch)

- Episode #3.23 (1953) ... Herself - Hostess

- Episode #3.19 (1953) ... Herself - Hostess / Nurse Edith Cavell (Sketch)

- Episode #3.16 (1952) ... Herself - Hostess

Show all 7 episodes

 1933Hollywood on Parade No. A-6 (Short)
Herself (uncredited)

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

Biography

Showing all 30 items

Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (3) | Trivia (10) | Personal Quotes (11) | Salary (1)

Overview (4)

Date of Birth	27 February 1902, Salinas, California, USA
Date of Death	20 December 1968, New York City, New York, USA  (heart disease)
Birth Name	John Ernst Steinbeck
Height	6' (1.83 m)

Mini Bio (1)

John Steinbeck was the third of four children and the only son born to John Ernst and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. His father was County Treasurer and his mother, a former schoolteacher. John graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and attended classes at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 without a degree. He was variously employed as a sales clerk, farm laborer, ranch hand and factory worker. In 1925, he traveled by freight from Los Angeles to New York, where he was a construction worker. From 1926-1928, he was a caretaker in Lake Tahoe, CA. His first novel, "Cup of Gold," was published in 1929. During the 1930s, he produced most of his famous novels ("To a God Unknown," "Tortilla Flat," "In Dubious Battle," "Of Mice and Men," and his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Grapes of Wrath"). In 1941, he moved with the singer who would become his second wife to New York City. They had two sons, Thom (b. 1944) and John IV (b. 1946). In 1948, his close friend Ed Ricketts died, he went through a divorce, he took a a tour of Russia, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His wrote the screenplay for Viva Zapata! (1952), and 17 of his works have been made into movies. He received three Academy Award nominations. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. US President Lyndon Johnson awarded him the United States Medal of Freedom in 1964, and he was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp on what would have been his 75th birthday. His ashes lie in Garden of Memories Cemetery in Salinas.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

Spouse (3)

Elaine Anderson	(28 December 1950 - 20 December 1968) (his death)
Gwyndolyn Conger	(29 March 1943 - 1948) (divorced) (2 children)
Carol Henning	(14 January 1930 - 18 March 1943) (divorced)

Trivia (10)

Born at 3:00pm-PST.

His novella "Sweet Thursday," a sequel to his classic "Cannery Row," is based on the original book he wrote for the 1955 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musical, "Pipe Dream." Although it won five 1956 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for 246 performances, "Pipe Dreams" is considered one of their least successful shows, just as the book itself is considered one of Steinbeck's weaker works. "Sweet Thursday" also serves as the basis for David S. Ward's film Cannery Row (1982), as the story, plot, and characters rely more on the former rather than the latter.

According to his biographer Jay Parini and the New York Times, Steinbeck in the mid-1990s was the most popular deceased American writer, with 750,00 copies of his works selling annually. His popularity has not diminished over the years but has rather increased, particularly after Oprah Winfrey made his "East of Eden" the first selection of her revived book club in 2003. The book immediately became the #2 bestseller on amazon.com, and Steinbeck's publisher, Penguin Group USA, printed 600,000 new copies. Normally, the book sells fewer than 50,000 copies annually. It is a remarkable phenomenon considering that the book originally was a #1 best seller when it was published in 1952!.

Steinbeck, one of the seminal American authors of the 20th century, was humiliated when the N.Y. Times excoriated the Swedish Academy for naming him the winner of the Nobel Prize Literature for 1962, saying there were more deserving writers to honor. Humble and blunt, when asked whether he deserved it at his press conference after receiving the news of the prize, he answered, "No." The criticism that he was undeserving of literature's greatest prize was soon picked up by the American literati, further compounding the wound. While Steinbeck had been enormously popular in his home country, penning four #1 best sellers, his critical reputation had sagged since the mid-1940s. However, he had remained a highly respected author outside the U.S., particularly among those who enjoyed his harsh critique of American materialism, although he was bewildered by foreign fans who still believed that the U.S. was the Depression-era America he had described in the 1930s. He was particularly beloved by Scandinavians for his WWII novella "The Moon is Down," a 1942 propaganda piece about the Norwegian resistance. In fact, so high was his esteem, he was singled out for extra-special treatment during the Stockholm ceremonies. Though that pleased him, he remained bitter about the criticism his fellow Americans had put him through until the end of his life.

Two sons with 2nd wife: Thom and John IV. Only Thom survives as of this writing (June 2005). He has recently published a book of short-stories, and is said to be working on a novel.

Steinbeck, a noted liberal whom the government suspected was a member of the Communist Party, was outraged by what he regarded as director Alfred Hitchcock's racism as manifested in his condescension towards the George 'Joe' Spencer character played by Canada Lee in Lifeboat (1944).

Was denied a military commission during World War II due to his left-wing politics. His future collaborator, Elia Kazan, similarly was turned down during the war due to his own political beliefs. Both served the war effort in a civilian capacity, Steinbeck as a journalist and propagandist.

One of the few Nobel laureates for literature to be nominated for an Academy Award for writing. Steinbeck was nominated three times for Lifeboat (1944), A Medal for Benny (1945) (with Jack Wagner) and Viva Zapata! (1952). Other Oscar-nominated Nobel laureates include George Bernard Shaw, who won an Oscar for Pygmalion (1938), as well as Jean-Paul Sartre and Harold Pinter.

The stage version for "Of Mice and Men" was awarded the 1977 Joseph Jefferson Citation for Play Production at the Wisdom Bridge Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.

Through his ancestors John Rolfe and Mary Sculliard is a seventh cousin twice removed of Barack Obama.

Personal Quotes (11)

A man on a horse is spiritually, as well as physically, bigger than a man on foot.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, and then steps in it.

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why then do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid stable business.

[advice to his young son] There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you - of kindness and consideration and respect - not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak, but the second can release in you strength and courage and goodness, and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

It is a common experience that a problem, difficult at night, is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quick vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

Salary (1)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Writer (49 credits)  The Log from the Sea of Cortez (book) (announced)   2016In Dubious Battle (novel)   2015The Grapes of Wrath: We Shall Overcome (Documentary) (novel)   2014Of Mice and Men   2001The Pearl (novel "The Pearl")   1992Of Mice and Men (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1991American Playhouse (TV Series) (novel "The Grapes of Wrath" - 1 episode) - The Grapes of Wrath (1991) ... (novel "The Grapes of Wrath")  1983The Winter of Our Discontent (TV Movie) (novel "The Winter of Our Discontent")   1982Cannery Row (novels "Cannery Row" and "Sweet Thursday")   1981Of Mice and Men (TV Movie) (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1981East of Eden (TV Mini-Series) (novel - 3 episodes) - Part Three (1981) ... (novel) - Part Two (1981) ... (novel) - Part One (1981) ... (novel)  1977Hiiriä ja ihmisiä (TV Movie) (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1977Möss och människor (TV Movie) (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1977Anthropoi kai pontikia (TV Movie) (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1975Of Mice and Men (TV Movie) (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1973The Red Pony (TV Movie) (novel "The Red Pony")   1972Topoli (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1971Des souris et des hommes (TV Movie) (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1971The Harness (TV Movie) (story)   1968Von Mäusen und Menschen (TV Movie) (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1968Of Mice and Men (TV Movie) (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1967A Pérola (TV Movie)   TV de Vanguarda (TV Series) (novel - 2 episodes, 1953 - 1963) (story - 1 episode, 1954) - Ratos e Homens (1963) ... (novel) - Noite Sem Lua (1954) ... (story) - De Ratos e Homens (1953) ... (novel)  1962Helmi (TV Movie) (novel)   1962A World for You and Me (novel "Of Mice and Men")   1960The Robert Herridge Theater (TV Series) (story - 1 episode) - The Chrysanthemums (1960) ... (story)  1959Play of the Week (TV Series) (play "Burning Bright" - 1 episode) - Burning Bright (1959) ... (play "Burning Bright")  1957Matinee Theatre (TV Series) (novel - 1 episode) - Molly Morgan (1957) ... (novel)  1957The Wayward Bus (novel "The Wayward Bus")   1957Livsflammen (TV Movie)   1957Grande Teatro Tupi (TV Series) (novel - 1 episode) - Ratos e Homens (1957) ... (novel)  1956Studio One in Hollywood (TV Series) (story - 1 episode) - Flight (1956) ... (story)  1955East of Eden (novel "East of Eden")   1954Lux Video Theatre (TV Series) (story - 1 episode) - A Medal for Benny (1954) ... (story)  1954Light's Diamond Jubilee (TV Movie documentary) (story)   1954Omnibus (TV Series) (story - 3 episodes) - The House (1954) ... (story) - Nothing So Monstrous (1954) ... (story) - Nobody's Fool (1954) ... (story)  1952Curtain Call (TV Series) (story - 1 episode) - The Promise (1952) ... (story)  1952Viva Zapata!   1950Nash Airflyte Theatre (TV Series) (story - 1 episode) - Molly Morgan (1950) ... (story)  1949The Red Pony (by) / (screen play)   1947The Pearl (original story)   1947The Pearl (novella "The Pearl") / (original story) / (screenplay)   1945A Medal for Benny (story)   1944Lifeboat (by)   1943The Moon Is Down (novel "The Moon Is Down")   1942Tortilla Flat (based on the book by)   1941The Forgotten Village (Documentary) (screenplay) / (story)   1940The Grapes of Wrath (based on the novel by)   1939Of Mice and Men (by)

$75,000 (film rights)