Quotes by Tallulah Bankhead

“I was raped in a driveway when I was eleven. … It was a terrible experience because we had all that gravel.”

“No man worth his salt, no man of spirit and spine, no man for whom I could have any respect, could rejoice in the identification of Tallulah's husband. It's tough enough to be bogged down in a lege...”

“It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work — the night watchman.”

“If you really want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, dahling. Be an audience.”

“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.”

“Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know — I've been using it for years.”

“There's less in this than meets the eye.”

“My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine.”

“Going down on a woman gives me a stiff neck, going down on a man gives me lockjaw, and conventional sex gives me claustrophobia.”

“I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me.”

“The most outrageous actress on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line is indisputably Tallulah Bankhead. With a career that spanned fifty years, she appeared in fifty-one plays, eighteen movies, and m...”

“Tallulah Bankhead is a wicked archangel with her flowing ash-blonde hair and carven features. Her profile is perfectly Grecian, flow of line from forehead to nose like the head on a medallion. ... ...”

“That's because Tallulah's always skating on thin ice, and they want to be there when it breaks.”

“On The Little Foxes I begged the producer, Samuel Goldwyn, to let Tallulah Bankhead play Regina because Tallulah was magnificent on the stage. He wouldn't let her. … A great admirer of hers, I want...”

“A day away from Tallulah is like a month in the country.”

“But everybody loves Tallulah! Who'd have the heart not to!”

“The whole point about Tallulah was that she had no inhibitions. Now some people can take this, others can't.”

“Tallulah never bored anyone, and I consider that humanitarianism of a very high order indeed.”

“My first memory of the great lady — for that she was, above all — was a college boy invitation I sent her to attend the Yale-Princeton game. Never a thought entered my mind that the lady would answ...”

“She was magnificent. There ain't nobody like her. In her heyday nobody had a bigger ball. She had that magnificent beauty that is ugly in a funny way. Judith Anderson and Laurette Taylor had it too...”