Evening star., 1942-01-18
When She Talks, Only Curtain Time Stops Her
With Talulah Bankhead Is Tempesuou Monoosue
Ranging From Sports World to the Theaer
By John Ferris,
Wide World News,
NEW YORK.

An interview with Tallulah Bank
head is a tempestuous experience,
comparable. you might say, to an
attempt to piece together the frag-
ments Of some fantastic yet elusive
dream.
Miss Bankhead has probably the
most extraordinary gift OF exhilar-
ating CAB in the American theater
To-Day. Her words flow In torrents.
while her mind ranges from politics
and world affairs to prize fights and
baseball, to President Roosevelt and
the University of Alabama football
team, to the theater and tennis,
England and the New York Giants,
travel and work and her hatred Of
the Axis powers.
At the end of an hour the inter-
viewer notes mentally that he hasn't
asked more than three or four
questions, and concludes quite
placiddy that questions weren't nee
essary. Give Tallulah cue-any
cue-and her wits race after it like
ereyhounds on the trail Of rabbit.
In the end the pursuit has been
successful in 20 directions and only
curtain time at the Belasco 1heater.
where she is appearing in Clifford
Odets' Clash by Night" a Billy
Rose production. halts her.
Done with Mirrors.
Curiously, she never seems to be
rambling. And, indeed. she isn't.
She speaks with the proper mobility
of expression. at times gentle. at
others fiery or proud or impulsive,
and with a shift of timing which
makes her monologuefor that is
what her talents make it-a compact
unity.
In this particular instance 1t was
done with mirrors. for the actress
was In her dressing room making up
for the part Of Mae Wilenski, the
drab Staten Island housewife whose
tnfidelity leads her husband to muir
der his friend. So the scene In the
dressing room resolved itself into
view OF Miss Bankheads expressive
back and the reflection OF her face.
She was slightly tired for she
doesn't sleep well. Too much nerv-
GUS energy. For three weeks while
the show was on tour before the
New York opening she had played
her part with cold which turned
into flu and then pneumonia. 50
that she had to be taken to q hos
pital In Philadelphia.
TN a way I was glad" she said.
~Once they got me into an oxygen
tent I really relaxed. 1t was de-
lcious."
Alabama's fairest daughter-her
father was the late William B.
Bankhead. Speaker of the House,
and her uncle is Senator John H.
Bankhead-has not been tempered
by time nor have the years dimmed
her luster since she turned London
topsy-turvy in the eight years 1923
1880.
Always Made News.
Born in Huntsville. Ala, she came
to New York in 1918 when she was
Is to make her debut as an actress
in SQUAD Farm" There were other
plays-"39 East" "Footloose" and
"Nice People"-before she went to
London and became legend in her
own lifetime.
Richard Nancy, the Broadway
publicist. recalled two years ago
when she played Regina Giddens in
Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes"
that the late Arnold Bennett had
"dynamited his dictionary in at
tempting to filter the frenzy which
attended a Tallulah first night In
London" And the same Lord Beav-
erbrook the publisher, who is today
Britain S minister of supply, observed
once that there were only three
names in England which always
made news-the Prince of Wales
(now Duke of Windsor, Tallulah
and George Bernard Shaw.
In her dressing room at the
Belasco she revived those years as
some of the happiest of her life.
She loves England and everything
about II. She adored the tennis