Tallulah Bankhead

TALLULAH BANKHEAD d1968. American actress & TV host of the 1930-40s notable for her outspoken, often outrageous and promiscuous behaviour.  A heavy drinker, she was romantically linked with many both male and female Hollywood stars of the period. Whilst she described being an actress at the time as boring, she was highly successful making $50,000 dollars per film beginning with "The Tarnished Lady" (1931). Her most acclaimed roles being in "Lifeboat" (1944) directed by Alfred Hitchcock and in Noel Coward's "Private Lives" after WW2. Her career slowed during the 1950s, but she was never out of the public eye due to her erratic stunts. On December 12th 1968, she died in St Lukes Hospital Manhattan aged 66. The cause of death was pleural pneumonia, complicated by emphysema, malnutrition and possibly a strain of the Hong Kong Flu which was running worldwide at that time. Her last coherent words reportedly were ; "Codeine ... bourbon...."