"A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth." -- John Singer Sargent

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Tallulah Bankhead


This 1930 portrait of Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968 ) hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.
"Renowned for her sultry voice and languorous sophistication, Tallulah Bankhead exuded magnetism 'a remarkable personality with a remarkable name,' to one enchanted critic. She performed not only in America but on the London stage, where she was painted by Augustus John: 'At the time, I was the toast of London and that was some toast, dahling.' She twice won the New York Drama Critics Award, as Regina in The Little Foxes in 1939, and as Sabina in The Skin of Our Teeth in 1942. In the late 1940s, Time magazine called her 'the the­ater's first personality.' But her career spanned the media as well: in Hollywood, she notably starred in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944); on radio billed as 'the glamorous, unpredictable Tallulah Bankhead' she emceed NBC's Sunday-night The Big Show (1950­51). On television, she co-hosted All Star Review and was a popular guest on I Love Lucy and The Jack Benny Show." -- National Portrait Gallery

 The Library of Congress has this January 1934 photo of Tallulah Bankhead by Carl Van Vechten.


and this shot from the same session.



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