I've done a few other posts on actress Tallulah Bankhead, including one on the 1944 Alfred Hitchcock film Lifeboat, in which she appeared with another Alabama native, Mary Anderson. I've also written about Tallulah and Lucille Ball, her appearance in a two-part Batman TV episode and with Robert Young in the 1932 film Faithless. I've covered her 1941 performance in Birmingham with the touring company of "The Little Foxes", which also discusses other theatrical appearances in Alabama by Bankhead. Finally, I wrote about a visit to her father William's home in Jasper, where she was married to actor John Emery on August 31, 1937.
Now we come to her 1942 appearances in her home state, apparently in Jasper and Birmingham. In much of that year she was between two major theatrical projects. She had acted in Clifford Odet's drama "Clash by Night" in which she played a working-class housewife. Can you imagine? The play ran on Broadway from late December 1941 until early February 1942. Later in the year she opened in Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth" in November 1942.
During 1942 Bankhead worked on several projects to raise money for the war effort. On January 18 she made appearances urging the public to buy war bonds. On April 5 she teamed up with Danny Kaye at La Martinique in New York and for $10,000 that went to defense bonds she performed as the schoolteacher in "The Corn is Green", a role made famous by Ethel Barrymore. The evening included a personal $5000 donation for bonds. Her 1942 appearances in Alabama may have been more fund raising.
Tallulah also did some similar work on radio in 1942. "War Bond Drive" a radio broadcast on NBC on April 11 included Bankhead among several other stage & screen stars who read pledges from listeners. On "Listen, America" another broadcast on NBC on April 26, Bankhead read Carl Bixby's "The Roots of a Tree", which he had written for her.
Bankhead's father had died in September 1940 and her trips back to Alabama seem to have gotten fewer after those in 1941 and 1942. She had many relatives around Jasper, but her outrageous behavior over the years had scandalized them and other conversative residents of the state. However, when she did return Tallulah drew crowds!
There's another interesting item from 1942 involving both Bankhead and fellow Alabama native Joe Louis. That spring she declared Louis to be the "greatest man in the United States" after Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her comments attracted significant press coverage; you can read one of the articles below.
All photos below were taken by Ed Jones of the Birmingham News.
Library of Congress collection
Chronicling America
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