Lucy and Tallulah

Two of the most iconic actresses of the 20th century are Lucille Ball and Alabama native Tallulah Bankhead. 

Ball's career began in modeling in 1929, followed by a few years as chorus girl in various Broadway productions. She moved to Hollywood and made her first film appearance in 1933. During the 1930's and 1940's she had small or supporting roles in a number of movies, including one with the Marx Brothers and another with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and even a Three Stooges short. She also does a sexy turn as the private detective's secretary in the 1946 film noir The Dark Corner. 

In 1940 she married Cuban band leader Dezi Arnaz. By the early 1950's the two had a successful touring act with Lucy playing a housewife desperate to get into Arnaz's stage show. CBS-TV, which had already rejected a pilot from the couple, decided maybe such a program could succeed after all. I Love Lucy premiered on October 15, 1951, and the rest is history. The show became one of the most popular and influential comedies in the history of television. This show and its successors, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, and Here's Lucy, kept its star on television almost continuously until 1974. 

Tallulah Bankhead's career had a different trajectory. She was born in Huntsville on January 31, 1902, into a prominent political family. Her father, grandfather and uncle all served as U.S. Congressmen from Alabama; her aunt Marie would succeed her husband Thomas Owen as head of the state archives. She grew up mostly in Jasper or Montgomery with relatives and when older in New York. She and sister Eugenia were in and out of public, private and boarding schools in Alabama, New York and other places. 

When she was fifteen Tallulah entered a movie magazine contest hoping to win a screen test. She won, and her father reluctantly allowed her to go to New York in the company of one of her aunts. Over the next several years she played small roles in several silent films and Broadway plays. 

By 1923 she was on her own in London, and the celebrity Tallulah began to take shape. Over the next eight years she worked in a dozen plays, mostly poorly received except the 1926 London version of Sidney Howard's Pulitzer-winning They Knew What They Wanted. Yet she became one of the few people in England recognized by first name only. She was a society darling with her beauty, wit, affairs and daring outfits. One incident in particular attracted much notice. She attended a boxing match in Germany featuring fellow Alabama native Joe Louis and German Max Schmeling. Tallulah spiced up the match by shouting obscenities at the Nazis present. 

In 1931 she left the depressed theater industry in London and moved to Hollywood with a contract from Paramount Pictures. Although her costars in six films included Charles Laughton, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant, none of the movies clicked with the public. For five years in the 1930's she also appeared on Broadway, again in less than stellar productions. She tested for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, but despite interest from David O. Selznick she was ultimately deemed too old--at 34. In 1937 she married fellow actor John Emery at her grandmother's home in Jasper--but they divorced with no children in 1941.

In 1939 Tallulah's career on Broadway took a successful turn. She played Regina, the lead role in The Little Foxes, written by Lillian Hellman and based on her mother's upscale family in Demopolis. In 1942 she starred in a successful production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. Both performances won her New York Drama Critics Awards, and she toured the country in each after their Broadway runs ended. Life magazine put the actress on the cover as Regina for its March 6, 1939 issue. In 1948 her appearance in a revival of Noel Coward's Private Lives put her on the cover of Time. She also had a major role in Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 film Lifeboat; one of her co-stars was fellow Alabamian Mary Anderson.

By 1950 film and Broadway roles were becoming scarce for Tallulah as she reached age 48. She simply began another career in radio. From 1950 until 1952 she hosted the variety program The Big Show on Sunday nights. Her enthusiasm and wit, combined with guests ranging from Groucho Marx and Judy Garland to Louis Armstrong and Margaret Truman made the program a big success. Despite that, advertisers were moving to television, and when the show ended Tallulah found herself a frequent guest on variety shows there. She also wrote her autobiography, which promptly sold ten million copies.

Before her death in 1968, Tallulah had a few more stage and film roles and even played the Black Widow in a 1967 episode of Batman. She also made two appearances on different Lucille Ball shows, one in the flesh and one in spirit. Explanations are below the photos.

"Lucy Fakes Illness" broadcast on December 18, 1951, is the 16th episode of I Love Lucy's first season. Lucy claims if Ricky doesn't hire her for his nightclub act, she'll have a nervous breakdown. One of her "symptoms" is the delusion she is Tallulah Bankhead. Lucy has the look down, doesn't she? At the time of this broadcast Tallulah was in the midst of her popular radio show. 

Miss Bankhead herself appeared on the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour in "The Celebrity Next Door," a 60-minute episode broadcast on December 3, 1957.

Lucy learns that her new neighbor is Tallulah Bankhead, so she tries to impress her with a dinner party at which Fred and Ethel pose as the help. Of course, a feud erupts between Lucy and Tallulah, but by the time the episode ends Lucy has everyone participating in a PTA show at Little Ricky's school.

Bette Davis was originally slated to star as the next door celebrity, but a horseback riding accident prevented her appearance. Bankhead was second choice. The reversal seems appropriate, since Davis played Bankhead's Broadway role in the film version of The Little Foxes.

The episode is full of spicy exchanges with Lucy and responses from Tallulah; you can read a few here.

Desi, Lucy & Tallulah in the 1957 episode

Source

Alabama Photos of the Day: Carol Highsmith's Motel

For a number of years Carol Highsmith has photographed the American scene--people, places, buildings, urban, and rural. She has worked in all 50 states and has been donating her life's work, more than 100,000 images, to the Library of Congress. All of them are in the public domain free of copyright restrictions.  

In 2010 she spent time in Alabama; I have used some of those photographs on my daily bursts on Twitter account @ajwright31. You can find more than 4100 of her photos shot in the state here.

Below are four of her photographs of the Alabama Motel taken in a rural part of the state on May 9, 2010. No other identification is given. Anyone recognize this place? 

Pondering Alabama Maps (8): Shelby County in 1822 and 1825

I've written in a previous blog post "Once Shelbyville, A.T., Now Pelham" about the city's early history as the Shelby County seat. That lasted from 1817 in the Alabama Territory period until 1826, when Columbiana became the county seat. Pelham changed its name to honor Major John Pelham sometime in the 1870's.

Below the photo of the historical marker describing all this you'll find two maps of the county from 1822 and 1825. These snapshots were taken from two maps of Alabama created when the area was still in its first decade after becaming a territory and then a state. Despite this early era, the population of the county was more than 2400 in 1820 and over 5700 by 1830.

The 1822 state map was created by Fielding Lucas, Jr.[1781-1854], a successful cartographer and map publisher in Baltimore in the early 19th century. Lucas was the primary engraver on A Complete Historical, Chronological and Geographical American Atlas published by the firm of Carey & Lea in Philadelphia in 1822. This atlas was the most detailed and important one of the United States at the time of publication. A copy of that first edition is currently for sale at $14, 000, which gives some idea of its importance in the mapping history of the United States. The atlas also included extensive historical background on states, cities, etc. 

The 1825 version of Shelby County's map appeared in a German edition of the Carey and Lea atlas. The work was completely re-engraved under military and commercial cartographer Carl Ferdinand Weiland [1782-1847]. The Shelby County map is a very good copy of Lucas' but slight differences can be found. Compare the western borders of the county on each map, for instance. 

Some other blog posts about Pelham on other historical maps can be found here. You can read more about the only other county town on these maps, Wilsonville, here. 

This 1822 view of Shelby County is taken from a state map by Fielding Lucas, Jr., and published by Carey and Lea of Philadelphia.

Source: Historical Maps of Alabama

This view of Shelby County appeared in the 1825 German edition of Carey & Lea's atlas.

Source: Historical Maps of Alabama 

My Grandmother & the Progressive Farmer

After my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright died in January 1996, mom and dad cleaned out the house in Gadsden and brought lots of items home to Huntsville, from furniture to stacks of old letters and photographs. In that material was the envelope below. Let's investigate.

The Progressive Farmer was founded as a newspaper in North Carolina in 1886 with the aim of bringing the latest crop and agriculture information to farmers in the Southeast. Various changes ended in the creation of a magazine in 1908 and the establishment of a central office in Birmingham in 1911. 

In 1966 Southern Living magazine was created from the lifestyle section, and various other publications and products and ownership followed over the years. In 2007 The Progressive Farmer was sold to former advertiser DTN and continues publication with headquarters still in Birmingham. 

Many of those changes occurred after my grandmother received the pattern for these "good looking glass towels." The pattern came to her home in Gadsden; I wonder if she actually made the towels. Like many women of her generation she sewed often, so perhaps she did.

I contacted the current Progressive Farmer in hopes of finding more information about this pattern, but was told this sort of magazine history has not survived. We can assume the mailing was done before the U.S. Post Office adopted zip codes in 1963. The 1.5 cent Martha Washington stamp was issued in 1938 and used extensively into the late 1950's. I would thus suppose my grandmother received this pattern before 1960. She kept the pattern and noted "Kitchen Design" on the envelope; i recognize her writing. 

Can we imagine a time when a magazine offered free or very low cost patterns? And when they only cost a penny and a half to mail? I wonder if they were offered to subscribers only or anyone? There is no indication in this material of any charge, and I don't remember ever seeing issues of the magazine at my grandparents' house.

I did run across this site which describes women's clothing patterns once offered by The Progressive Farmer. 

Novelist L.P. Hartley began his work The Go-Between, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." Isn't that the truth.

Amos J. and Rosa Mae Wright

50th wedding anniversary October 1966; they were married on Halloween 1916

Living room of their home at 1313 Chandler Street, Gadsden

Birmingham Photo of the Day (64): Medical Alumni Building

As you drive along 20th Street in Birmingham, through the UAB campus on your way to Five Points South, this building will be on your left as you start up the hill. Don't blink or you'll miss this little concrete Art Deco gem. In my years at UAB I always heard it referred to as the Medical Alumni building. Let's investigate.

The structure was designed by architect David Willdin for the Brown-Service Funeral Home. Willdin designed many buildings in Birmingham, Gadsden and Tuscaloosa in a career that lasted from 1902 until 1961. His projects included Legion Field, the Thomas Jefferson Hotel and Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa.

In 1946 Liberty National Life Insurance bought the funeral home and sold the building to Dr. Roy Curtis Green who relocated his office. Green was born in Alabama in November 1904, attended Howard College [now Samford University] and graduated from Tulane University medical school in 1930. He completed an internship at Hillman Hospital and received his medical license in Alabama in the same year. In 1933 he married Miriam C. Walker.

I found him listed in various years of the American Medical Directory. By 1934 he had an office at 5357 1st Avenue North where it remained until he moved to this building at 811 South 20th Street. Green retired in 1981 and died in November 1990.


The University of Alabama Medical Alumni Association purchased the building in 1981, and a year of renovations followed. The location provided not only offices but meeting and banquet rooms and a library. I seem to remember going to a committee meeting of some sort there long ago but don't remember anything specific about the interior. The alumni group vacated the building around 2014. The structure is now the home of the Rose Law Firm. 

Art Deco architecture in the United States is often associated with such huge projects as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center in New York City. The style was also used for many government buildings, movie theaters, train stations and diners. Many consumer products such as automobiles and radios also adopted the sleek, futuristic design during the 1920's and 1930's. So Birmingham still has its own little piece of Art Deco near UAB. 

Here's the building as it looked in February 2018 with the Rose Law Firm sign. The white plaque on the right of the front door notes the historical designation by the Jefferson County Historical Commission. 

A slightly different view of the building in 2009 is available on the BhamWiki site.

Roy Curtis Green in 1925

Source: Ancestry.com 

Birmingham's Great Temple of Travel

The Birmingham area will have at least one sad historical event to remember in 2019--the 50th anniversary of the demolition of Terminal Station, the "Great Temple of Travel" as author Marvin Clemons has described it. After two years of construction and expenditure of some two million dollars, the elaborate station opened in April 1909. Thus a major anniversary of its opening will take place next year also. Before demolition the station had its ups and downs; you can read an overview of that history on the BhamWiki site.  

Luckily for us, local railroad history author Marvin Clemons has written a wonderful account of Terminal Station just stuffed with details and photographs. This book is a natural compliment to his earlier, broader pictorial history, Birmingham Rails: The Last Golden Era from World War II to Amtrak. Both books are available here. 

Mr. Clemons has graciously provided me with the exterior and interior photographs of Terminal Station included below. They are just a taste of the treasures included in the book of the station itself inside and out and the many trains that passed through it. Both of his books will appeal to anyone with even a slight interest in railroads or Birmingham history. He is also available for talks on the Terminal Station as the flyer below describes.

I must confess I have more nostalgia than experience when it comes to railroads. I've never ridden on a train except those mighty ones at the zoo and such. I really need to change that someday.

I suppose I have a fondness for railroads and their history not only because of their importance to Alabama and the nation, but also my grandfather Amos J. Wright, Sr. He worked for several decades as a "switchman" for the L&N Railroad in Gadsden. I remember visiting my grandparents in the summer and on weekdays my grandmother would drive him to work and come back in the afternoon to pick him up, since they only had one car. Naturally I got to go along for the ride and see the station and the trains. 

One of his duties was to make sure all empty box cars were completely cleaned out. We have a collection in the family of empty artillery shells he found there over the years.

An overview of the state's railroad history can be found in Wayne Cline's 1997 book, Alabama Railroads.

Exterior in 1957

Interior in October 1968

Interior in 1969 

Cloverdale Drive, "Jack & Jill" & Me

I've written a couple of blog posts about my family's time on Cloverdale Drive in Huntsville in the 1950's. In one I discussed a "Snowfall on Cloverdale Drive in 1958". The other explored "Sunday Afternoon on Cloverdale Drive in 1959". 

I recently came across a batch of Jack and Jill magazines sent to our house during many of the years we lived on Cloverdale Drive. Mom subscribed while I was growing up and kept it going during my younger brother Richard's early years as well. She said we both enjoyed the monthly collections of stories and puzzles aimed at younger children.

The magazine, which at that time billed itself as "The Better Magazine for Boys and Girls" and by 1960 as "The Exciting Magazine for Young Boys and Girls," is still being published. Issues included fiction, stories to be read aloud, "Things to Do" such as recipes and mazes, and so on. Looking at a random issue, February 1960, I note a "Huckleberry Hound" comic based on the popular TV show. Other issues included TV-related stories on Captain Kangaroo and an upcoming Shirley Temple Christmas special.

As I was going through this fascinating material, I noticed something interesting about the address labels on some of them. For instance, the August 1958 issue shown below has us living at 142 Cloverdale; by April 1959 we were at 4220. We certainly didn't move, so what happened?

I recently asked mom about this mystery, and she suggested a possible solution. She said that some point after we moved into the neighborhood, streets were extended and houses renumbered. That would make sense, given Huntsville's explosive growth while we lived in that house. In 1950 the population of the town was just over 16,400. By 1960 it was 72, 365--an increase of more than 340%.

As the maps below indicate, the house and neighborhood are still there in northwest Huntsville. According to a couple of realty sites, the house is 1006 square feet and was built in 1955. 

Here's a photo of the Cloverdale house in a 1958 snowstorm. 

Here mom and I are standing in front of the house in 1959.