Monday Meme: Mistakes

Hello, dahling!

The fierce and fabulous Tallulah Bankhead serves as the inspiration for today’s Monday Meme. Unabashedly outspoken and no stranger to scandal, Bankhead is that rare actress whose status as a gay icon has truly survived. Utterly quotable and exaggerated, drag queens and old movie lovers alike have bitten Bankheads’s style for decades. After being a popular theatre actress in London’s West End, Bankhead made movies with the likes of Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock. But it was the star’s legendary personal life and off-screen antics that cemented her as a queer legend. Bankhead was rumored to have had affairs with everyone from Billie Holiday and Greta Garbo to Marlene Dietrich and Katherine Cornell. Ever the quick wit, Bankhead shrugged off the titles off “lesbian” or “bisexual” and instead called herself “ambisextrous”.  After years of partying and chain-smoking, Bankhead’s lifestyle caught up with her and she died of pneumonia at the age of 66. Today, her wild legacy endures. Her story is so glamorous and so tragic that her life has been told several times on stage and screen. She was recently played by Valerie Harper and Kathleen Turner, respectively.

So here’s to fabulously making mistakes. Tallulah, we salute you!