Tallulah Bankhead

Tallulah Bankhead ended her biography with, "I've lived to the bilt. I've soared in the clouds and touched bottom. Much as I like to idle, I know I have to carry on or perish. I have a tiger by the tail." Bryony Lavery's funny and affectionate Outline takes you for a ride through Bankhead's extraordinary party-going, dirty-talking, hard-loving life as a glamorous, promiscuous actress from New York, through London in the twenties, the early years of Hollywood and the great years of American radio. This is the woman who said of sex: "My family warned me about men; but they never thought to mention women!, " of drugs: "Cocaine isn't habit-forming: I should know, I've been taking it for years!" and of publicity: "It doesn't matter what they say darling, as long as they talk!"