To be stranded on the open seas alongside Tallulah Bankhead would be a fate well worth the uncertain aftermath. While most actresses of the golden age were swept along with the current created by ambitious cinematographers, here was a force that unconsciously rebelled against all accepted traditions: robust and dominating, with a presence so intoxicating that all eyes – even those behind the camera – were immediately hypnotized by her splendor. Considered at the time to be the most popular stage actress of her generation, the audience’s love affair with her on the big screen was, alas, a brief one; outside her starring role in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat,” a descent into the world of cinema included only a small handful of bit roles and cameos, not to mention a few isolated television appearances. Some, perhaps deservingly, chock that reality up to her stylistic resemblance to Bette Davis; already occupying the limelight as an eccentric beauty in full command of powerful abilities by the 1940s, Davis’ success cast a shadow that Bankhead probably had little chance of escaping from. Now her name drifts through the mind of most of today’s moviegoers like an unknown whisper, but her impact carries a distinct echo. The most famous of these relics: the villainess Cruella DeVille at the center of Disney’s “101 Dalmatians,” who was directly inspired by the late diva’s frank and often enthusiastic delivery of courtesies and euphemisms.
