Charlotte went ‘off its rocker’ for Tallulah

“Tallulah [Bankhead]’s last ‘Private Lives’ tour [in 1950] was blighted by her dissipation…drinking, sniffing cocaine and smoking pot.

“But the show again did sensational business.  ‘A box office riot,’ Variety reported from Charlotte, North Carolina. ‘Town has gone off its rocker.’  Tallulah’s… performance had been sold out weeks in advance. Tallulah had said she wouldn’t do two performances on a one-day stop, but after the mayor appealed to her, she agreed to to add a matinee.”

— From “Tallulah! The Life and Times of a Leading Lady” (2008) by Joel Lobenthal

“Looped,” starring Valerie Harper as Tallulah circa 1965, opened this week on Broadway.

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