LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Tallulah Bankhead: Father
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Bankhead came from a powerful Democratic political family in the South in general and Alabama in particular. Her father was the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1936-1940 (in the 74th, 75th, and 76th Congresses), immediately preceding Sam Rayburn. She was the niece of Senator John H. Bankhead II, and granddaughter of Senator John H. Bankhead. Bankhead herself was a Democrat, albeit one of a more liberal stripe than the rest of her family.
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Politics was not the only passion that Tallulah inherited from her father—as a very young man, he had gone to Boston to try his luck as an actor. (He was hauled back home by a no-nonsense letter from his mother.) Even as a little girl, Tallulah was crazy to perform, and frequently when Will, somewhat the worse for drink, drifted home with his pals, he would lift her up onto the dining-room table and have her entertain the boys with risqué songs. She revelled in it. A plump child with startlingly gold hair, Tallulah was an exhibitionist from the beginning.
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Around 1918, she moved into an apartment with actress Bijou Martin, whose wild parties introduced Bankhead to cocaine and marijuana. She did abstain from drinking, only because she had promised her father that she would stay away from alcohol. (Later she drank, to the detriment of her health.)
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