BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:PEOPLE

**   
TALLULAH BANKHEAD IN A PUBLIC BATHROOM

"In a public toilet devoid of tissue, Tallulah called 
to the woman in the next stall: 'I beg your pardon, 
darling, do you have any toilet tissue?' 'No,' replied 
the woman. 'Well, then, darling,' Tallulah said,
'do you have two fives for  a ten?''

Denis Brian. Tallulah, Darling (New York: MacMillan 
Publishing Company, 1980)
**
THE GREAT HOUDINI

Famed magician and escapologist Harry Houdini was quite an animal lover. He owned several dogs, as well as an eagle named Abraham Lincoln. Billed as "the only tame eagle in the world," Abraham Lincoln accompanied Houdini on tour and appeared in a patriotic show at the Hippodrome in New York City. Each night, the eagle would emerge from the folds of an American flag.
Source: Wild About Houdini
History quiz--March 14, 2023

**
THE GREAT SARAH BERNHARDT

In an unsigned article in The Economist (April 15th, 2023). the columnist claimed that Satah Bernhardt was the first modern celebrity:
"She owned a vast menagerie of exotic animals which included a cheetah and an alligator, and kept a satin-lined coffin in her bedroom in which she sometimes slept. It was Bernhardt herself who provided the press with a photograph of the coffin, for she understood the importance of self-mythologising. She cannily took advantage of the latest technology to disseminate her image around the world."
**
**
A brief description of Winston Churchill:

"He was at home with lightning.'
Leo Rosten.

**
WINSTON CHURCHILL & ETHEL BARRYMORE

"Churchill had fallen in love with Ethel Barrymore 
when he was a member of parliament in his twenties 
and she was a teenage actress on the London stage. 
Churchill arranged for Ethel to meet Neville Chamberlain 
and Lord Roseberry at a dinner party, as a test, to 
see if she would enjoy living in a political atmosphere 
and listening to political conversation. The trial-run
 was a mistake. Ethel was bored and turned down his 
marriage proposal. But they remained life-long friends."

Denis Brian. Tallulah,Darling (New York: MacMillan 
Publishing Co., 1980)
**

*
THE POET MAKES A DESPERATE ATTEMPT
TO MAKE MONEY FROM CLERIHEW WRITING
 
Eartha Kitt –
I wonder if she ever got caught
In flagrante delicto with Orson Welles?
(I know this is stupid, but celebrity gossip sells!)

**


JESSE JAMES

“He was honest except when he went out to rob 
(there was no paradox in that to him,).”
 
                  Homer Croy. Jesse James Was my Neighbor.

**
BABE PALEY AND HER HUSBAND WILLIAM S. PALEY

“When we read of Babe Paley’s being driven by her 
chauffeur to Kennedy Airport  so that she can pick up the
freshly shot game bird she has had flown in frown Europe
for her husband’s dinner, our disappointment at being financially incapable of this sort of thing is exactly 
balanced by our satisfaction in feeling morally incapable
 of it as well.”

Louis Menand.  “The Last Emperor: William S. Paley” in
American Studies (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,2002)
**

JANET FLANNER (Who wrote for The New Yorker under the pen name Genet)

“The nom de plume of Genet was given me by Ross without 
asking me first…Owing to Ross’s speaking no printable 
French he did not know that Genet was the broom-flower, 
a civet cat, and also a jennet , which  is a small Spanish horse, as well as a not very reliable French journalist
 who after the French Revolution was the first 
Franco-American Gazeteer.”

CURRENT BIOGRAPHY (March 1943)

**
**
MAX BEERBOHM HAS LUNCH WITH GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

“In 1906 Max lunched with him to meet Mark Twain, 
on a visit to England. Lunch was scarcely over 
when Shaw jumped up and left,saying that he had 
an appointment with his dentist. Was this the way, 
Max exclaimed to Florence, to treat an aged and 
distinguished author from hospitable America! 
Nor could he reconcile himself to Shaw’s appearance. 
‘He had a temperance beverage face,’ he said altogether 
Shaw was too much of a good thing.”

*Florence was Beerbohm’s wife

**
V.S. NAIPAUL

I invited V.
S. Naipaul to be interviewed on TV.
But he did not R.S.V.
P. because he was reading Pynchon's V.

**
HENRY FUSELI

Henry Fuseli --
I wanted to write something silly
For Henry,
But right now I feel too ornery.

LJP