Camped Crusader Cameo!

I thought I had seen, or maybe I thought I had remembered, all of the guest villians from the late 1960's Batman series. This great casting/fawning to the stars of stage and screen (Ethel Merman, Victor Buono, Vincent Price and Van Johnson), earlier television (Art Carney and Milton Berle), or pure wild cards (such as Joan Collins, Zsa Zsa Gabor or Roddy McDowell) makes the series just as outrageous as the "KAPOWS" splattered across the screen in fight scenes.

This evening, in my stroll through cable channels, I caught an episode featuring the Black Widow. I must admit, if I have seen this episode before, I don't remember it. As far as episodes go, not much, but a whole lot of Tallulah Bankhead to make up for it. I didn't recognize her, I kept running true classic movie actresses through my mind trying to make a match! It was only until I saw the credits, that duh, of course, I recognized her.

Born of an Alabama politcal family, Tallulah's grandfater and uncle were US Senators and her father eventually became speaker of the US House of Representatives. Leaving the South for New York in her teens, she had a little luck on Broadway. It was the West End where she made her mark, starting in The Dancers. She did have later successes on Broadway in Little Foxes, the Skin of Our Teeth and Private Lives, but her career on stage and screen seemed to be either hit or miss. She played her best character in real life. After 1950, as a character none other than Tallulah, she became the successful host of a radio show, published a best selling memoir and made appearances on talk shows. Given what we know now, by the 1960's her life was marked with substance abuse and physical breakdown, it is amazing that she could even guest star on Batman.

Ms. Bankhead starred in Lifeboat, where the director, Alfred Hitchcock was the less the guest star and more the King of Cameos in his own films. From the Lodger to Family Plot, Mr. Hitchcock would appear for a few moments on film, sometimes even carrying a Bass in a case or as a newspaper photograph. Hitchcock's cameos became something to look for in his movies, an expected event that occurred along with a few red herrings or plot twists. Sometimes being the inside joke and also getting to tell it, makes the rest of life and work so much more satisfying.