The first time Eileen Bowman saw Tallulah Bankhead she was “probably 8 or 9” years old and watching a rerun of “The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Comedy Hour,” a short-lived TV sequel to the classic “I Love Lucy” sitcom.
The episode’s guest star was Bankhead, the stage and screen actress known as much for her outrageous unconventionality as for her craft.
“I remember watching her with Lucille Ball, my idol, and thinking ‘Wow! This woman is going toe to toe with Lucy,’” Bowman said. “I call her a beautiful tsunami. That’s who she is.”
Nearly a decade after portraying Judy Garland in an Intrepid Theatre Co. production of Peter Quilter’s “End of the Rainbow,” Bowman is now playing Tallulah Bankhead in the Roustabouts Theatre Company staging of Matthew Lombardo’s “Looped.”
Set in 1965, the play finds an inebriated Bankhead in a sound studio where she’s been asked to loop, or re-record, a line of dialogue for a film, much to the exasperation of a young film editor (Alex Guzman). The play is based on a real-life incident, when it took eight hours for the intoxicated Bankhead to loop her lines for the movie “Die! Die! My Darling!” The play had a Broadway production in 2010 starring “Rhoda” TV star Valerie Harper, who earned a Tony nomination for her performance.
The husky-voiced Bankhead was known for abusing both alcohol and drugs, cocaine in particular. Those obsessions were rivaled by her voracious sexual appetite and heavy cigarette smoking, reportedly up to six packs a day.
But she was also a true, highly quotable, larger-than-life personality who loved to call everyone “darling.”
“I’m excited to embody her,” said Bowman. “She was, as my dad said, one of the finest actresses that ever was onstage or on screen. Her behavior off camera, off stage, unfortunately, that’s what many people remember her for.
“It all stemmed from ‘I need attention.’ She was one of those people who takes the air out of a room.”
Bankhead, however, was also a public figure who involved herself in the civil rights movement and was an advocate for foster children.
“Looped,” Bowman said, shows this side of Bankhead, an aspect of her that’s less well known.
“The beautiful thing about this show is that the author (Lombardo) really had a love for her,” Bowman said. “She ends up taking care of this young man. Before she leaves that (recording) room she’s going to make him a better person. She’ll make him stronger because she’s strong.
“The play gives her a chance to make it right, especially with this young man. It’s her crawling out of a hole that she has dug every day of her life for herself.”
“Looped” is being directed by Roustabouts co-founder Phil Johnson, whom Bowman said is helping her find the balance between Bankhead the woman and Bankhead the legend.
“I trust Phil,” she said. “If he says I need to go bigger, I don’t question it. Tallulah Bankhead was BIG, so that’s the trick and that’s what I’m trying to find right now. I don’t want to be a caricature of her,” Bowman said.
It’s been more than 50 years since Bankhead passed away at age 66. Some remember her only from the Alfred Hitchcock film “Lifeboat.” Others don’t know her at all.
“I want people, especially young people, to fall in love with her bruises and blemishes — everything,” said Bowman. “She was herself. Unapologetically.”
‘Looped’
When: Previews tonight and Saturday. Opens at 7:30 p.m. Sunday and runs through Oct. 20. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Oct. 20
Where: The Roustabouts at the Legler Benbough Theatre, Alliant International University campus, 9783 Avenue of Nations, San Diego
Tickets: $45
Phone: (619) 568-5800
Online: theroustabouts.org
