When TIME'S Lester Bernstein and Researcher Jean Sulzberger turned up at Actress Tallulah Bankhead's country home recently for a 3 p.m. pre-cover story (TIME, Nov. 22) interview, Tallulah, "up and dressed," met them at the door and began to talk. After 20 breathless minutes she suddenly stopped her torrential discourse and said: "Now, ask me another question." Says Miss Sulzberger: "We hadn't even opened our mouths."

Three hours later they came away feeling as if they had been through a small Alabama "nawther." It had been a tough struggle even to get their questions asked. With scarcely a break in her marathon monologue, Tallulah had danced the Charleston for them, played piano, told jokes, done imitations and a few ballet turns, tossed off some mint juleps, fed them shrimp and mushrooms and showed them the house. She had discussed her artesian well ("We had to dig 260 feet, and we finally hit 25 gallons a minute"), her health ("I have the arteries of a girl of 16"), her finances ("I haven't bought a mink coat since 1934, for god's sake"), how she hates the theater ("I'd rather play cards or go to a ball game"), Private Lives ("I said to Noel before he saw it, 'anything you don't like we'll take out' "), her home ("I get as much kick out of this house as I did out of dancing, gambling and standing on my head"), herself ("I'm not saying I'm Elsie Dinsmore, dahling, but . . ."), her actions ("I never think out anything, dahling; I do it instinctively or not at all. I do things I'd loathe in anybody else").

Occasionally too transfixed by Tallulah's performance to make notes, TIME'S representatives also had to contend with her pet bird, a light blue budgereegah named Gaylord, who swooped gleefully around the living room, made pinpoint landings on their shoulders, pecked at their pencils, cigarettes and Bernstein's shoelaces.

Gaylord was also the star of Photographer Sharland's encounter with Tallulah at her Manhattan apartment (where photographs were made for Boris Chaliapin's guidance while painting the cover portrait of Tallulah). "You don't mind the bird, do you?" Tallulah inquired, and Sharland, smiling wanly, said, "Of course not." Gaylord took an immediate fancy to Sharland and spent most of the 45-minute session perched on top of her head. Things were complicated further by the presence of Tallulah's Pekingese and a Hungarian sheep dog, who tore around the room, got tangled in Sharland's lighting extensions and occasionally chased each other between her legs.

When it was over, Tallulah kept Sharland on for two hours while she delivered the speech she later made for President Truman. Says Photographer Sharland: "She was very nice, very sweet, and very cooperative." Bernstein and Miss Sulzberger felt the same way about Tallulah and told her so when, at one point in their interview, she stopped suddenly and asked: "Do you all like me?"

To try to separate the facts from the legends about Tallulah proved in many instances to be virtually impossible, although Bernstein and Miss Sulzberger interviewed dozens of producers, stage managers, actors, writers, etc., and TIME correspondents throughout the U.S. and Europe talked to scores of her friends, enemies, and theatrical associates. It became quite clear that her friends regard Tallulah as an institution. They were frank, fair and helpful, and they did their best to augment the Bankhead legend. For example, her sister Eugenia, in discussing Tallulah's disputed age, is said to have said: "Every time Tallulah takes off a year, I have to, too. I don't know how long I can keep it up."

Cordially yours,

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