Tallulah Bankhead Fred Allen Married Couple Radio Program Parody Cleaned

This is Tallulah Bankhead on the Fred Allen radio show, sending up the husband/wife morning radio show concept with Fred. Tallulah was just about unique in being able to play serious dramas like "The Little Foxes" and also this kind of comedy and making fun of herself (the later unfortunately overtook her persona for the last part of her career, and even though she's really good in "Die! Die! My Darling", for example, she was not given a lot of drama to perform after the 40s). This was obviously the model for the "I Love Lucy" episode, the play that Dick Van Dyke and Chloris Leachman did for television and other versions, but for my money this is the shortest and best of them. Allen rewrote it into a British version for James and Pamela Mason on his show two years later (this is from 1946), and he repeated it with Tallulah as well.

The show they discuss as an intro, "The Eagle Has Two Heads", was a Jean Cocteau script with a 40 min. monologue at the end, which results in the death of the two lovers, a queen and her much younger consort, based on an actual incident. The lover in rehearsal was played by a young Marlon Brando pre-"Streetcar" (Blanche was written for Tallulah but she declined), but he chewed gum throughout her monologue and she had him fired. Director (and Brando's acting teacher) Bobby Lewis has a funny story about their meeting in his book "Slings and Arrows". In fact that book is filled with funny stories, one a page.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Fred Allen
• Tallulah Bankhead
• Radio Comedy
• Parody

[EasyAce]

This was actually the second time the two of them did this routine. They first did it on the Allen show of 5 May 1946 . . .

[fromthesidelines]

This originally aired on October 27, 1946, and Fred and Tallulah did a revised version on her "BIG SHOW" in November 1950. This was a savage parody of New York's #1 husband and wife morning show at that time, WOR's "BREAKFAST WITH DOROTHY & DICK", featuring columnist Dorothy Kilgallen and actor/producer Dick Kollmar {he was also "BOSTON BLACKIE" on radio}. It lasted for almost two decades...

[penti77]

Trojan work, again!  Well done!!