With Billie

by Julia Blackburn

  However, there was already a rather ominous note creeping into all this ‘fraternising’. When Tallulah’s respectable southern father, Daddy Dearest, heard reports that his daughter had been seen in Harlem, she immediately arranged for the film producer Walter Wanger to reassure her worried parent with a confident string of lies. ‘Tallulah showed me your letter,’ he wrote. ‘I think it is scandalous that her sole trip to Harlem should be so misinterpreted. She was sent there with her director, Mr Cukor, to see conditions, as there is a Harlem night-club scene in her present picture. But after her visit it was decided the atmosphere was too vulgar.’

  Throughout the 1930s Tallulah and Billie must have often come across each other, but it was in the summer of 1948 that they became close friends and perhaps also lovers.‖ Tallulah was performing in Noël Coward’s Private Lives on Broadway, and Billie was appearing with Count Basie and his Orchestra at the nearby Strand Theater, where in spite of the July and August heatwave, some of the largest audiences that New York theatre had seen in years turned up.a

  Tallulah came to the Strand Theater every night of the week. She would sit in the front row, ‘as if this was the only show in the world’. After the show she and Billie and the comedian Stump Daddy would go to the White Rose bar to get drunk together. And they’d get Billie’s boxer dog Mister drunk as well and would laugh at his gentle confusion.

  Because her Cabaret Card had been taken away from her since her time in jail,b Billie could no longer sing in New York clubs that held a liquor licence; she had lost her easiest means of earning a living. She was forced to undertake endless tours from one city to the next and for several months Tallulah followed her whenever she could. She was in Hollywood in December 1948 when Billie was arrested after a fight broke out at Billy Berg’s, and she was still in Hollywood in January 1949 when Billie was arrested again and charged with possession of opium.

  The circumstances of this second arrest were very dubious, but as a convicted narcotics user and felon, Billie was in serious trouble. She was in a panic, but Tallulah was very supportive and, when Billie threatened suicide, she even paid for a psychiatrist.

  Tallulah also took the trouble of contacting J. Edgar Hoover, to see if he might be able to help. He was a family friend as well as Director of the FBI. She opened her letter to him with these words: ‘Knowing your true humanitarian spirit, it seemed quite natural … to go to the top man. As my Negro Mammy used to say, “When you pray, you pray to God, don’t you?” ’ Tallulah went on to explain the nature of her relationship with Billie and her understanding of the singer’s personality.

  I have met Billie Holiday but twice in my life, but I admire her immensely as an artist and feel the most profound compassion for her … My intention is not to condone her weaknesses … She is essentially a child at heart whose troubles have made her psychologically unable to cope with the world in which she finds herself … However guilty she may be, whatever penalties she may be required to pay for her frailties, poor thing, you, I know, did everything within the law, to lighten her burden. Bless you for that.c

  The two women never met again. In 1952, Tallulah was paid the vast sum of $30,000 for her ghosted show-business memoir,d which was serialised in thirty American newspapers and in the Daily Express. The book was dedicated to Daddy Dearest and, although it was full of boastful eccentricities and coy suggestions of wicked behaviour, it said nothing of Tallulah’s early sexual preferences, her fondness for illegal drugs, or her strong connection with Harlem and the jazz world. Her friend Billie Holiday was not mentioned once.

  Three years later, when Billie was putting her name to her own ghosted life story, Lady Sings the Blues, a copy of the manuscript was sent to all the well-known people who might not want to appear within its pages. Orson Welles, who had been a friend of Billie’s when she was in Hollywood in 1942, made no objection, but others were less amenable. As Billie’s editor admitted when Linda Kuehl spoke to him, ‘everybody vanished’ under the real or perceived threat of a libel suit.e

  In Lady Sings the Blues Billie spoke of Tallulah at some length. She described her as a ‘dear friend’ who recommended a psychiatrist at a time of trouble, and who sometimes came round to the house to eat spaghetti. Tallulah’s response was an immediate warning to the book’s editor: ‘Darling, if you publish that stuff about me in the Billie Holiday book, I’ll sue for every goddamn cent that Doubleday can make.’

  Billie responded with a calm and heartfelt letter to Tallulah. ‘I thought I was a friend of yours,’ she said. ‘That’s why there’s nothing in my book that was unfriendly to you, unkind or libellous … Read it again. There’s nothing in it to hurt you. Straighten up and fly right, Banky. Nobody’s trying to drag you.’f

  But Billie never received a reply to her letter, and the ‘offensive material’ was dutifully removed from the manuscript.

  In later years Tallulah suffered from ‘several psychotic episodes in which she became very southern and very proud’. She was often heard to complain about how the Negroes were ‘not what they used to be’. The peace strikes, the sit-downs, the new militancy had made them unacceptable as far as she was concerned. ‘I used to think that if I were ever in real trouble, I would run to Harlem for friends and shelter,’ she said. ‘Now I’d be afraid to go up there alone.’

  Tallulah Bankhead died in New York in 1968. Her last discernible words were ‘codeine-bourbon’. According to Billie’s friend, the dancer Detroit Red, Tallulah’s sisters sent her body to Virginia to be buried, ‘so Negroes couldn’t come to her funeral … because she was a friend of Billie’s and of all the Negroes in Harlem and her sisters didn’t want no Negroes hanging around’.

  * Tallulah’s father, Will Bankhead, also moved back to his childhood home. It was said that he never recovered from the loss of his wife. He was an alcoholic who often entertained thoughts of suicide. Tallulah doted on him and always referred to him as ‘Daddy Dearest’.

  † For this account of Tallulah, I have relied for the most part on the biography by Lee Israel, Miss Tallulah Bankhead, 1972, and on her own ghosted autobiography, Tallulah, 1952.

  ‡ While attending a party in the early 1960s she announced, ‘I’m going to take a suppository and do not become alarmed at anything that might happen. I will soon become incoherent and leave the room, but let the party continue!’ (Israel, p. 303).

  § According to the brothel madam Clara Winston, ‘Around 1939 everyone was jammin’, jumpin’. Wealthy society white folk came up. Best of everybody. Your biggest stars of that time. Vanderbilts, the Goulds, Tallulah’s been all over Harlem, that’s my darling.’ Pop Foster, Detroit Red and many others who were interviewed by Linda Kuehl talk about Tallulah and the wild life she lived.

  ‖ As Detroit Red put it, ‘Tallulah was a lesbian but she was such a nice person!’ In her later years Tallulah tidied up her image and concentrated on men. She paid for the services of a string of young gay men whom she referred to as her ‘caddies’. Their duties included squeezing toothpaste onto her toothbrush and spraying her with Chanel No. 5 while she lay in the bath.

  a Billie had only come out of jail four months previously and she was sure that people came to see her because of her notoriety and to judge for themselves if she was back on drugs.

  b She was in the Alderson Federal Reformatory for Women from 28 May 1947 to 16 March 1948.

  c As a fellow southerner, Edgar Hoover was a close friend of Tallulah’s father. He had a particular hatred of what he saw as the ‘subversive’ black press and he also pursued a lifelong vendetta against people like Billie. However, he appreciated the letter and replied, ‘Your kind comments are greatly appreciated and I trust you will not hesitate to call on me at any time you think I might be of assistance to you.’ There is no indication that he did anything on Billie’s behalf.

  d The book was ghosted by Richard Maney, whose ‘arch, florid, literate style’ supported the Bankhead legend. It became a bestseller. Israel, p. 290.

  e During the ti
me when Billie and Orson Welles had been seen together a few times in Hollywood, Billie received threatening telephone calls, telling her that she was jeopardising his career. She was also warned that if the relationship continued, she would never be given a chance to appear in pictures (John White, Billie Holiday: Her Life and Times, 1987, p. 78).

  f Quoted in Ken Vail, Lady Day’s Diary, 1996.

  TWENTY-ONE

  James ‘Stump’ Cross

  ‘This is Stump Daddy talking.’

  James ‘Stump’ Cross was a comedian and tap dancer who worked with his partner Harold ‘Stumpy’ Cromer. He said that in their comedy routines, ‘We never did anything off-colour. I always felt that a good human laugh is better than a guffaw.’ Between 1937 and 1945 he often appeared in the same shows as Billie and said, ‘From there we never lost contact with each other … although after 1942 she and I strayed. I went into the army and she was on heroin.’

  Linda Kuehl interviewed ‘Stump’ in January and June 1972. They met, as she put it, ‘in my pad’ and obviously got on very well. At one point Stump says, ‘But we’re gonna get it all, we gonna work on it straight. I’ll relate it to you and you’ll put it down. I think you’re sincere!’ So this is Stump talking:

  It was 1936 and I just came to New York from Philadelphia. I was a Philadelphia boy. And it was my good fortune to be in front of the Alhambra Grill on 126th and 7th Avenue and there was this cab that had a slide-open roof and this lady was standing up through the roof and smoking a cigarette and looking so happy! At that time there was no cigarette I knew could make you that happy!

  I said to the cab driver – his name was Billy Wood – ‘I’m late, man! I’ve gotta get to the Cotton Club! The show is in seven minutes!’

  So he said, ‘Lady, can I take him?’

  And the smiling lady with the cigarette said, ‘Yeah, you take him! Take him, baby!’

  And the cab driver said, ‘Come on in, Stump! Lady, this is Stump from the Stump and Stumpy Show! And this is Lady Day, this is Billie Holiday!’

  And she looked down and grinned at me with the prettiest smile. Oh, that smile melts you; you gotta go when that smile comes! And she said, ‘Hi there, Stump Daddy!’ And that was my name to her from then on.

  She was at the Hot Cha while I was at the Cotton Club, but then we worked together at the Club Ebony with Count Basie and then at the Strand Theater. I was with her from ‘Lock Away My Heart and Throw Away the Key’ through to ‘That Old Devil Called Love’.

  I was one of her boys. One of Lady Chatterley’s lovers. She used to say, ‘I don’t go anywhere without Stump Daddy!’ And she wouldn’t leave until she heard my voice. I was a sort of charm. We were sweethearts in a sense. We loved each other so.

  I loved her because of the way she said, ‘Good morning, Stump Daddy!’ and because of the way she dressed and the way she dragged her fur around. She dragged her minks from Broadway to Kelly’s Stables, to the Royal Roost, to Birdland. She wore out more minks than anyone I knew.

  Lady was handsome. She strolled through the street and she was such a charm. She had the most charming face; a face that grew and grew into a beautiful thing, and her voice grew with it. Oh, her face, there’s none like it! Her face – a sculptor could tell you more – it was such a beautiful, pure little face! A little turned-up nose, beautiful eyes, luscious mouth, very regal chin and neckline. She was a Lady! She was Queen Bess! Her taste started with those little flowers in her hair and all of a sudden as time went by she became wise as to what to wear and how to wear it.

  Lady was always part of the band. She was a band singer. She had little melodies* that she’d give to each musician, ‘Here you are … Here you are … Now, come, sing with me!’ It was so pretty, like she was sending out sparks. She never scrambled. She never hurried. Ben Webster stands up and goes, ‘Bahdooodooo … deedoobahdoodende … dah!’ and she’s close to the mike and it’s Singing Time! She starts pumping with her right elbow and she’d tap with her left foot, like she was grinding it out and she has those lights on her that go from magenta to pink to green. Going off, she’d nod just to the side with a pretty smile and she walked off regal! The other broads used to come to watch her, to try to steal from her, but they could never get her thing. Oh, to see her eyes when she sang ‘You’re My Thrill’!

  Lady inspired everybody because she had a knack with a lyric. She knew the verses to every song that everybody ever sang! She’d sing anything of Carmen, anything that knocked her out. She had no great knowledge of music or reading musical notes. She just knew it! She’d look at a music sheet. Put it down. Walk away. Have a drink. And come back three minutes later and sing the whole thing! She was singing arias, in her style. Between the lyric and the drink, I don’t know what happened; it must have come from somewhere. There must have been a Lyric Angel who came down from the clouds and said, ‘Here, Lady, you get ’em!’

  Lady’s favourite tune was always the next song she was going to sing. She loved ‘Gloomy Sunday’, but she got tired of it; it was so real to her that as she sang it she would see it and it would get to her. She loved it, but she hated it – Lady being Lady and the things she’d been through. She hadn’t been that far south, but she’s from Baltimore: the men, the speakeasies, you know … With her vivid imagination, when she sings a song like that, the tears come down.

  To Count Basie she was William. She’d call him Bill and he’d say, ‘Yes, William!’† Louis Armstrong was The Landlord – like he owns jazz and any room he’s in, that’s jazz! – so he’s The Landlord. She’d say, ‘Come on, Stump Daddy, let’s go see The Landlord!’ He would make her day, just to hear him play. And she would interpret what he played on trumpet into her thing. She would do any tune that he did. She said he had more soul than any singer.

  She had a beautiful personal touch with people, like they loved her immediately and she loved musicians no end. I don’t think Lady ever found a musician she didn’t love! She always found good in them. And there were so many musicians that loved her. They were playing through their hearts and crying out to Lady! They would be calling to her, through the piano, the trumpet and the trombone.

  She had a knack for picking a piano player. She’d say, ‘You! You’re going to play for me!’ And the next recording date, this cat would be there. Like ‘A Sailboat in the Moonlight’ and the piano did ‘ding-a-ling’ and she’d just go her way and you’d just play the melody and she’s got you in her Lady Day Magic Bag. That little tinge she had, that little whine, it was like an echo in the night from Valhalla.

  Behind the pimps and the parasites – like Jimmy Monroe, like John Levy, like all those guys who really robbed her heart – behind all of them there were these virtuoso piano players that loved her secretly. Men like Eddie Heywood,‡ who used to cry when she sang. So did Sonny White, but she loved him for playing for her, so it was two-sided.

  Sonny White was so beautiful and I think she threw him a curve. He was a little chubby man, a brown, pretty man, a dear boy. He was a cherub. And he loved Lady. He knew all about her life and her thing, but he played for her regardless. I’ve seen him come off the stage and break down. She’d just sung ‘You’re My Thrill’ or whatever, and Sonny White would walk away and hide in a corner and cry.

  Lester Young adored her. He loved Lady like he loved spring, summer, winter and fall and every day that broke at dawn. It was not a love-love thing, it was just a passion. She inspired his playing and he loved being around her so. I don’t think she realised that he was deadly in love with her and that he loved her for ever. He’d look at her – the look in his eyes when he played for her! He’d play his whole soul. But he wasn’t her type of man.§ He wasn’t manly. The kind of guys with big Cadillacs, big Packards or whatever, they represented something to Lady. I imagine her father must have been like that. I imagine he was that type of man.

  In 1938 it was a Basie time,‖ it was a coke time. Cocaine. Oh goodness, yes! Basie’s an avid cokehead. Basie snorts whatever you’ve got! George Raft and
all them used to do it. Happy Dust, it was called, and you’d buy a bottle like that for twenty dollars, and this was great coke. I don’t think opium thrilled Lady too much. Opium is a relaxed ritual, when you have nothing to do tomorrow, so today we smoke. She didn’t like laying on her side and hugging this thing that smells like burnt chops, and pretty soon you’re in the dream world and you have to cover the doors with wet towels. She dug it. She did it. But she was someone who wanted to get high fast.

  We were staying up until early in the morning every morning, not leaving one another until we saw that each one got home, and I mean in bed got home. Or maybe we’d just continue and stay with each other at Lady’s house, or at Lester’s, or at Sweets’ house, or at my house. There was camaraderie. We’d go to the oddest places – like a corn joint where they’d sell white whisky with orange peel in it: pure alcohol mixed with water and slices of orange that cut into the alcohol. We would go there and sit all night and remember tunes and sing them to each other.

  I first met Tallulah in New York, and she loved me and called me The Being. I don’t know what this meant, but everyone understood I was The Being. And she’d say, ‘Dahling, I’m looking for The Being, not you, not any of you other peasants’, and I would come out and kiss and hug. And then Tallulah, Lady and I were bosom-buddies. You couldn’t separate us, except for the job. Tallulah came to the Ebonya every night, just to see us. And then we opened at the Strand with Count Basie and she used to come and sit in the front row, centre, as if this were the only show in the world.

  Tallulah and Lady were like sisters. Lady called her Lula. They used to carry me piggyback.