Tallulah Bankhead

Tallulah Bankhead was an American actress and icon known for Lifeboat (1944) and the Broadway production of The Little Foxes (1939), and for a persona of extraordinary wit, transgression, and appetite. She was openly bisexual in her private life -- and often semi-openly in public -- maintaining relationships with both men and women throughout her life, including Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Hattie McDaniel, and, in a longer-term arrangement documented by biographer Joel Lobenthal, singer Billie Holiday, whom she supported through Holiday's drug trials while their relationship remained an open secret in New York's artistic circles. Her line "I'm as pure as the driven slush" captured her self-presentation perfectly. She was one of the most openly bisexual public figures in early-to-mid 20th century America, operating in a space that flouted convention decades before anyone had vocabulary for it.