​Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American stage and screen actress. She was a member of the Bankhead and Brockham family, a prominent Alabama political family. Both her grandfather and her uncle served as US Senators; her father served as a US Representative in Congress for 11 terms, the final two as Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead appeared in several films including an award-winning performance in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944). She also had a brief but successful career on radio and made appearances on television as well.

In her personal life, Bankhead struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction; she reportedly smoked 120 cigarettes a day and often talked openly about her vices. She also openly had a series of relationships with both men and women.

Bankhead supported foster children and helped families escape the Spanish Civil War and World War II. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972, and the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1981. During her career, Bankhead amassed nearly 300 film, stage, television and radio roles.

​Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born on January 31, 1902, in Huntsville, Alabama, to William Brockman Bankhead and Adelaide Eugenia "Ada" Bankhead. "Tallu" was named after her paternal grandmother, who in turn was named after Tallulah Falls, Georgia. Her father hailed from the Bankhead-and-Brockman political family, and was the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1936 to 1940. Her mother, Adelaide "Ada" Eugenia, met her father William Bankhead on a trip to Huntsville to buy her wedding dress for her wedding with another man.

The two fell in love at first sight and were married on January 31, 1900, in Memphis, Tennessee. Their first child, Evelyn Eugenia (January 24, 1901 – May 11, 1979), was born two months prematurely and had some vision difficulties.

The following year, Tallulah was born on her parents' second wedding anniversary, on the second floor of what is now known as the Isaac Schiffman Building. which in 1980 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Three weeks after Bankhead's birth, her mother died of blood poisoning (sepsis) on February 23, 1902. Bankhead was baptized next to her mother's coffin.

William B. Bankhead was devastated by his wife's death, which sent him into a bout of depression and alcoholism. Consequently, Tallulah and her sister Eugenia were mostly reared by their paternal grandmother, Tallulah James Brockman Bankhead, at the family estate called "Sunset" in Jasper, Alabama.

As a child, Bankhead was described as "extremely homely" and overweight, while her sister was slim and prettier. As a result, she did everything in her efforts to gain attention, and constantly sought her father's approval. After watching a performance at a circus, she taught herself how to cartwheel, and frequently cartwheeled about the house, sang, and recited literature that she had memorized. She was prone to throwing tantrums, rolling around the floor, and holding her breath until she was blue in the face. Her grandmother often threw a bucket of water on her to halt these outbursts.

Bankhead's famously husky voice (which she described as "mezzo-basso") was the result of chronic bronchitis due to childhood illness. She was described as a performer and an exhibitionist from the beginning, discovering at an early age that theatrics gained her the attention she desired. Finding she had a gift for mimicry, she entertained her classmates by imitating the schoolteachers. Bankhead claimed that her "first performance" was witnessed by none other than the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, when her Aunt Marie gave the famous brothers a party at her home near Montgomery, Alabama, in which the guests were asked to entertain. Bankhead also found she had a prodigious memory for literature, memorizing poems and plays and reciting them dramatically.

​In 1912, Tallulah and Eugenia were enrolled in the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattanville, New York when Eugenia was 11 and Tallulah was 10. As William's political career brought him to Washington, the girls were enrolled in a series of different schools, each one a step closer to Washington, D.C. When Bankhead was 15, her aunt encouraged her to take more pride in her appearance, suggesting that she go on a diet to improve her confidence. Bankhead quickly matured into a southern belle. The girls were not really tamed by the schools, however, as both Eugenia and Tallulah went on to have a lot of relationships and affairs during their lives. Eugenia was more of an old romantic as she got married at 16 and ended up marrying seven times to six different men during her life, while Tallulah was a stronger and even more rebellious personality, who sought a career in acting, was into lust in her relationships even more than love, and showed no particular interest in marrying, although she did marry actor John Emery. Bankhead married actor John Emery on August 31, 1937, at her father's home in Jasper, Alabama. Bankhead filed for divorce in Reno, Nevada, in May 1941. It was finalized on June 13, 1941. The day her divorce became final, Bankhead told a reporter, "You can definitely quote me as saying there will be no plans for a remarriage."

​Bankhead was also childhood friends with American socialite, later novelist, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the wife of American author and expatriate F. Scott Fitzgerald.

​At 15, Bankhead submitted her photo to Picture Play, which was conducting a contest and awarding a trip to New York plus a movie part to 12 winners based on their photographs. However, she forgot to send in her name or address with the picture. Bankhead learned that she was one of the winners while browsing the magazine at her local drugstore. Her photo in the magazine was captioned "Who is She?", urging the mystery girl to contact the paper at once. Her father Congressman William Bankhead sent in a letter to the magazine with her duplicate photo.

Arriving in New York, Bankhead discovered that her contest win was fleeting, but she quickly found her niche in New York City. She soon moved into the Algonquin Hotel, a hotspot for the artistic and literary elite of the era, where she quickly charmed her way into the famed Algonquin Round Table of the hotel bar. She was dubbed one of the "Four Riders of the Algonquin", consisting of Bankhead, Estelle Winwood, Eva Le Gallienne, and Blyth Daly. The Algonquin's wild parties introduced Bankhead to cocaine and marijuanam but she did abstain from drinking. 

In 1919, after roles in three other silent films, When Men Betray (1918), Thirty a Week (1918), and The Trap (1919), Bankhead made her stage debut in The Squab Farm at the Bijou Theatre in New York. She soon realized her place was on stage rather than screen, and had roles in 39 East (1919), Footloose (1919), Nice People (1921), Everyday (1921), Danger (1922), Her Temporary Husband (1922), and The Exciters (1922). Though her acting was praised, the plays were commercially and critically unsuccessful. Bankhead had been in New York for five years, but had yet to score a significant hit. 

​Restless, Bankhead moved to London.

In 1923 she made her debut on the London stage at Wyndham's Theatre. She appeared in over a dozen plays in London over the next eight years, most famously in The Dancers and The Gold Diggers. Her fame as an actress was ensured in 1924 when she played Amy in Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted. The show won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize.

While in London, Bankhead bought herself a Bentley, which she loved to drive. She was not very competent with directions and constantly found herself lost in the London streets.

During her eight years on the London stage and touring across Great Britain's theatres, Bankhead earned a reputation for making the most out of inferior material. 

Bankhead returned to the United States in 1931, but Hollywood success eluded her in her first four films of the 1930s. She rented a home at 1712 Stanley Street in Hollywood and began hosting parties that were said to "have no boundaries". Bankhead's first film was Tarnished Lady (1931), directed by George Cukor, and the pair became fast friends. After over eight years of living in Great Britain and touring on their theatrical stages, she did not like living in Hollywood. Although Bankhead was not very interested in making films, the opportunity to make $50,000 per film was too good to pass up. Her 1932 movie Devil and the Deep is notable for the presence of three major co-stars, with Bankhead's receiving top billing over Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, and Cary Grant; it is the only film with Cooper and Grant as the film's leading men. 

​Returning to Broadway, Bankhead worked steadily in a series of middling plays which were, ironically, later turned into highly successful Hollywood films starring other actresses. 

But Bankhead persevered, even through ill health. In 1933, at age 31, while performing in Jezebel, Bankhead nearly died following a five-hour emergency hysterectomy due to gonorrhea, which she claimed she had contracted from either Gary Cooper or George Raft. She had four abortions before she had a hysterectomy.

Weighing only 70 lb (32 kg) when she left the hospital, she vowed to continue her promiscuous and party lifestyle, stoically saying to her doctor "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!"

From 1936 to 1938, David O. Selznick, producer of Gone with the Wind (1939) called Bankhead the "first choice among established stars" to play Scarlett O'Hara in the upcoming film. Although her 1938 screen test for the role in black-and-white was superb, she photographed poorly in Technicolor. Selznick also reportedly believed that at age 36, she was too old to play Scarlett, who is 16 at the beginning of the film (the role eventually went to Vivien Leigh). 

Her brilliant portrayal of the cold and ruthless, yet fiery Regina Giddens in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1939) won her Variety magazine's award for Best Actress of the Year. Bankhead as Regina was lauded as "one of the most electrifying performances in American theater history". During the run, she was featured on the cover of Life.

Bankhead earned another Variety award and the New York Drama Critics' Award for Best Performance by an Actress followed her role in Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, in which Bankhead played Sabina, the housekeeper and temptress.

​Bankhead appeared in a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives, taking it on tour and then to Broadway for the better part of two years. The play's run made Bankhead a fortune. From that time, Bankhead could command 10% of the gross and was billed larger than any other actor in the cast.

Bankhead wrote a bestselling autobiography Tallulah: My Autobiography. (Harper & Bros., 1952) that was published in 1952. Though Bankhead's career slowed in the mid-1950s, she never faded from the public eye. Her highly public and often scandalous personal life began to undermine her reputation as a terrific actress, leading to criticism she had become a caricature of herself. Although a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, and consumer of sleeping pills, Bankhead continued to perform in the 1950s and 1960s on Broadway, radio, television, and in the occasional film, even as her body got more and more frail from the mid 1950s up until her death in 1968.

In addition to her many affairs with men, she was also linked romantically with female personalities of the day, including Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Hattie McDaniel, Beatrice Lillie, Alla Nazimova, Blyth Daly, writers Mercedes de Acosta and Eva Le Gallienne, and singer Billie Holiday. Actress Patsy Kelly confirmed she had a sexual relationship with Bankhead when she worked for her as a personal assistant. 

Bankhead never publicly used the term "bisexual" to describe herself, preferring to use the term "ambisextrous" instead.

In her later years, Bankhead began to attract a passionate and highly loyal following of gay men, some of whom she employed as help when her lifestyle began to take a toll on her, affectionately calling them her "caddies". Though she had long struggled with addiction, her condition now worsened – she began taking dangerous cocktails of drugs to fall asleep, and her maid had to tape her arms down to prevent her from consuming pills during her periods of intermittent wakefulness. In her later years, Bankhead had serious accidents and several psychotic episodes from sleep deprivation and hypnotic drug abuse. Though she always hated being alone, her struggle with loneliness began to lapse into a depression. In 1956, playing the truth game with Tennessee Williams, she confessed, "I'm 54, and I wish always, always, for death. I've always wanted death. Nothing else do I want more."

Bankhead's most popular and perhaps best remembered television appearance was the December 3, 1957, The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show. Bankhead played herself in the classic episode titled "The Celebrity Next Door". 

Her last theatrical appearance was in The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963), a revival of Tennessee Williams play. She had suffered a severe burn on her right hand from a match exploding while she lit a cigarette, and it was aggravated by the importance of jewelry props in the play. She took heavy painkillers, but these dried her mouth, and most critics thought that Bankhead's line readings were unintelligible. 

Her last motion picture was in a British horror film, Fanatic (1965). For her role in Fanatic, she was paid $50,000. Her last appearances on television came in  December 17, 1967, episode of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour comedy-variety TV series, in the "Mata Hari" skit. 

Bankhead moved into 230 East 62nd Street in the late 1950s, and then to a co-op at 333 east 57th Street (#13-E).

Bankhead died at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan on December 12, 1968, at age 66. The cause of death was pleural double pneumonia. Her last coherent words reportedly were a garbled request for "codeine ... bourbon". 
​
Despite claiming to be poor for much of her life, Bankhead left an estate valued at $2 million (equivalent to $14,884,211 in 2020).

A private funeral was held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Kent County, Maryland, on December 14, 1968. A memorial service was held at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City on December 16. She was buried in Saint Paul's Churchyard, near Chestertown, Maryland, where her sister, Eugenia, lived.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Bankhead has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6141 Hollywood Blvd.

​Felipe VI or Philip VI (Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos de Borbón y Grecia; born 30 January 1968) is the King of Spain. Felipe VI speaks Spanish, Catalan, French, English and some Greek. He ascended the throne on 19 June 2014 upon the abdication of his father, Juan Carlos I. His mother is Queen Sofía, and he has two elder sisters, Infanta Elena, Duchess of Lugo, and Infanta Cristina. In 2004, Felipe married TV news journalist Letizia Ortiz with whom he has two daughters, Leonor (his heir presumptive) and Sofía.

In accordance with the Spanish Constitution, as monarch, he is head of state and commander-in-chief of the Spanish Armed Forces with military rank of Captain General, and also plays the role of the supreme representation of Spain in international relations. 

Felipe VI was born at Our Lady of Loreto Hospital at Madrid, the third child and only son of Infante Juan Carlos and Princess Sofía of Greece and Denmark. He was baptised on 8 February 1968 at the Palace of Zarzuela by the Archbishop of Madrid, Casimiro Morcillo, with water from the Jordan River. His full baptismal name, Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos, consists of the names of the first Bourbon king of Spain (Felipe V), his grandfathers (Infante Juan of Spain and King Paul of Greece), his great-grandfather King Alfonso XIII of Spain, and de Todos los Santos ("of all the Saints") as is customary among the Bourbons. His godparents were his paternal grandfather Juan and his paternal great-grandmother, Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain. Additionally, he is the third cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II, King Harald V, Queen Margrethe II, and King Carl XVI Gustav of the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden respectively.

Shortly after Felipe's birth he was styled infante. The dictator Francisco Franco died just more than two months before Felipe's eighth birthday, and Felipe's father ascended the throne, as the latter had been appointed as Prince (heir presumptive of Franco) back in 1969. In his first official appearance, Felipe attended his father's proclamation as king on 22 November 1975.

In 1977, Felipe was formally proclaimed Prince of Asturias. In May, nine-year-old Felipe was made an honorary soldier of the 1st King's Immemorial Infantry Regiment. The occasion was marked on 28 May and was attended by the king, the prime minister and several other ministers in a ceremony at the infantry's barracks. On 1 November the same year, he was ceremoniously paid homage as Prince of Asturias in Covadonga.

In 1981 Felipe received the Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece from his father, the Chief and Sovereign of the Order. On his 18th birthday on 30 January 1986, Felipe swore allegiance to the Constitution and to the King in the Spanish Parliament as required by the constitution, fully accepting his role as successor to the Crown.

Felipe attended school at Santa María de los Rosales, which his daughters currently attend. Felipe attended high school at Lakefield College School in Ontario, Canada, and studied at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he graduated with a degree in Law; he also completed several courses in Economics. He completed his academic studies by obtaining a Master of Science in Foreign Service degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he was the roommate of his cousin, Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece.

Felipe's Juan Carlos became King in late November 1975, but no title was conferred on Felipe as heir apparent until 1977, when he was created Prince of Asturias, the traditional title normally held by the heir to the Spanish throne. The royal decree granting him this title also entitled him to use "the other historical titles corresponding to the heir of the Crown". Felipe started using the Aragonese title of Prince of Girona publicly on 21 April 1990, during a trip around Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, becoming the first Bourbon to use this title.

Upon ascending the throne, Felipe assumed the same titles held by his father. If the former Kingdoms of Aragon and Navarre had separate naming styles, he would also be known as Felipe V of Aragon and Felipe VII of Navarre along with Felipe VI of Castile.
As the heir to the throne, a carefully regulated and structured plan was laid out for Felipe's military training. In August 1985, a Royal Decree named Felipe as officer at the General Military Academy in Zaragoza. He began his military training there in September. In September 1986, he began his naval training at the Escuela Naval Militar in Marin (Pontevedra), joining the Third Brigade. 

In September 1987, he began his air force training there where he learned to fly aircraft. As part of his military training, Felipe trained as a military helicopter pilot. In 1992, he was promoted to captain in the Air Force. In 1993, he was promoted to lieutenant in the Navy and captain in the Infantry of the Army. In 2009 he was promoted to colonel in the Army, frigate captain in the Navy, and lieutenant colonel in the Air Force.

Since 19 June 2014, after his ascension to the throne, he acquired the rank of Capitán General (Commander-in-chief) of all the Spanish armies (Land, Navy and Air Force).

Felipe undertook his constitutional duties as heir to the throne, hosting many official events in Spain and participating in all events of different sectors and aspects of Spanish public life. On occasions when King Juan Carlos I was unable to attend, Felipe presided over the annual presentation of dispatches to officers and non-commissioned officers in the Armed Forces as well as participating in military exercises held by the three Armed Services.

Felipe has also played an active role in promoting Spain's economic, commercial and cultural interests and the Spanish language abroad. He frequently represents Spain at world economic and trade events (e.g. Expotecnia, Expoconsumo, and Expohabitat), and is especially interested in promoting the creation of Centres and University Chairs to advance the study of Spain both historically and in the present-day at major foreign universities.

In addition to his official activities, Felipe serves as Honorary President of several associations and foundations, such as the Codespa Foundation, which finances economic and social development in Ibero-America and other countries, and the Spanish branch of the Association of European Journalists, comprising outstanding communications professionals. Most noteworthy is the Príncipe de Asturias Foundation, where he presides annually at the international awards ceremony of the highly prestigious Princess of Asturias Awards (formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards).

Felipe was appointed a "UN-Eminent Person" by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2001, during its International Year of Volunteers, and continues to make contributions internationally towards enhancing the importance of voluntary work. 

​In 2019 he received the World Peace & Liberty Award from the World Jurist Association at the World Law Congress in Madrid.

Felipe was a member of the Spanish Olympic sailing team at the Barcelona Games in 1992. He is also an honorable member of the International Soling Association. (Both his mother and uncle, King Konstantínos II of the Hellenes, were on the Greek sailing team at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, and Felipe's father and sister were also Olympic sailors for Spain.)

Felipe and Letizia have two daughters: Leonor, Princess of Asturias (born 31 October 2005) and Infanta Sofía (born 29 April 2007). Both were born at Ruber International Hospital in Madrid.

​On 2 June 2014, King Juan Carlos announced his intent to abdicate in Felipe's favour. As required by the Constitution of Spain, the Spanish Cabinet began deliberations the following day on an organic law to give effect to the abdication. Felipe ascended the throne at the stroke of midnight on 19 June.

The next morning, after receiving the Captain General's sash from his father, he was formally sworn in and proclaimed king in a low-key ceremony held in the Cortes. He swore to uphold the Constitution before formally being proclaimed king by Posada. Upon his accession, he became the youngest monarch in Europe, being nine months younger than King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.

As heir to the Spanish throne, Felipe's arms were the Spanish arms differenced with a label of three points azure (blue). The first quarter represents Castile, the second León, the third Aragon, and the fourth Navarre; below are the arms of Granada. In the centre, on an inescutcheon, were the ancestral arms of the sovereign House of Bourbon-Anjou. Surrounding the shield was the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece and surmounting it was the heraldic crown of the heir to the throne, decorated with four half-arches.

Following his accession to the throne, the label on his arms was removed and the crown of the heir was changed to that of the monarch's (eight half-arches instead of four). These arms differ from those of his father's as king, as they omit the Cross of Burgundy, the yoke, and the sheaf of five arrows.

​Donna Reed (born Donna Belle Mullenger; January 27, 1921 – January 14, 1986) was an American actress. Her career spanned more than 40 years, with performances in more than 40 films. She is well known for her role as Mary Hatch Bailey in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. In 1953, she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lorene Burke in the war drama From Here to Eternity.

Reed is known for her work in television, notably as Donna Stone, a middle-class American mother and housewife in the sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–1966), in which her character was more assertive than most other television mothers of the era. She received numerous Emmy Award nominations for this role and the Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star in 1963.

​Reed was born Donna Belle Mullenger on a farm near Denison, Iowa, the eldest of five children.

​In 1936, while she was a sophomore at Denison High School, her chemistry teacher Edward Tompkins gave her the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book is said to have greatly influenced her life. 

After graduating from Denison High School, Reed decided to move to California to attend Los Angeles City College on the advice of her aunt. While attending college, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with the condition of finishing her education first.

​In 1941 after signing with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Reed made her film debut in The Get-Away opposite Robert Sterling. MGM soon changed her name to Donna Reed, as there was anti-German feeling during World War II.

Like many starlets at MGM, she played opposite Mickey Rooney in an Andy Hardy film, in her case the hugely popular The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942). She also had a support role in The Human Comedy (1943) with Mickey Rooney, a big film for MGM. That year, she was married to make-up artist William Tuttle, but the marriage only lasted two years.

Her "girl-next-door" good looks and warm onstage personality made her a popular pin-up for many GIs during World War II.

In 1945 after divorcing her first husband, Donna Reed married producer Tony Owen. They raised four children together, with the two older children being adopted.

MGM lent her to RKO Pictures for the role of Mary Bailey in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. The film has since been named as one of the 100 best American films ever made by the American Film Institute and is regularly aired on television during the Christmas season.

Reed later said it was "the most difficult film I ever did. No director ever demanded as much of me."

Back at MGM she appeared in Green Dolphin Street (1947) with Lana Turner and Van Heflin, a big hit.

​In June 1950 Reed signed a contract with Columbia Studios. 

In 1953, Donna Reed played the role of Alma "Lorene" Burke, girlfriend of Montgomery Clift's character in the World War II drama From Here to Eternity (1953). The role earned Reed an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

But the qualities of her parts did not seem to improve afterwards.

​In 1954, she returned to MGM to act in The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)which starred Elizabeth Taylor.

​From 1958 to 1966, Reed starred in The Donna Reed Show, a television series produced by her then-husband, Tony Owen. The show featured her as Donna Stone, the wife of pediatrician Alex Stone (Carl Betz) and mother of Jeff (Paul Petersen) and Mary Stone (Shelley Fabares). Reed was attracted to the idea of being in a comedy, something with which she did not have much experience. She also liked playing a wife.

The show ran for eight seasons on ABC and Reed won a Golden Globe Award and earned four Emmy Award nominations for her work on the series.

​When The Donna Reed Show ended its run in 1966, Reed took time off from acting to concentrate on raising her children and engaging in political activism. She returned to acting in the late '70s, appearing in some TV movies.

In 1971, Donna Reed and her second husband Tony Owen divorced after 26 years of marriage.

Three years later, Reed married Grover W. Asmus (1926–2003), a retired United States Army colonel. They remained married until her death in 1986.

​Donna Reed died of pancreatic cancer in Beverly Hills, California, on January 14, 1986, 13 days shy of her 65th birthday. She had been diagnosed with the illness three months earlier and told it was at a terminal stage.