Valerie Harper is on the phone, and she can't stop talking about Tallulah.
The 68-year-old actress is known for her portrayals of strong-willed women. After creating the role of television's quintessential Jewish single girl, Rhoda Morgenstern, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Harper has since depicted figures as diverse as author Pearl S. Buck and former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. There isn't a wimp in the bunch.
At the moment, Harper is borderline obsessed with the daunting task of bringing to life Tallulah Bankhead, the actress and party girl of the 1920s and 1930s who was known as much for her bon mots and bad behavior as for her beauty. (Sample line: "Cocaine isn't habit-forming. I should know - I've been using it for years.")
Bankhead drank, she took drugs, she had sex with men and women, and she threw tantrums.
As Harper puts it: "Tallulah made Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears look like pikers." Harper is striving to understand every single one of her character's thoughts, reactions and utterances in preparation for her starring role in Looped, a three-actor play about Bankhead that debuted Thursday at Arena Stage, and is slated to travel to Broadway in the fall.
So for now, Harper can't even order a pre-rehearsal beverage from Starbucks (a grande nonfat latte with four brown sugars) without wondering briefly what Tallulah might have selected.
Question:: How did you prepare to play such an iconic figure?
Answer:: I read six biographies, and the playwright found a tape of a looping session that Tallulah made for her last film, Die! Die! My Darling! She just had to re-record one line, and it took eight hours. Not only is that the basis for our play, the tape is a gold mine for an actress. I wasn't hearing Tallulah performing, I heard her be herself. I heard her talk to the crew and yell at the director. I could hear her glass clink when she drank.
Question:: What was your biggest challenge in portraying her?
Answer: : Getting her voice right. I had to get it low enough, and capture the accent, which really is more English than southern.
Question:: You've said that the secret to playing Rhoda was finding a motivation for everything she did. Eventually you hit on: "I have to straighten Mary out." Did Tallulah also have a central goal that helped you focus your portrayal?
