"She's not so great," a fellow actress once proclaimed of the legendary Tallulah Bankhead. "I can upstage her any time." "Darling," Tallulah retorted, "I can upstage you without even being on stage!"

At their next performance, Bankhead resolved to prove her point. In one scene, while her rival was engaged in a prolonged telephone conversation, Tallulah was to put down the champagne glass from which she had been drinking and make her exit upstage.

That evening, she carefully placed the half-filled glass in a precarious position, teetering at the very edge of the table, half on and half off... The audience -- gasping, riveted by the endangered glass -- completely ignored the other actress.

[Bankhead, it turned out, had surreptitiously affixed adhesive tape to the bottom of the glass!]