The Thing About Elizabeth

(Taylor-Hilton-Wilding-Todd-Fisher-Burton-
Burton-Warner-Fortensky)
PART ONE
Like many people these past few days, I am pondering the meaning
of Dame Elizabeth Taylor-Hilton-Wilding-Todd-Fisher-Burton-
Burton- Warner-Fortensky.

I have, on
occasion,
shared my
thoughts on
one or two
notable losses
in the world of
"Classic
Hollywood".
But this one is
different. This
one calls for
something
more. To put it
bluntly-- this
one is the big
one.

Elizabeth Taylor was her own one-woman epic. She lived her life in
proportions that dwarfed Cleopatra, (both the woman, and the
infamous 1963 film) and went so far beyond the parameters of
Hollywood stardom that a new term - "superstar"- was invented to
describe her. Never settling for enough when she could have it all,
conversely, she never gave enough if she could give it all. And for
Dame Elizabeth, all was everything. At the end, even a career that
garnered three Academy Awards, voluminous wealth, world wide
acclaim and infamy, condemnation from the U.S. Congress and a
Pope, and a Royal Order of the British Empire did not define her.
She saved her greatest achievements for her last act: those of a
fearless crusader who brought a horrific disease out of the closet of
shame and into the light of compassion and understanding. It is
difficult not to speak in hyperbole when you are discussing
Elizabeth Taylor, because Elizabeth Taylor was hyperbole.

The thing about Elizabeth Taylor was that she was a child star
who was never really a child. From the first moment she first
appeared on the screen, she was simply a miniature version of her
adult self. Possessed of an un-
earthly beauty and poise, she
gave veteran MGM film
producer Samuel Marx pause
when he first encountered the
precocious ten year old, and
after an acclaimed supporting
role in Lassie Come Home
(1943) led to her breakout
performance in National
Velvet (1944) she entered the
legendary MGM star-making
machine. Yet the thing about
Elizabeth Taylor was that she
was never just a cog in its well-
oiled wheels. Her languorously
demure physical appearance
belied a headstrong nature that would develop notoriously as she
grew into adulthood, and would cause her "home" studio much grief
and consternation in later years. At age 15, she famously told an
apoplectic Louis B. Mayer to "go to Hell" after he berated her
mother in her presence. Taylor remembered this moment as a
turning point in her life; the moment when she realized that "I was a
complete, free individual". This belief in the rightness of her own
moral compass would dictate her actions for the rest of her life.
The thing about Elizabeth Taylor Hilton was that she was the
most beautiful young woman in the world. At least, that is what
famed columnist Hedda Hopper declared, and most other accounts
followed suit. Her splendor was, by the age of 17, such an
overpowering visceral experience that in her best films of the era

it became as integral a part as the story itself. As socialite Angela

Vickers in George Steven's A Place In the Sun (1951), her outrageous
beauty is as much an impetus for Montgomery Clift's actions as the
social position he longs to attain through her, and the tragic
consequences of these actions become doubly devastating for the
loss of it. Moreover, the chemistry she shares with Clift (perhaps the
only actor in Hollywood who could approach her physical
perfection) not only hints at the emotional fires banked beneath her
"Park Avenue" exterior, it portends her performances to come later
in the decade.
The thing about Elizabeth Taylor Wilding was that she was
discovering the strength within herself. Forever altered after the
near fatal car crash of her soul mate
Clift (she saved his life by reaching into
his mangled throat and pulling out the
shattered teeth that were obstructing
his airway), Taylor began to wander
beyond the shallow waters of MGM
glamour girl and into more challenging
depths that lay beyond. In Giant (1955),
she stretched outside her comfort zone
for the first time to explore the life of a
woman in a conflict of morality,

desire and prejudice. It is a tenuous exploration, to be sure, but her

performance rings true in moments of absolute faith in character
and intent. Surrounded by a cast as overpowering as the Texas
locale itself, including titans Rock Hudson, Mercedes McCambridge
and James Dean, she emerges as the film's emotional core. It is in
Giant, that Elizabeth Taylor Wilding became an actress.

The thing about Elizabeth Taylor

Todd was that she was a passionate
force of nature. In the most creatively
fertile and rewarding period of her
film career, she found her artistry first
through joy, then through anguish.
Marrying impresario Mike Todd, she
was rapturous in the glow of love, and
then despondent after Todd's tragic
death in a plane crash. Midway
through filming Cat On A Hot Tin
Roof (1958) director Richard Brooks
convinced an emotionally shattered
Taylor to return to work, where she
channeled her all consuming grief into
a searing portrait of "Maggie the Cat".
In doing so, Taylor fulfilled the early promise of Angela Vickers and
her suspected fires of passion, sexual frustration, and fury. As
Maggie, she screeches - she paws - she seethes -but she still
manages to hold on tenaciously
to the hot tin roof of her
emotions, never allowing
herself to fall into the
desolation below. Her
performance of fire and ice
earned her an Oscar
nomination. Exhilarated from
the experience, she delved even
further into the dark depths of
her psyche in Suddenly, Last
Summer (1959), Tennessee
Williams unsettling exploration
of repression, mental illness, and questionable motherly love. Too
lurid for many at the time of its release, it none-the-less garnered
Taylor another Oscar nomination, as well as condemnation for its
contentious subject matter. For its emotionally liberated star,
however, the controversy was merely an appetizer for the main
course of reprobation that was to come...for just after its release,
Elizabeth Taylor Todd became Mrs. Eddie Fisher.

The thing about Elizabeth Taylor Fisher was that she was
fearless. As if liberated by the grief over the death of Mike Todd, she
flew in the face of public censure and married Todd's best friend,
singer Eddie Fisher, three hours after his divorce from her friend
Debbie Reynolds was final. She was a hellion unleashed and ready
for battle; and battle she did, particularly with her "home" studio,
MGM. Tasting sweet freedom, she chafed at the artistic and
financial restraints of her long term contract and longed to break
free...particularly when Twentieth Century Fox began courting her
to star in their planned remake of Cleopatra. At first thinking the
idea ridiculous, Taylor half-jokingly told them she would do it -- for
a salary of ONE MILLION DOLLARS. To her stunned surprise, they
agreed. But there was a stumbling block: her MGM contract. In
order to gain her freedom,
Taylor agreed to star in a
project which she loathed:
the film version of the
salacious novel,
Butterfield 8. Frequently
referring to the film as
"Butterball 4", her disdain
for the project was
apparent to all involved,
especially during an early
preview when she
allegedly offered her own
critical assessment of the film by taking off her shoes and throwing
them at the screen. But, free at last from the studio that had been
her home for 17 years, she and Fisher headed to London to begin
filming on the (then) modestly-budgeted Cleopatra. The swirl of
negative press that enveloped the unapologetic star and her
husband as they left for England was nothing, however, compared to
the harsh English weather that greeted her, as well as the ever-
present dampness of London's Pinewood Studios. She was soon
plagued by one malady after another, and was unable to appear on
the set but for a few days of tests before she fell ill with an infection
that quickly developed into a rare and virulent strain of pneumonia.
After collapsing in her hotel room, she was rushed to The London
Clinic where an emergency tracheotomy was performed. As she
hovered for hours between life and death, many overeager press
reporters declared that Elizabeth Taylor, screen beauty, had died at
the age of 28.

What they didn't know was this: the thing about Elizabeth
Taylor Fisher was that she was also a survivor.

To be continued..