Kitty Kelley - Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star

by
KITTY KELLEY

Books by Kitty Kelley

E LIZABETH T AYLOR

J ACKIE O H !

T HE G LAMOUR S PAS

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Copyright 1981 by H. B. Productions, Inc.
Afterword copyright 2011 by H.B. Productions, Inc.

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Designed by Eve Metz
Photo editor: Vincent Virga

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kelley, Kitty.

Elizabeth Taylor, the last star / by Kitty Kelley.

p. cm.

Includes index.

1. Taylor, Elizabeth, 19322011. 2. Motion picture actors and actressesUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

PN2287.T18 K44

791.43'028'09dc24 [B]

81-9306

ISBN 978-1-4516-5676-3

ISBN 978-1-4516-5647-3 (ebook)

A Nio de su osita rubiasiempre.

Your heart knows when you meet the right man. There is no doubt that Nicky is the one I want to spend my life with.

Elizabeth Taylor

Wedding to Conrad Nicholson Hilton, May 6, 1950

I just want to be with Michael, to be his wife. This is, for me, the beginning of a happy end.

Elizabeth Taylor

Wedding to Michael Wilding, February 21, 1952

I have given him my eternal love.... This marriage will last forever. For me it will be third time lucky.

Elizabeth Taylor

Wedding to Mike Todd, February 2, 1957

I have never been happier in my life.... We will be on our honeymoon for thirty or forty years.

Elizabeth Taylor

Wedding to Eddie Fisher, May 12, 1959

Im so happy you cant believe it.... I love him enough to stand by him, no matter what he might do, and I would wait.

Elizabeth Taylor

Wedding to Richard Burton, March 15, 1964

There will be bloody no more marriages or divorces. We are stuck like chicken feathers to tarfor lovely always.

Elizabeth Taylor

Second wedding to Richard Burton, October 10, 1975

John is the best lover Ive ever had.... I want to spend the rest of my life with him and I want to be buried with him.

Elizabeth Taylor

Wedding to John Warner, December 4, 1976

S HIMMERING in blue sequins and periwinkle eye shadow, Elizabeth Taylor strode onto the stage of the Mark Hellinger Theater to present the 1981 Antoinette Perry Award for Broadways best musical. Her diamond necklace with its sapphire pendant bobbed against her bosom as the television cameras zoomed in on her imposing cleavage. Viewers were mesmerized.

As she started to speak, the entire audience suddenly rose to give her a standing ovation. Wildly cheering, the crowd paid homage to the woman whose beauty had for so long enchanted America. Now ripe and opulent at forty-nine, she no longer looked like the little girl who had ridden to glory in National Velvet; but the audience did not care. She could still bestow a touch of magic.

For years they had watched her suffer through illnesses, injuries, and heartbreaks, plus the scandals of her many marriages and divorces. They had witnessed her plummeting box-office appeal and gasped as she ate and drank to excess, ballooning into obesity. Seeing her glamour fade and her star falter, they had expected her to capsize, but somehow she had managed to surviveand now here she was dazzling them again, fresh from the triumph of her Broadway debut in The Little Foxes.

As she gushed her thanks, rambled on in her presentation, and even giggled as she mispronounced the names of the people she was supposed to honor, the audience whistled and stomped and screamed its approval. People knew that there would never be another star like this violet-eyed beauty. Her life had been extraordinary. She was the last of her kind. She had earned this resounding tribute.

S ARA T AYLOR WAS F RANTIC . She did not want Elizabeth to waste any film in this movie because her role was simply too small to justify such an extravagance. So as the lights dimmed on the Jane Eyre sound stage, she hid behind the director and started signaling to her daughter. Crossing her pudgy arms on her breast, Sara fluttered her eyes and lifted her head to heaven. The little girl in front of the camera strained to see her mother, who quickly put a finger to her neck; a signal that meant Youre overdoing it.

Earlier, Elizabeth saw her mother touch her stomach; that meant her voice was too shrill. A finger to the cheek was a secret signal to smile more. Now, seeing Sara plop her hands on her heart, Elizabeth knew she needed to put more emotion into her performance.

The scene called for the little girl to die of pneumonia, and the stage mother was determined that it be a perfect death and in one take. Still, Sara Taylor might have risked a few extra takes if she had thought her precious little angel was being upstaged by Margaret OBrien and Peggy Ann Garner, the leading child stars in 1944.

Elizabeth Taylor was merely a featured player under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios and on loan to 20th Century-Fox. She had yet to reach star status. The difference between featured player and star was the difference between obscurity and celebritybetween $150 a week and $5,000 a week.

MGM beauticians styled hair for featured players. The stars were coiffed by Sidney Guilaroff, studio hairdresser extraordinaire. Wardrobe girls fitted featured players. The stars were dressed by Helen Rose, the studio designer. Clearly, there was a substantial difference between a featured player and a starbut it was a difference that Sara Taylor would soon overcome.

Like an antebellum lady with a swansdown fan, Sara Taylor hid her driving ambition behind a soft-spoken facade. A diminutive woman, she spoke with honey-dripping sweetness. She called her husband Daddy, her daughter my angel, and her son my sweet lambie pie. Everyone else was simply my dear. She understood the importance of meeting the right people, and tried always to be in the right place at the right time. She demonstrated her shrewd sense of timing by arriving in the film capital of the world with a spellbindingly beautiful daughter just when child stars were reigning supreme.