Elizabeth by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Author:J. Randy Taraborrelli [TARABORRELLI, J. RANDY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780759516236
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Bad Movies, Great Riches, and Another Oscar

As the 1960s were drawing to a close and Elizabeth Taylor faced the relentless march of time, the inevitability of her approaching fourth decade suggested that her days as an ingénue were now a thing of the past. Leading-lady roles would give way to character parts, though starring character parts, to be sure. While she and Richard made movies together during these years, they also continued with their individual careers.

One of Richard’s films was Doctor Faustus, an odd movie in which Elizabeth played Helen of Troy in a practically, if not completely, nonspeaking role. Also at this time, Elizabeth filmed Reflections in a Golden Eye, with Marlon Brando playing a part originally intended for Montgomery Clift. When the studio would not insure Clift because of his problems with drugs and alcohol, Elizabeth put up the insurance herself. However, Monty died at just forty-six from occlusive coronary artery disease before the movie went into production.

Elizabeth’s roles in Woolf, Shrew, and Reflections were pretty much the same kind of harridan character, just placed in three different time periods. Elizabeth as “shrew” Katharina—“Kate”—in The Taming of the Shrew was a sight to behold in her teased-out wig and cinched bodice, bitterly spewing her lines and going up against Burton’s Petruchio in much the way she would rail against the actor, her husband, in the privacy of their home. Not that they weren’t entertaining. Franco Zeffirelli recalled the following exchange while the Burtons were rehearsing a scene in which Richard had Elizabeth pinned down. “Here I am, with six inches of fused spine,” Elizabeth complained, “expected to push this baby elephant [Richard] off me.”

Actor Michael York made his debut in The Taming of the Shrew. He recalls, “On my first day, I remember thinking, ‘My God! These are the kings and queens of Hollywood, and at the top of their profession.’ There was an overwhelming sense of glamour about them, intensified by the way they lived, you know, with their dressing rooms with dazzling white carpets and all of their butlers and maids, and so on . . . the Rolls-Royces, the jewels. They behaved like movie stars; old-fashioned movie stars. But I also found them to be enormously kind. There was also a sense of family. For instance, whenever her children were around, they were popped into costume, and then onto the set as extras.”

In retrospect, none of the films the Burtons made during this time did them much justice. Most were bad choices, as if their excessively bad personal habits had caused them to also have poor judgment when it came to choosing scripts. Moreover, Elizabeth had other reasons behind her wrong-minded career decisions. As demonstrated earlier in her profession, she had little sense of her self-worth, no doubt due to her lost childhood. She rarely realized her value as an actress and was therefore always prone to making bad career choices. Now that she was not under the creative thumb of a studio, as she

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