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The Earth Mother of Hollywood, Dame Elizabeth Taylor

by Matthew Crump, Staff Writer

What do you think of when you hear the name Elizabeth “Liz” Taylor? Maybe it’s her signature amethyst eyes, her gorgeous velvet black updos, or the endless parade of diamonds with which she was always adorned. Or maybe what springs to mind is more sordid in nature: the affairs, the vices, or one of her 8 marriages. Regardless, there’s a scant chance you’ll find anyone who better epitomizes the glamour and scandal that comes along with being a “celebrity”— Elizabeth Taylor damn near invented the term.

Taylor was a product of the Hollywood Studio System when it was at the peak of its power, getting a small role with Universal before at the age of 9 before being swept up as a child starlet with MGM, starting first with Lassie Come Home (1946). By the late 40s, she’d been in over 10 Hollywood productions and was already regarded as one of the most promising young actresses in town. National publications began reporting on Taylor more and more, expecting her to be among the next generation's greatest stars.

Moving into the 1950s, Elizabeth Taylor rose to these expectations as she made the transition to more adult roles such as Father of the Bride (1950) and, most notably, A Place in the Sun (1951). Taylor said this role was the first time she was truly asked to act instead of just playing herself, a task for which she was critically praised. This continued success paired with financial needs during her second marriage and first pregnancy informed Taylor’s decision to renew a 7-year contract with MGM. This tightened the control the studio had on Taylor but she still had her sights set on meatier roles.

These roles would finally present themselves during the mid-to-late 50s, with two of her most acclaimed performances coming from the Tennessee Williams's film adaptations of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly, Last Summer. As Taylor built a reputation as a great actress, she simultaneously became the spectacle of several tabloids, both as a “grieving widow” from the tragic death of her 3rd husband Mike Todd and the “homewrecker” who split up American sweethearts Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.

Her salacious reputation can best be observed in the shift in the posters of her films. Gone were the days of being the girl next door, instead she was quickly becoming a national sex symbol as the scantily clad promotional photos for films like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and BUtterfield 8 proved to bring audiences to the theater in droves. Taylor would go on to win her first Academy Award for the latter, a film that she loathed making but gladly accepted the award that many critics already felt was long overdue.

However, the biggest scandal of Taylor’s career was yet to come. After breaking the glass ceiling of being the first actress to be paid one million dollars for the lead role of Cleopatra (1963), her extramarital affair with co-star Richard Burton became so sensationalized that she was publicly denounced by the Vatican (the majority of filming took place in Rome). This would mark the beginning of one of the longest, most tumultuous romances that Hollywood has ever seen.

Burton and Taylor would star in 11 films together over the next few decades, initially starting with lower budget, cheesy romances that were mostly filmed abroad for tax exemptions. Audiences were now beginning to associate the supercouple less and less with serious acting and more with the gossip rags that were obsessively reporting on them. Just as this trend began to tarnish their brand, Burton was given a script that, after a bit of convincing, would reinvigorate both of their careers and hand Elizabeth Taylor her second Oscar.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) is a controversial, landmark film closely based on the controversial, landmark play by the same name. It follows an ivy league history professor and his sharp-tongued wife who host a new couple on campus with a little late-night entertainment. Burton and Taylor fittingly portray the vociferous university couple through a raucous night of drinking and “games,” toying with the newbies in town while lashing out at one another in every direction along the way.

It’s hard to imagine a celebrity couple better suited to the roles than Burton and Taylor. Both of them give tremendous performances but the emotional weight and the crux of the film’s breakdown of reality ultimately rests on the shoulders of Liz Taylor. The role of Martha requires a woman who can be refined and uncouth in the same breath. From the opening scene of her gnashing away at a chicken leg to the final up close monologue as her illusions begin to crumble around her, the walls that Taylor lets down for this performance as she dares to be ugly is truly something to be marveled at.

While the Motion Picture Production Code’s censorship power had been declining for much of the decade, films such as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? made the MPPC’s job increasingly difficult. Besides the many suggestive sexual situations such as Martha’s dance in the roadhouse or her straddling her husband in their shared bed (a long fall from the separate twin beds of the I Love Lucy days), the film is absolutely littered with language considered highly inflammable for the time: “monkey nipples,” “melons bobbing,” “angel boobs,” “hump the hostess,” and, apparently most controversially, “screw.”

Even so, this directorial debut from Mike Nichols turned out to be a highly lucrative risk with Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? going on to be nominated for every category at the Oscars, only one of two films to ever do so. The film would walk away from that year’s Academy Awards with five Oscars in total, one of which going home with Elizabeth Taylor, of course. While Richard Burton’s performance was glossed over that year, there’s no question that the year’s best acting lies in the scenes of him and Taylor duking it out in their New England home.

While some say these roles served as “relationship therapy” for the two of them, others note that it would be difficult to lay out all of these feelings of resentment, revenge, and rage so publicly only to then try and re-contain them. In hindsight, what many consider to be the high point of both of their careers could very well be seen as the beginning of the end of the roller-coaster ride that was their relationship.

Between Burton’s alcoholism/subsequent affair with Bluebeard co-star Nathalie Delon and Taylor’s emerging addiction to pills, they would dissolve their decade-long marriage in 1974. They remarried briefly the following year and even reconnected to perform in the play Private Lives a few years later, but ultimately Burton’s poor health would be what would permanently separate them, dying from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1984.

However, Elizabeth Taylor’s journey was long from over. While she spent most of the 80s recovering from her addiction and slowing down from performing on screen, she continued to build her dynasty with a successful perfume line, jewelry collection, and by becoming one of the most public and proud HIV/AIDS activists in honor of her late friend, Rock Hudson.

As one of Hollywood’s first-ever celebrities, Taylor’s life was so ruthlessly documented by the paparazzi that it would be easy to chalk hers up to one that was rife with scandal. If one actually takes the time to watch one of her performances though, even one of the cheesier melodramas, it’s nearly impossible not to get lost in her amethyst eyes. Underneath all of the glitz and glamour; the good, bad, and so very ugly publicity, there’s a human being. Elizabeth Taylor delivers troves of iconic lines in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but the one that best exemplifies her life and legacy is this one: “I am the Earth Mother and you are all flops!”