by Nancy Bacon
Perhaps few people know about the Richard Hanley incident, but those who know Elizabeth well wouldn’t be surprised. I knew Elizabeth casually for several years and have seen her in many roles. I know (because she told me) that Michael Wilding was the weak point of her life. She was looking for a father and she found him. For Wilding was much like her father, whom she adored even though he was considered henpecked. Her mother was the dominating force in the Taylor household, the strong one who told everyone else what was good for them. Elizabeth always swore she would never be that way when she grew up, and yet her first two marriages proved to be carbon-copies of the very things she despised.
Records are filled to overflowing with the causes of the demise of the Hilton and Wilding marriages, so no mention need be made here. And, of course, everyone knew that Mike Todd was the love of her life and the tragedy. But perhaps few people know that her marriage to Eddie Fisher was not the big sex thing that it was touted as being. There was very little sex in her life with Eddie. She looked on him as a big brother, someone to lean on, someone who had loved Mike as much as she had. And Eddie, even though he loved Elizabeth desperately, could not help but feel great guilt. For he had truly loved Mike Todd and looked upon him as a father. And Elizabeth Taylor Todd had been a kind of glamorous and unreal stepmother. One doesn’t marry one’s stepmother and live happily ever after. So the guilt that drew them together drove them apart. And left Elizabeth still searching.
I was around them on occasion during their marriage and I saw, firsthand, how they lived. Eddie was always grinning, always clowning, trying to make Elizabeth laugh. They clung together that first year and a half of the marriage simply because they had no one else. The world was against them. Even Hollywood and longtime acquaintances turned their backs on them. They dined out constantly and drank too much champagne and said ‘I love you’ too often and too loudly. It was really all over by the time they flew to Rome to do Cleopatra.
When Elizabeth fell in love with Richard Burton she didn’t even blink as she told Eddie to take a hike. She was used to having what she wanted—and she wanted Burton.
Cleopatra was not even halfway through filming before she began making comments about retiring. Her major interest in life never was a career. She stated dozens of times that she just wanted to be a wife and mother. Perhaps it all started that day long ago in Mayer’s office. MGM was a factory then, turning out movies like so many cans of peas. There was no glamour for the younger stars—just hard work. Too hard for a twelve-year-old kid, and she must have resented it. But if she has any fond memories at all about her early years at MGM, it would have to be the little schoolhouse on the back lot. There she giggled like the child she was and shared secrets, and her best friends were Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. They understood because they were going through the same thing and they belonged to one another.
Whenever I was around Elizabeth and talk turned to show business, she would screw up her face in a grimace of distaste and make some caustic remark. She went through a period in which her movies did rather badly at the box office and her career seemed to be slipping. Rather than be disappointed (as most actors would) she seemed delighted, saying, ‘Well, now maybe I can retire and become just plain Mrs. Burton.’ However, even with bad notices and adverse publicity, Elizabeth herself was more popular than ever, somehow remaining the number one actress people wanted to read about and know about.
I believe it was her sense of honesty that drew people to her. She was a woman who never lost her sense of wonder or her curiosity. And her belief in marriage remained unshakable. Each time she took the marriage vows, she announced that this was it—she would retire and have dozens of babies. With Burton, she truly wanted to be a homemaker and wife, but it was denied her. Their very lifestyle made a mockery of her dreams to be ‘just plain Mrs. Burton.’
Another reason the American public was so loyal to Elizabeth was her obvious love of children—all children—and her own were not nanny-kept like the offspring of most movie stars. During her stay at the Dorchester Hotel in London when her children were younger, she startled some pretty important people by her concern for her kids. They were playing in Hyde Park, just across the street from Elizabeth’s terrace and yet, every five or ten minutes, she would walk out onto the terrace and look across at Hyde Park to see that everything was all right. It mattered not the least hit that her sitting room was filled with important producers and money men who were discussing a possible movie with her.
She did exactly what she wanted to do—which meant doing exactly what Burton wanted her to do. And she loved it. Her one desire was always a dominating male. She thought she had found it in Burton, and with all due respect to Burton, I believe she really did find it for a while. All her husbands and lovers were always been so in awe of her beauty that it blinded them to the woman and her needs. Not so with Burton. From the very beginning he called her ‘a pretty little thing.’ What? Not beautiful? Not gorgeous? And her stardom only amused him for he considered himself a better actor.
The fact he bought her huge gems didn’t hurt: Richard’s first jewelry purchase for Elizabeth was the 33.19-carat Asscher-cut Krupp Diamond, in 1968… the first of many.
He used to refer to her in public as ‘Miss Elizabeth Taylor’—said in that slightly haughty Welsh accent, but with a glint of mischief in his eyes because they both knew that at home she was just his woman. Elizabeth loved it. She even began referring to herself in the same manner: ‘Elizabeth Taylor would like another drink,’ she would say to a passing waiter.
When I heard about the first divorce I was really stunned. This was her only marriage that I was convinced would work. I suppose Burton contributed to the break-up with his boozing and womanizing, and, finally, his complete love and dependence upon Elizabeth. (‘I love her too much,’ he once told newsmen, ‘so much that it is beginning to devour me.’) When they married and divorced a second time, in the mid-1970s, I was less stunned.
I’ve thought a lot about Elizabeth as I gathered information for this book and I wondered how I could paint a true picture of the most famous woman in the world. Then I realized how easy it was. Easy because she was so open, honest, warm, and simple. It’s merely a matter of listing her likes and dislikes.
She loved: rare champagne, gourmet food, fabulous furs, children, sleek yachts, Mexican beer, laughter, feather boas, huge houses that can be turned into homes, music, sensitivity, chili beans and hot peppers, dominant, protective, strong men, swear words, femininity, orphans, puppies and kittens, emeralds, her villa in Gstaad, orchids, gray hair, power, caraway seeds, honest critics, her Lear jet, chipmunks, her enormous diamond, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
She hated: death, cheap millionaires, pain, cold weather, sleeping on the same sheets twice, backaches, warm champagne, taxes, uninvolvement, last year’s sable, gossip columnists who misquote her, being an actress, users, slow waiters, being alone.
Humor was Elizabeth’s secret weapon and she used it well to cover unshed tears and private hurts. Her fans considered her the most fortunate woman in the world. She had everything she could possibly dream for—everything material, that is. She was even dubbed Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000, but I doubt that changed much for her. She’d divorced her final husband four years before, and never married again.
When she became the first big star to champion HIV/AIDS activism in the eighties, it was because her friend and former co-star Rock Hudson announced he was dying of the disease... Liz raised more than $270 million for the cause over the years. Finally, she was more than just an actress—more than a tabloid headline.
From those tears cried into a handkerchief some sixty years before, a true salt-of-the earth woman emerged and left an indelible impression on the world.
beach bumming with marilyn monroe
It’s harder than hell to be a superstar and have all your loves and hates, triumphs and tragedies, marriages and divorces spread out for all the world to see. When they really wanted t
o curse or cry, they couldn’t, because there was always that glare of flashbulbs popping and reporters shoving microphones into their faces and fans screaming for a piece of them and cops holding back mobs that would crush and destroy their idols if they could just get to them.
It’s strange; we make them stars and then we give them no time, privacy, or peace to enjoy that stardom. Whenever I think of superstars who have been hounded unmercifully and have been public pawns most of their movie career, Marilyn Monroe is the first to come to mind. Poor little Marilyn, she was dubbed tragedy’s child by the media and the title was most apt.
She was a twentieth century Cinderella but, unlike her fairytale counterpart, she did not live happily ever after. Her search for a strong, handsome prince was much more desperate and pathetic than Elizabeth Taylor’s search. Elizabeth had had a rich, comfortable, secure childhood; Marilyn was an orphan, raised in several foster homes and hiding the shame of a neurotic mother who drifted in and out of her life whenever she was released from her latest mental institution. Elizabeth had famous movie stars sending her roses by the dozens and proposing marriage when she was still in her teens; Marilyn was ducking the pawing hands of foster-fathers and being frightened half out of her wits by boys who had something a lot more basic than roses on their minds. Elizabeth married handsome young millionaire, Nicky Hilton, and went on a honeymoon cruise around the world, while Marilyn was stuck in a little cracker-box flat with an uneducated laborer she had married simply because she ‘wanted something alive around the house.’ When Elizabeth married her second husband, the suave, English gentleman, Michael Wilding, Marilyn was beating the sidewalks of Hollywood in search of work and posing in the nude because she was hungry and could not pay the rent.
Even when Marilyn made it big in pictures, she was still a frightened, insecure little girl. She was so unsophisticated and trusting and sincere—and she was used badly by just about everyone she came in contact with. There are some people who have an aura about them that’s almost as blatant as a sign reading KICK ME and that’s how it was with Marilyn. She loved people and wanted them to love her in return but too often they exploited their friendship with her for their own personal gain—whether career-wise or intimately. By the time Marilyn was a firmly established superstar she became so neurotic and had developed an inferiority complex so terrifying that she was frightened to leave her home. She was habitually late for appointments, but it wasn’t that she was inconsiderate, just terrified of seeing people. And being the unsophisticated girl that she was, whenever tragedy struck, she simply could not handle it. Most glamorous stars move like queens through the throngs of reporters as they leave the courtroom after their latest divorce, but Marilyn couldn’t do that. I remember the ugly scene of her split from Joe DiMaggio. She was wrapped up in beige mink, her eyes swollen from crying, her fluffy-duckling blond hair in wild disarray about her tear-streaked face as she tried to ward off the jabbing microphones that insensitive reporters stuck into her face every step of the way out of the courtroom.
And again, this time when she had suffered a miscarriage while married to Arthur Miller, they would not let her suffer in privacy but insisted on shouting stupid questions at her. ‘Marilyn! Marilyn, is it true that you’ll never be able to have babies?’ Or—‘Marilyn, does this mean that you will devote your time to your career?’ And perhaps the most insulting of all, ‘Marilyn, what are your measurements now?’
‘Why can’t they just leave me alone?’ was her pathetic plea. ‘What do they want from mc? I don’t understand.’ And she did not understand. She was so innocent for all her ugly past and painful childhood. She believed anyone who took the time to talk with her. She always felt surprised and grateful that important people wanted to be in her company. She was even in awe of her own success and like many beautiful women, she did not think she was beautiful. ‘Look at me—all pale and plain I’m not even pretty,’ she said to me one day as we sat at her beach house. ‘I wish I had Ava Gardner’s coloring. To me, she’s a real beauty.’
And I looked at her and saw such an adorable face—her skin was almost translucent in its pale perfection; her hair was like cotton candy spun by angels, with the same substance and texture; her figure was flawless and much smaller and vulnerable-looking in person. I shook my head, wondering if she was really that naive not to know how beautiful she was. She truly was unaware of her beauty but, for all her modesty, she had an innate vanity that came to the fore when needed—almost subconsciously, it seemed.
One afternoon we were at the beach, just kind of doing nothing, walking along the shore and looking for shells, talking about life. I had just driven out that morning and was dressed in a smashing new pants outfit that had cost a fortune and had matching everything. Marilyn was dressed in a pair of faded Levi’s and a terrycloth halter that was worn and stretched. She was barefoot and totally without makeup while I had just come from the beauty salon and was coiffed and painted up like a Picasso.
A young man approached us and asked if he could take a picture. (He recognized Marilyn even in her undressed state.) She agreed, but only if I was in the picture with her. We stood side by side with the ocean behind us and the young man snapped his Polaroid. One instant before his finger released the shutter, Marilyn kind of shrugged her shoulders, straightening them. Her hip went up slightly and out, rounding sensually as her legs seemed to grow longer and slimmer before my eyes. She pulled herself up in that brief instant, throwing her head back so the blond tendrils were falling sexily across her forehead and curling around her face as her expression changed into one of warm seduction.
When the young man took the finished photograph from the Polaroid and showed it to us, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There we stood, Marilyn in her faded blue jeans and sagging halter, looking every inch the glamorous and beautiful movie queen—and me, in all my finery, looking like the stepsister. It was a hell of a shot, one which I wish I had today. After the young man had thanked her profusely and rushed away with his prize, we continued to walk and Marilyn went back to being the artless girl. She didn’t comment on it and I didn’t know her well enough at that time to make any statement, but I’ve never forgotten it. That was either the best acting I’d ever seen or she had some built-in device that turned her into the public Marilyn Monroe whenever it was needed.
I visited with Marilyn quite a few times. I really liked her as a human being. I felt so sorry for her and knew what extreme pain she was suffering. She was so honest she couldn’t have hidden her troubles even if she had tried. She was the most childlike creature I’ve ever met. A pure innocent. For all the ugliness of her past and all her unhappy love affairs and marriages, she seemed never to be hard and hitter. Rather, she seemed to become more insecure and childlike, always waiting for the butterfly to come out of the cocoon.
I remember one evening when she was staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel in one of the little cottages in the back. I was having cocktails with Jim Henaghan and two Texas millionaire oilmen in the Polo Lounge of the hotel and talk turned to Marilyn and the fact that she was staying there.
‘Wanna meet her?’ Jim asked the two cowboy millionaires. ‘I know her intimately—she’ll do anything I tell her.’
He wasn’t exactly bragging. Marilyn and he had been buddies for many years and she was prone to do anything Jim asked her. Of course, the boys couldn’t say yes fast enough and soon we were walking through the gardens to Marilyn’s cottage. It was quite late and we had obviously gotten her out of bed because she answered the door in her pajamas and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She looked like a small tow-headed child that had been roused from a deep slumber as she stood there in her large, baggy pajamas with her hair curling softly about her face and clinging to her neck in sweat-dampened tendrils.
‘Hi, Jim,’ she said softly and opened the door for all of us to come inside. Henaghan was quite drunk (as usual) and he wasted no time.
‘These guys arc buddies of mine from Texas,’ he said. ‘I want you to show t
hem your appendectomy scar.’
Nodding sleepily, Marilyn pulled down her pajama bottoms, swaying slightly and yawning as the two men ogled her beige pubic hair and the tiny white scar that ran parallel with it.
Then, just as casually, she pulled her pajamas into place and climbed back into bed, asking Jim if he would tuck her in and give her a good-night kiss. The cowboys from Texas could not believe what they were witnessing.
It may seem rather cruel what Jim had done at Marilyn’s expense that evening, but actually they were very close friends and enjoyed a relationship that was both beautiful and honest.
Jim was a brilliant man and had great insight into people and their problems. He pegged Marilyn the first time he saw her (at a press conference party) and took her aside and said, ‘Don’t let these creeps get to you, honey. They have to pull down their pants to take a shit, same as you and me!’
Marilyn cracked up giggling and clung to Jim throughout the rest of the party. When she won the Photoplay Award for Most Promising Newcomer, she sent it to Jim with a note saying that it really belonged to him because he had taught her how to handle ‘the creeps.’ Jim, not one to be bested, sent her a BB gun with a note saying, ‘What else can a little boy give a little girl he likes a lot except his most prized possession—his BB gun.’ Marilyn spent about seventy-five dollars to have that little toy rifle mounted above her bed. She had a rich mahogany plaque made with ornately carved brass arms to hold the little rifle, and she proudly showed it to friends.
But even the silly games of a little boy grown old and a frightened woman who could only play at childhood, could not save her from her destiny. She was almost violently unhappy, constantly seeking relief and escape from her very existence. She drank vodka and champagne, sometimes at the same sitting, and gulped sleeping-pills and tranquillizers by the dozens just to take the edge off and allow her to get through the night. Her days were little better. She had friends who worried about her and loved her and tried to help. But the nights—those long, agonizing nights with no one to talk to or hold close or even to eat dinner with.