by Donald Bogle
She ended up in the hospital again. Because no one said what the problem was, there was talk that she’d had a breakdown. One thing was clear, though: the only person permitted to see her at the hospital was Donen.
• • •
Otherwise much of the focus in the media was on her private life. Taylor may not have seriously questioned the attention on her love life, at least not now. This kind of coverage simply went with stardom’s territory and stretched back to the days of such iconic stars as Chaplin, Swanson, Garbo, Gable, Davis, Tracy, and Hepburn. Unlike celebrity figures of a later age, the classic stars’ personal lives drew interest mainly because they were so compelling on-screen. But now, Elizabeth, the actress, ran the risk of being overshadowed by Elizabeth, the celebrity.
Nonetheless, Elizabeth would have to do Ivanhoe. Accompanying her to England were her assistant, Peggy Rutledge, as well as an MGM publicist Malvinia Pumphrey and her husband.
When A Place in the Sun hit theaters in August, it received rave reviews. So did Elizabeth. “The real surprise of A Place in the Sun,” wrote Look magazine, “is the lyrical performance of Elizabeth Taylor. Always beautiful, Miss Taylor here reveals an understanding of passion and suffering that is electrifying.” Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Edwin Schallert agreed: “What has given the picture special illumination is the role of Angela Vickers allotted to Miss Taylor. Here is a heroine as beautifully created as any seen in recent days on the screen. What Miss Taylor brings to the picture as a young actress is sheer magic. There is no question to my mind but that she will be a top contender for Academy honors.” He added: “But little less effective is Clift in this, his finest screen effort. He, too, should be an award contender. He hits just the right note in a role that requires the most delicate shading.” The New York Times called the film “a work of beauty, tenderness, power, and insight. . . . Elizabeth Taylor’s delineation of the rich and beauteous Angela also is the top effort of her career. It is a shaded, tender performance.” Ultimately, A Place in the Sun received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor for Clift and Best Actress for Winters. Though also nominated for Best Motion Picture, it lost to An American in Paris. Of the six awards the film did win, Stevens won Best Directing and Edith Head won for Best Costume Design (Black-and-White). Elizabeth, however, did not win the Best Actress nomination that many felt she deserved.
Despite the critical success of A Place in the Sun, Elizabeth found herself making Ivanhoe. Angry with MGM, feeling trapped in useless roles, and also not feeling well physically—suffering from blinding migraines and painful ulcers that kept her on a diet of baby food—she still hadn’t fully recovered from the disillusioning marriage to Nicky. Ivanhoe director Richard Thorpe complained to Pandro S. Berman that she was sleepwalking through the movie. Despite her threat to just coast through the picture, “I knew she wouldn’t,” said Berman. “I knew even at nineteen she was actually too much of an artist to deliberately ruin a part.”
Berman was frank with director Thorpe. “I told him to get what he could out of her, then do every damn line over again when they got back to Hollywood,” recalled Berman. “The lady was always good at improving a performance in the dubbing stages. She’d do it professionally, even if she disdained what she was doing.” In the completed Ivanhoe, as the Jewess (which was how the character was then described) Rebecca, she would appear subdued, rather passive, and melancholic. Her character would not win the hero’s heart. Instead, Robert Taylor’s Ivanhoe would end up with the blond Joan Fontaine. Taylor’s seeming distance from her character, however, made her Rebecca all the more moving and affecting, a portrait of a young woman with her emotions on hold, a woman hurt in love who emerges as the film’s romantic/emotional focal point. Here, too, her beauty would prove intriguing and powerful. How could someone so magnificent-looking lose or even fear losing in love? Of course, Elizabeth now knew what it meant to lose at love and also (because of her relationship with Clift) what it meant to yearn for someone she would not have. Sensitively, she would convey her character’s vulnerability, bringing her personal experiences to a character who otherwise might have been flat and uninvolving.
• • •
While filming in England, Elizabeth was ready to meet even more of the sophisticated and the worldly, both within Hollywood and outside it. Shelley Winters had understood that the teenage Elizabeth was eager to take on the world. Unlike some performers who talked only about show business and who mixed almost exclusively with other movie folk, Taylor was already casting an eye to politicians, to heads of state, to royalty. Nor was she content simply to socialize with people her age. When she had arrived in London to film Ivanhoe, Lord and Lady Mountbatten had invited her to a lavish party, which she happily attended and where she even struck up a friendship with Princess Margaret. The curiosity about her was still growing as much within the European aristocracy as within the mass audience. “Elizabeth Taylor is worshiped,” British actress Joan Collins would say within a few years. “The girls simply adore her. Their great ambition is to look like her; you can see 1000 imitation Elizabeth Taylors any day in London.” Interestingly enough, once Collins was working in Hollywood, she was dubbed “the poor man’s Elizabeth Taylor” and, for a time, dated Nicky Hilton.
But with all that attention, something else was on Elizabeth’s mind. She was once again ready for a love that could lead to marriage and full adulthood.
• • •
Born in 1912 in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, Michael Wilding originally planned to become a painter but stumbled into acting. Elegant and urbane with an aristocratic bearing, he was one of British cinema’s most popular actors in the late 1940s and early 1950s, appearing in such films as Three, In Which We Serve, and Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, opposite Marlene Dietrich and Jane Wyman. Having met Elizabeth during her earlier trip to England to film Conspirator, he and Taylor had flirted, but Wilding, like Peter Lawford, knew he was playing with fire. She was still a teenager.
But Wilding hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Once she arrived in London for Ivanhoe, he called, took both Elizabeth and Peggy Rutledge to dinner, then invited Elizabeth to dinner alone the next evening. Before Elizabeth knew what was happening, she was in love with him. He was honest about his life and situation. Though married, he planned to divorce his wife, Kay Young. He also wanted Elizabeth to know that basically he was broke. Though he had made money, he couldn’t somehow hold on to it. Regardless of his financial state or hers, and regardless that he was twenty years her senior, her decision to marry him didn’t take long at all.
Many would be hard-pressed to figure out why Elizabeth fell for him. Perhaps after the catastrophe of Hilton, she sought a mature, more experienced and worldly man. Wilding certainly was that. Perhaps it was his easygoing gentleness that may have called to mind her father. Perhaps it was his balance, his sanity, his awareness of who he was.
Shortly before leaving London, she cabled her mother, saying she was thinking of her and couldn’t wait to see her in Beverly Hills. Her name and Michael Wilding’s were signed to the cable.
• • •
The families and friends of Elizabeth and Nicky, as well as the public at large, had no choice but to accept the fact that the Hilton marriage would never be patched up. The reason why? Elizabeth announced plans to marry Michael Wilding. What delayed the nuptials was Elizabeth’s divorce, which would not be final until the end of the year. Nor was Wilding’s divorce finalized. For the moviegoing public, Elizabeth Taylor no longer looked like that innocent girl it had loved for so many years. As for Elizabeth, she didn’t seem to care what the public thought.
For Taylor’s parents, such a forthcoming marriage was much too soon. But Sara understood that there was no use trying to talk to Elizabeth. MGM didn’t like the possible fallout from the publicity. This was still a nineteen-year-old girl embarking on a second marriage to a man who—though in the process of divorcing his wife—was technically still married. And he was an older man, at that. I
nterestingly, at one point press accounts listed Wilding’s age as forty-two. Other times it was forty-one. Then it became thirty-nine. Meanwhile, Wilding was “a mere child at heart,” Elizabeth told the press.
• • •
At MGM, some questions must have been asked as to whether Taylor might run off to live in England. Rushing to star her in The Girl Who Had Everything—a remake of Metro’s big 1931 hit A Free Soul, which had starred Norma Shearer and Clark Gable—the studio felt that the title alone was perfect for Elizabeth. Perhaps more important, the film might take Elizabeth’s mind off Wilding. But the script was in terrible shape. While MGM scrambled to get it into shape, once her divorce was finalized, Elizabeth hopped on a plane and flew to England—with the intent of marrying Wilding. Seeing her off at the Los Angeles airport were a resigned Sara and Francis. “The sight of the week,” said Hopper, “was Elizabeth Taylor’s parents waving her off on a plane that carried her 6000 miles to marry Michael Wilding, a man old enough to be her father.”
Michael Wilding may not have known what was hitting him. He certainly loved this teenager, but marriage so soon? Regardless, he met Elizabeth at the London airport. Ready as she was to tie the knot, in her haste in leaving Los Angeles, she had forgotten to bring her divorce papers. The marriage was momentarily postponed, but not for long. The divorce papers were “radio-photo-ed” to England.
Thus, on February 21, 1952, Liz and Mike, as the press now called them, separately entered London’s Caxton Hall, where, during a fifteen-minute ceremony, they were married. British producer Herbert Wilcox and his wife, British actress Anna Neagle, were their witnesses. As they left Caxton Hall, Taylor looked “dainty and dewy-eyed,” but Wilding “was looking apprehensive.” No wonder. Outside, more than a thousand people lined the street, all the while shouting and screaming, while waiting for a glimpse of the newlyweds, or to be more precise, to see Elizabeth. The couple “was pushed and squeezed as they struggled to their car.” In many respects, it was a replay of the day she had married Hilton. “Elizabeth Taylor Wedding Turns Into Minor Riot” was the front-page headline in the Los Angeles Times. The bride was now nineteen. The groom’s age was listed as thirty-nine. Afterward, the couple honeymooned in Europe and then moved into an apartment in Mayfair.
“Michael is a sweet, charming person,” said his former wife Kay Young, “but I don’t think he’s the right type for marriage. He’s afraid of responsibility.” Young may have been right. Perhaps he also was not right for marriage because there were whispers he might be gay. Or bisexual. But perhaps reluctantly Wilding soon had to develop a sense of responsibility. Or at least try. He also had to start to think about finances.
• • •
While she remained in London, MGM rushed to get a Taylor picture into production. No matter what its reservations about her marriage, the studio knew all too well that Elizabeth was the one young star about whom there was an intense public fascination, the kind that had been reserved for great movie legends. MGM talked of a film Saadia to be shot in Morocco with Taylor and Italian star Vittorio Gassman. But nothing came of that. Though she was set to return to the States to do The Girl Who Had Everything in April, delays piled up because the script still needed work, according to MGM. This turned out to be true, but what was really holding things up was Taylor’s demand for more money.
MGM had to renew her contract. Though the studio system was in the waning days of its great power, these were still the years when movie companies had ironclad contracts that gave little breathing space for its actors and actresses. Taylor felt comfortable at MGM, where she still had friendships with Helen Rose and Sydney Guilaroff, as well as executive Benny Thau and with producer Pandro S. Berman, despite their battles. She had no desire to leave the studio. A new deal was negotiated, but it was a tough one. Top representatives of teenaged Elizabeth pressured the studio into terms that provided her better money. Yet she still was not really free to select her films or her directors. But what made the new deal sweeter to Taylor was MGM’s agreement to put Wilding under contract, too. That was the kind of power she now had. When Wilding had visited her in Los Angeles before the marriage, she had made sure he got out and met people. Understanding industry politics and policies, she was teaching Wilding the rules of the game of the town. And from her vantage point, the rules of the game also meant that if the studio wanted her, it would have to take him, too. Her deal would be in effect in June.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth enjoyed lying low in their deluxe Mayfair apartment—just being Mrs. Wilding. At one point when there was a fire in the apartment building, Taylor and husband simply refused to leave. It soon was extinguished. Apparently, even the fire was willing to defer to Elizabeth Taylor.
In June 1952, Taylor returned to Los Angeles. At the airport, she carried a stray kitten that a waiter had given her—a picture-perfect image for her arrival. Still in England, Wilding would join her later. In the meantime, she had to find a new home. “I may just turn that chore over to Mike,” she said. She had other things on her mind. So did MGM. She let studio officials know that she’d have to start The Girl Who Had Everything immediately. “I hit them with the news that I was going to have a baby and that they had better not delay things if they wanted me in the picture. What a rush and a scramble to put the picture before the cameras in two weeks with a fast polishing job.”
• • •
Elizabeth had turned twenty that past February, and she was now calling as many of the shots as she could. The Girl Who Had Everything—the story of a beautiful spoiled daughter of an unscrupulous attorney who falls for one of his gangster clients—was quickly assembled with Latin heartthrob Fernando Lamas as her gangster boyfriend, Gig Young as her devoted other boyfriend, and veteran William Powell as her attorney father. It was directed by Richard Thorpe, who had directed Ivanhoe, which had not yet opened. MGM wanted to keep her happy: Helen Rose did the costumes; Sydney Guilaroff was the hairstylist. Once Wilding arrived in Los Angeles, the house hunting was put in his hands. “The only thing is that house hunting has been a problem,” he said. “Everything we have looked at appears to cost some fantastic price like $60,000 to $100,000. We had no thought of such an investment.” Finally, they moved into a home on Summit Ridge Drive, north of Beverly Hills, that sat on a high flat knoll on three and a half acres.
With Michael yet to establish himself in Hollywood, Elizabeth became the breadwinner in the Wilding household. Within a few months, she acquired control over the US bonds, now valued at $47,000, that had been kept in trust for her and represented some of the savings she had accumulated during her years as a minor at MGM. The court had required that 10 percent of her earnings be put in a savings account and 15 percent be invested in the bonds.
Of her impending motherhood, she said, “I hope it will mean a new growth in my work. But even that isn’t important compared with the meaning of the event itself.”
Clearly, her work as an actress meant much to her. The advance buzz on Ivanhoe was strong. “In it Elizabeth is credited with giving one of her finest portrayals,” said Hedda Hopper, “as the tragically menaced Rebecca, who is eventually saved in fierce combat by Robert Taylor.”
Opening that October, Ivanhoe received some glowing reviews. The Los Angeles Times called it “rich in dramatic happenings on the grand scale” and commented that “Miss Taylor, [George] Sanders, and the British actors fare perhaps the best in attaining the requisite conviction for their portrayals.” In the New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote that “a remarkable forcefulness is achieved and the picture brings off a serious lesson in fairness and tolerance not customary in spectacle films. Credit for this may be given to Elizabeth Taylor, in the role of Rebecca, and Felix Aylmer, as Isaac, as well as the men who made the film. For both of these able performers handle with grace and eloquence the frank and faceted characters of the rejected Jews.” Crowther also named Ivanhoe one of the top ten pictures of the year. Not only did Ivanhoe become a box office champion, but it also won an
Oscar nomination as Best Motion Picture. Excited by the two Taylors’ appearances in Ivanhoe, which was far sexier and more compelling than the coupling of Robert Taylor and Joan Fontaine, MGM was now making plans to team the two Taylors again in the period pictures Knights of the Round Table and All the Brothers Were Valiant, with Richard Thorpe directing and Berman producing. Elizabeth Taylor, however, ended up doing neither film.
• • •
Socially, Elizabeth still saw some of the old crowd, those young studio people who Nicky Hilton had thought were bores. When Jane Powell gave birth to her second child, a daughter, Elizabeth and Michael were among the first to visit her in the hospital. She was also still friendly with actor Marshall Thompson and his wife, Barbara, and in touch with Anne Westmore. But her social life moved in another direction. During the early years of his career, Wilding’s closest friend was another struggling actor named James Stewart who eventually changed his name—obviously, because Hollywood already had its James Stewart—and became a swashbuckling matinee idol known as Stewart Granger. Hedda Hopper would always be “suspicious” of the relationship between the two men and would find herself with a lawsuit when she wrote that they were homosexuals, which both men vehemently denied. During these years, the Wildings spent time—dinners and parties—with Stewart Granger and his young wife, British actress Jean Simmons, who, with her dark hair and striking eyes, bore a resemblance to Elizabeth. Montgomery Clift and Wilding also got along. More of the newly emerging hot young stars in Hollywood, such as Rock Hudson and Carroll Baker, would eventually be guests at the Wilding home.
Constantly adding to her menagerie, Elizabeth now had a retriever given to her by Uncle Howard to go along with her toy poodle, as well as three baby poodles, a wire-hair dachshund, four cats, and one bird. Constantly cleaning up after them were the household housekeeper and Wilding. But, as always, none of that fazed Elizabeth. Nor did she pick up after herself. Again that was still left up to the housekeeper. Nor did she know much about cooking or maintaining a house, other than instructing a staff on how she wanted things done. She also remained constantly late for appointments and engagements. Her mother once said that Elizabeth’s tardiness had been the only thing that had ever made her impatient with her daughter. Elizabeth didn’t even bat an eyelash about that. If she was late, she was late. It was their problem, not hers.