How to Be a Movie Star
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Elizabeth once remarked to Dominick Dunne—"without an iota of braggadocio"—that she couldn't remember a time when she wasn't famous. That's key to understanding her. Even though she didn't become a star until the age of twelve, her early entitlement sprang from a privileged childhood as the daughter of middle-class Americans who'd found the good life in British aristocratic circles and who, like MGM a few years later, indulged her every whim. Yet while she was always more a red-blooded broad than a blue-blooded dame (her designation as a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 2000 notwithstanding), her love for the finer things would serve her well as a movie star.
Of course, such luxury meant that she never experienced "ordinary" life. Shooting a scene in Butterfield 8, director Daniel Mann handed his star a couple of eggs and told her to pretend to make breakfast as she stood at the stove. Taylor's eyes grew wide. Holding an egg out in each hand, she implored, "But what do I do with them?" She had never made breakfast in her life. Neither had she ever been to a baseball game or a school dance that wasn't arranged by the Metro publicity department. Yet studio press releases, cranked out on mimeograph machines, tried—not always successfully—to create the illusion that Elizabeth was just a simple girl with ordinary dreams.
This is the trap that biographers have sometimes fallen into, swayed by those long-ago press releases into chronicling Taylor's romances and marriages as simply the narrative of a passionate woman's heart. In most accounts, Elizabeth moves from Glenn Davis to Bill Pawley to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton (and beyond) without any other consideration than "love." Yet while Taylor's passion is undeniable, such an approach misses the far more interesting story of how these relationships were used by the studio and later by her own press agents to further her fame—and always with Elizabeth's compliance.
Indeed, the two central memes of Taylor's career—her marriages and her illnesses—were marketed for every last dollar of their commercial value. That doesn't mean they weren't real; it simply means that everyone involved understood the considerable gain that they promised to yield.
It is my job with this book to not only separate fact from fiction, but to also consider the ways in which they inform each other, and to document as best as possible the sometimes practical, sometimes mysterious ways in which Elizabeth Taylor became a movie star—and how she managed to stay on top for four magnificent decades.
How to Be a Movie Star is not a traditional biography. I do not cover every year of Taylor's life, or every film, or every up and down of every romance. There are plenty of other books that do that. I'm not here to repeat well-known anecdotes merely for form's sake. Instead I take instruction from the book's title. What intrigues me are those areas that haven't been fully investigated before: the mechanics of Taylor's fame and the alchemy that assured her enduring celebrity. By considering these, I hope to understand fame itself a little better. And for that, what better model than Elizabeth Taylor?
For my purposes, I concentrate on (to use Sarris's term) her "chocolate sundae" years, zooming in on key periods of Taylor's life that tell the larger story of her walk with fame: the campaign to be cast in National Velvet; the productions of A Place in the Sun and Giant; the jet-setting celebrity she enjoyed with Mike Todd (back when air travel was still a novelty to most people); the hysterical public reaction to her affair with Fisher; the transformative scandal with Burton; and the behind-the-scenes stories of Cleopatra and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I fade out with The Little Foxes and Elizabeth triumphantly taking her curtain calls on Broadway, basking in the affection of her public.
Her life went on from there, of course; her heartfelt advocacy on behalf of those with AIDS will likely be remembered as her greatest achievement. But after the late 1960s, Taylor ceased being a movie star, strictly speaking. Although she still made the occasional appearance in film or on TV, her fame was now carried along largely by the momentum of the previous forty years. And so grand and glamorous were those years that they could palliate the sometimes painful gaucheries of Taylor's later life: the trips to the Betty Ford Clinic, the marriage to construction worker Larry Fortensky, the friendship with Michael Jackson, The Flintstones.
To re-create Taylor's many different worlds, I have drawn from sources that were either never previously used or seriously underutilized, such as director George Stevens's personal papers for A Place in the Sun and Giant, which included Elizabeth's private medical records tucked away in one folder; the FBI files of Mike Todd; the business records of the Todd organization; the hundreds of letters Hedda Hopper received during the Eddie Fisher scandal; the studio marketing plans for Butterfield 8; the private letters between Burton and his former lover Claire Bloom; court depositions given by Taylor and Burton when Fox sued them over Cleopatra; the journal kept by producer Ernest Lehman during the making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; and Taylor's working script for The Little Foxes, complete with her own handwritten notes. For the most part, the quotes I use come from fresh sources, such as transcripts of unpublished interviews with Elizabeth, Burton, George Stevens, Hedda Hopper, and others.
I also spoke with many of Taylor's friends, colleagues, and family, most of whom are here on the record. Only a few asked that their names not be used; I agreed to their anonymity because their proximity to Taylor offered valuable insight. Yet equally as important were those who, even if their connection to the star was tangential, offered commentary on the mechanics of her celebrity. Among these were publicists and agents who described for me the elaborate process of studio starmaking; Elizabeth's fellow contract players who shared their own experiences at the MGM lot and studio schoolhouse; and the original paparazzi who conveyed their unique perspective on the power and allure of fame.
If not the greatest star, Elizabeth Taylor is certainly the last. Her singular journey through the popular imagination tells us everything we need to know about fame and public life in the twentieth century. It also provides some telling insight into what it's become today. The old adage that they don't make stars like Elizabeth Taylor anymore is true. Even when they were making stars like her, she had few rivals. Some years ago, Elizabeth called herself "Mother Courage" and vowed she'd be dragging her sable coat behind her into old age. Whether sable or shark cages, Elizabeth Taylor has kept her word.
One
When in Rome
December 1961–April 1962
NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1961. People, ordinary and otherwise, were gathering along Rome's famed Via Veneto, a boulevard of blasphemy in the shadow of Vatican City. The atmosphere outside Bricktop's, the nightclub for the chic and the daring run by the cigar-smoking chanteuse who'd inspired Cole Porter's "Miss Otis Regrets," was feverish. The air was a blend of cigarette smoke and perfume. The holiday wasn't the only reason for the energy. Much of it came from rumors that somewhere inside Bricktop's the world's most famous woman was ringing out the old—not to mention the fairly recent—in her own lively fashion.
"Leez," the mob began to chant. "Leez!"
Within the smoky club, Elizabeth Taylor threw her head back in laughter, her cheeks rosy with champagne and revelry. The diamonds around her neck sparkled, and for a second her plunging neckline revealed even more soft cleavage than usual. Across from her, nearly as starstruck as the crowd outside, was Tom Mankiewicz, the nineteen-year-old son of the director who had brought Elizabeth to the Eternal City.
"It's impossible to exaggerate how beautiful Elizabeth Taylor was back then," Mankiewicz said. "She was so beautiful that my teeth hurt."
At twenty-nine, Elizabeth, the mother of three, still had the figure of a goddess—or at least the attitude and experience to convince just about everyone that her attributes were divine. Her beauty was real, but it was maximized by her performance: Her walk, her talk, her clothes, her jewels all announced, "I'm here. Aren't I grand?"—which would be followed by another eruption of ebullient laughter and a sip of something, then a flash of those magnificent eyes. Elizabeth Taylor made beauty warm and approachable—if expensive.
Now into its second year of production, having started and stopped any number of times in London and now in Rome, Cleopatra was on its way to becoming the most expensive production of its era. Part of the enormous budget—$20 million at that point, and it would later double—was because of its especially grand scale. The Alexandrian set was the largest ever built, spreading over thirty acres. And that was just the real estate. Wags joked, not without cause, that Cleopatra had the third largest navy in the world. But the real grandeur was Elizabeth; the hurricane of sex and glamour she stirred up didn't come cheap. Her $1 million salary was a landmark in 1961, and then there was her share of the profits. She stood to make a killing. But then—as this evening illustrated—she worked overtime.
In 1961 Elizabeth was the biggest star in the world. The annual exhibitors' poll had just confirmed her number one box-office status, largely due to her smash hit, Butterfield 8. She'd nabbed an Oscar for that one—though some people said that she'd really won for best performance in a real-life tragedy: her near-fatal (or fatalish) bout with pneumonia earlier that year. Six months later she was out of bed and causing a riot in Rome soon after she arrived with a neckline that plunged to her waist. Two thousand screaming fans broke through a ring of police when they spied her at the Sistina Theater, and she was lost among them for a moment. Scrambling into a parked car and locking the door behind her, Elizabeth waited until the police arrived to escort her to safety. Who said a million was so generous? And she played it all to the hilt.
Every day was more of the same: more outfits, more screams, more drama. Her life seemed concocted to create havoc and dispel boredom. Outside her hotel the street became a circus every time Elizabeth raised the blinds in her room. But what she was really doing was raising the curtain on the Era of Celebrity. Hundreds gathered daily, "thinking there might be a chance they'd see her walk in or out," Mankiewicz said. Her hold over the public and their dreams was like the caress of a steel vise. She had been trained in the all-American art of public living since girlhood, and she had elevated it to an almost Shakespearean level—with diamonds and disposable husbands.
Her training came courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio that, more than any other, created the business of Hollywood and the cultivation of these things called stars. Trained by experts, Elizabeth had taken it all up a notch or two when given the opportunity. "No one—and I mean no one—has ever had that kind of fame quotient," Tom Mankiewicz said. "And no one has ever handled it quite so well."
Seated at Bricktop's on that New Year's Eve, Elizabeth glanced up to see a young United States marine in full-dress uniform approaching the table. "I'd like to ask you to dance," the young man said. Taylor's husband (number four), the singer Eddie Fisher, tried to shoo him away, but Elizabeth, her extraordinary blue eyes (the press routinely called them violet) filling with mischief, followed the kid onto the dance floor.
While Fisher brooded, the rest of the table admired how charming and ladylike Elizabeth was with the marine—even after just knocking back an Ivan the Terrible, a potent mix of vodka, grappa, and ouzo, on a dare from her costar, Richard Burton, who was there with his gracious, soft-spoken wife, Sybil. The Burtons were the official hosts of the party; Taylor and Fisher were the guests of honor. Among the entourage was Elizabeth's longtime pal Roddy McDowall, accompanied by his boyfriend, John Valva; the film's producer, Walter Wanger, in from Los Angeles; and director Joe Mankiewicz with his two sons, Tom and Chris, who were assisting on the film.
Once the marine had returned Elizabeth to the table, Eddie announced that they were calling it a night. "There isn't anything more important than the sleep and rest of Elizabeth Taylor," he often said. But someone had other plans. It wasn't even midnight yet, Elizabeth argued, arms akimbo, eyes flashing.
Burton egged her on. "You see here?" he asked, tapping Elizabeth's glass. "She hasn't even finished her champagne."
Several observers witnessed Burton switching his own glass with her empty one. His ruse continued for the next hour as he slid refills on the table and she drank them down eagerly. Fisher didn't catch on, but he knew something was happening. The increasing proximity of Elizabeth and Richard unnerved him. The others noticed it as well. "It was just a matter of time before they began an affair, if they hadn't already," Tom Mankiewicz said. "We were all just waiting for it to happen."
So be it. Movie people have affairs. It's part of the way business is done. Two years before, when he'd directed her in Suddenly, Last Summer, Joe Mankiewicz himself had taken up with Elizabeth. The Cleopatra publicists probably expected—perhaps even welcomed—a bit of behind-the-scenes with Taylor and Burton. But they had no idea of the earthquake that was about to hit.
The crowd outside was growing bolder, pushing against the red velvet ropes that cordoned off Bricktop's entrance. Photographers zipped up on their little Vespa motorbikes. One jumped off and shimmied up a streetlamp. Another crawled under the legs of the crowd to the nightclub's front door. But one man took the award for most enterprising performance.
Gilberto Petrucci, twenty-two and handsome enough to blend in with the big names, dropped a few hundred lire into the palm of a doorman. Just as the clock struck twelve, he slipped inside the club, his camera discreetly covered by his coat. Smiling at his buona fortuna, he knew he'd have to act fast. Bricktop's bouncers would be on him at any moment to toss him out on his natiche. Unnoticed among all the noisemakers, Petrucci managed to get off a round of pictures, then dropped to his knees to change film.
"And I looked over," he said, "and I could see that under the table, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were holding hands."
Then he felt a hand on his shoulder—Bricktop's majordomo was putting an end to the impromptu photo session. As Petrucci left, he noticed Burton glance his way.
It was only then, apparently, that the Cleopatra company understood the commotion they were causing streetside. "We were told that we couldn't leave through the front door," Tom Mankiewicz said. "The Via Veneto was packed solid. Thousands of people were waiting out there for Elizabeth to come outside."
So they exited out the back under heavy escort, detouring through the warm kitchen smelling of garlic and oregano. On a side street they piled into two waiting cars. Someone caught sight of Elizabeth's black hair and sparkling dress, and shrieked, "There she is!" As the mob roared down the street, the cars sped off into the night. Elizabeth, undoubtedly, loved it; she liked a good chase scene. And one wonders if Burton might have acquired a taste for the thrill of it all himself that night.
Petrucci didn't pursue them. He had his photos and was developing them even as he wove his motorbike in and out of the snarl of traffic. "I invented a photo-processing lab right inside my Vespa, the only one in the world," Petrucci said. "This way I could process the pictures and get them in ahead of my rivals."
Magazines like Oggi Illustrato, L'Europeo, Lo Specchio and Settimo Giorno paid hefty sums for photos of celebrities. Petrucci was part of a roving band of freelance imagemakers who catered to this clientele. The term paparazzi, lifted from the Fellini film La Dolce Vita, had not yet become widespread, although it was along the glittery Via Veneto that photographers, stalking their subjects like prey, created what would become one of the celebrity circus's most controversial sideshows. It was here that Tony Franciosa, husband of Shelley Winters, went berserk after being snapped entering Bricktop's with Ava Gardner. It was also here that former King Farouk of Egypt hurled his considerable girth at a photographer after being caught with his mistress at the Café de
Paris.
Though a tough breed, these "assault photographers" were far less aggressive than the paparazzi of today. Young men mostly, they dressed fashionably in coats and ties or cardigan sweaters that were sometimes complemented by colorful sashes. They traveled in packs, the heavy batteries of their Rolleiflexes slung over their shoulders. The best shots came when they worked together. One night while pursuing Ava Gardner, the photographers Tazio Secchiaroli and Elio Sorci came up with a plan. Secchiaroli would insinuate himself as close to Gardner as possible, then set off his flash directly in her face. When the time came, the actress's escort, actor Walter Chiari, took off after Secchiaroli just as they had hoped. Sorci, meanwhile, was snapping away. The resulting photos, published in Settimo Giorno, turned both young men into hotshots along the Via Veneto. "We discovered that by creating little incidents we could produce great features that earned us a lot of money," Secchiaroli said. Creating "little incidents" to produce dramatic reactions would become one of the signature arts of these photographers.
By 1961 the self-proclaimed king of the camera troops was a Russian expatriate, Ivan Kroscenko, who had declared that Elizabeth Taylor was the biggest "get" of all. Before Elizabeth's arrival in Rome, Kroscenko predicted that she would become a veritable cottage industry in Italy: "You'll see photographs of her—intimate ones—with some handsome actor, fascinating director, or patrician playboy." He spoke with such confidence because he'd heard murmurs that Fisher was fading out of the picture. And Kroscenko knew that stars in troubled marriages loved to let loose in Rome. "We can hardly wait," he said gleefully.