But Hedda didn't know the half of it. The Hilton marriage had crumbled for reasons even more disturbing than drinking, gambling, and other women. "Nick kind of got a kick out of beating the shit out of me," Elizabeth admitted years later. He was a spoiled rich kid, whose promises of respecting his wife's career were soon forgotten as he found himself resenting her greater fame and celebrity. When he drank, he thought nothing of hitting her. Once Elizabeth was hurt seriously enough to cause a miscarriage, she said. Beauty was no protection from Nick Hilton. Stardom was no shield. And Elizabeth was just eighteen years old.
The turmoil made for a very difficult filming of Father's Little Dividend, the sequel to Father of the Bride, in which Elizabeth played a happy newlywed expecting a baby. The synchronicity of Elizabeth's art and life had suddenly been sadly perverted.
Had any other outcome been possible? Only in the movies, perhaps. No one had seemed to worry about the wisdom of marrying off an inexperienced teenage girl—still a virgin—who had never been out of her mother's sight. The glamour of the wedding, the tie-in with the movie, and the fervor of the fans had carried them all through on what Elizabeth later called "a pink cloud"—a phrase she would often use to describe the unreality of public life in Hollywood. "I was naïve and knew nothing about sex," she said, though she claimed that "I was ready for love and ready for the experience of lovemaking." What she wasn't ready for was the reality of Nick Hilton's ego—or his fist. For the pampered darling of MGM, blows across the face and the pain of a miscarriage were her introduction to life beyond the studio gates. She grew up almost overnight. "It scarred me," she said of the marriage, "and left me with horrible memories."
And like many real-life princesses trapped in unhappy royal marriages, Elizabeth was expected by some to put up with the indignities and the abuse, to endure her struggles stoically for the sake of her public image. But she was far too strong, far too independent for that, no matter what it might do to the fairy tale.
So she walked out. "Divorcing Nick was the first grown-up de cision I ever made absolutely alone," she said. In January of 1952, the marriage ended as it had begun, staged and orchestrated for maximum benefit. Appearing before a judge at the Santa Monica Courthouse, Elizabeth wept into her white-gloved hands. It was revealed that Nicky had preferred to gamble rather than spend time with her—her! The screen's great love goddess! After composing herself in the judge's chambers, Elizabeth emerged to face the swarm of photographers, wearing a brave smile—and a specially designed Ceil Chapman ensemble.
Yet no matter how bravely she smiled or how lovely she looked, Elizabeth was roundly booed. Without knowing the truth of her abuse, the public resented its illusions being shattered. "The fairy tale's over, and the princess of dreams has told it to a judge," fanmagazine writer Ida Zeitlin snarled in Photoplay. In an outrageously misogynistic article, Zeitlin placed the fault of the breakup solely on Elizabeth, calling Nicky "an earnest citizen, forging his hardworking way into his father's hotel kingdom." If Elizabeth had settled down and had babies, Zeitlin argued, the marriage would've lasted. Instead, Elizabeth was "willful, flighty and headstrong" and didn't know "the meaning of love." Worst of all was her brazen appearance at a Hollywood premiere on the arm of Stanley Donen, estranged but not yet divorced from his wife. "With the rift from Nicky so new," Zeitlin huffed, "she should have stayed at home, preferably weeping."
"Spoiled brat" now replaced "beaming bride" in Elizabeth's press, just at the moment her psyche was in need of tender care. As the judgments raged, Metro did its best to protect its property. Studio execs were suddenly very willing to besmirch the reputation of the man they'd lionized only months before. The breakup was due, Metro insisted, to Hilton's "gambling and playing around and ignoring her as a wife." The unusually candid official line was no doubt the studio's best shot to end the criticism being leveled at their star without revealing the more damning truths about their matchmaking.
For the moralists in the press—and in 1951 there were many—it was the affair with Donen that made things worse. Had Elizabeth taken Zeitlin's advice and stayed home weeping in her mother's arms, she might have been more quickly forgiven. But that was never Elizabeth's way—especially not now. Marriage to Hilton had been as eye-opening as it was difficult, and she had tasted life beyond Sara's control for the first time. Her mother was pushing for a reconciliation with Nicky, which infuriated Elizabeth, since surely Sara knew about the beatings. Feeling betrayed, Elizabeth resolved not to return to her parents' home despite what the busybodies might have preferred. Instead, the studio found her an apartment so that she could live like a real "modern girl." But because Elizabeth Taylor couldn't live alone (she'd admit to not even knowing how to boil water), they gave her a companion-secretary, Peggy Rutledge, who was billed as her "girlfriend."
With such media scrutiny came another disturbing reality. Elizabeth began receiving obscene threats by mail and by telephone, an increasingly common consequence of celebrity. At one point the police kept her on the line with the caller so that they could try to track him, but they were unsuccessful. Not long afterward, a man was apprehended climbing over the wall of her parents' house. Back at the intruder's motel, the police found charts of Elizabeth's daily movements tacked to the wall. A British citizen, the man was deported—but would surface to stalk Elizabeth again a year later when she was filming in England.
Sara, understandably, was not happy about all this. She wanted her daughter back home. Before moving into her own place, Elizabeth had lived briefly with her agent, Jules Goldstone, and his family; Goldstone's son-in-law, Henry Baron, recalled a "schism" between Elizabeth and her mother that would have been unimaginable just a few years before. Sara was particularly incensed over the relationship with Donen, who believed Sara's hostility was rooted in anti-Semitism, which may have been true. Yet the biggest resentment that Sara bore Donen was the way he'd usurped her place in her daughter's life. Donen, a genial twenty-six-year-old who had wowed the critics with his first two films, On the Town (codirected with Gene Kelly) and Royal Wedding, had been kind to Elizabeth when she needed it. At their first meeting, she had dissolved into tears. "Here was this gorgeous damsel in distress saying, 'Help me,'" Donen said. "Who could resist her? What fool would try?"
He gave her little gifts—a sure way to win Elizabeth's heart—and when she was hospitalized for nervous distress and ulcers, Donen took charge of ordering all her meals, making sure she ate only foods that would not aggravate her condition. Elinor Donahue, who had a small part in Love Is Better Than Ever, saw nothing overt between Elizabeth and the director, but everyone was aware of the affair. "They were both in bad moods for the whole film," Donahue said. "Elizabeth was sulky and Donen was very dour." Because of their mutual marital unhappiness, they found some brief solace with each other. The affair didn't last long. But it moved Elizabeth one step farther away from her mother.
Sara didn't take this desertion lying down. She called gossip columnist Sheilah Graham and told her that Donen was both a homosexual and a Communist and "should be run out of town." No doubt she called her old friend Hedda and said the same thing. But while Hedda shared Sara's disapproval of the match, she was starting to feel that maybe all of Elizabeth's troubles could be traced back to her "movie-minded mother." It was "high time," Hedda said in print, that the young star "break the umbilical cord." Of course, Hedda had never really liked Sara. Perhaps, if Mrs. Taylor were out of the way, the columnist could assume an even more influential role in Elizabeth's career.
That was the background to Hedda's decision to give the star a "verbal slugging." Climbing up the back staircase of the newly built apartment complex on Wilshire Boulevard, the old meddler was struck by the modern design—perhaps fitting for a girl as un-traditional as Elizabeth had become. Inside, she demanded a tour, commenting on the sea green paint in the living room and the darker green wall-to-wall carpeting. The place had clearly been styled by Metro's designers, with glass end tables and pink armchairs. The heavy w
hite and gold curtains were always kept drawn. Cigarette boxes and candy dishes were found on every table, but the walls were devoid of any art that interested Hedda. "Dreadful," she sniffed. "And you the daughter and niece of international art dealers."
Dragging out a chartreuse chair that Hedda thought gave the stark modern room "something," she sat down and began peppering Elizabeth with questions. Her heart began to melt when the young star confided that while she might be happy, she wasn't "nineteen happy." Suddenly Hedda reversed course. Instead of a critical piece, her article painted Elizabeth as a misguided, confused teenager—far from the spoiled brat others were calling her. If only Elizabeth had married Bill Pawley, Hedda mused, she might have found true happiness—even though the columnist had been all too glad to see Elizabeth dump Pawley two years before. But the public had a short memory. "If Mamma hadn't interfered," Hedda wrote, "Liz might be a happy young matron today." Blaming Sara for Elizabeth's troubles had become the plan.
In another piece—Hedda got a lot of traction out of that one interview—she actually had the hubris to scold Elizabeth for behavior that she, Hedda, had helped engineer. "You're growing up fast, Elizabeth," Hedda quoted herself telling the star. "You should know that the public felt you were going off the beam when you jumped romantically from Glenn Davis to Bill Pawley to Nicky Hilton at a pace so fast it left us dizzy." Of course, Hedda knew very well that Davis had been a tool of the publicity department, that Elizabeth had had nothing to do with it; and that Hedda herself, along with others, had breathlessly promoted all of those young men. But Elizabeth was the star; it was she who needed to make her mea culpas to the public. And so she did, assuring Hedda that she was going to straighten out her life and her career by saying, "I'm going to learn to assume responsibility."
This was the spin used to restore Elizabeth's public image. And just in time, too. Word was out that George Stevens had crafted a masterpiece. An advance screening of A Place in the Sun was held in May at Paramount for magazine writers, and publicist Lindsay Durand told Stevens that the response was the greatest he had ever seen during his eleven years at the studio. "The surprise of the evening," Durand reported, "was Elizabeth Taylor's sensitive portrayal which was definitely attributed to your direction."
As more Hollywood insiders got a look at the picture, Stevens was inundated with praise. "I sincerely believe that with 'medicine' like A Place in the Sun," wrote producer Irving Asher, "our ailing box office would recover in no time to fight ten more rounds with television or any other opponent."
But most people had to wait until the official premiere on August 14, held at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times was impressed by the invitation-only crowd—not only Paramount people, he observed, but stars and executives from other studios as well, not to mention a large number of East Coasters anxious to get a peek before the New York premiere two weeks later. A Place in the Sun, already being called the "film of the year," drew a remarkable cross section of who was who in Hollywood. As klieg lights swept across the purple sky, fans crowded around the theater to catch glimpses of their favorite celebrities arriving in limousines. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz sat in Row 14 with Irene Dunne; behind them sat Metro exec Joseph Schenck. Groucho Marx was down in Row 11, and Hedda Hopper was even farther up front in Row 8 alongside Bob Hope and Danny Thomas. Jerry Lewis brought a party of nine, including Mr. and Mrs. Dean Martin and Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. In Row 10 sat Margaret O'Brien, who'd once been more important than Elizabeth at MGM. Debbie Reynolds, Donna Reed, and Zasu Pitts took their seats in Row 22; Roy Rogers and Dale Evans took theirs in Row 18; and Mrs. Theodore Dreiser was in Row 7. George Stevens's party filled two rows. But of the picture's top stars, only Shelley Winters was there, with Farley Granger in Row 14. Monty Clift didn't do premieres, of course, and Elizabeth had sailed for London, where she was scheduled to shoot Ivanhoe.
It didn't matter. They were there on the screen, more magnificently than ever before. When the words the end appeared—af ter the powerful, tender, brilliantly understated final scene where Monty says good-bye to Elizabeth as he heads off to his execution—there was a collective gasp from the audience. Only after they recovered their wits did they burst into wild applause. Stevens was overcome.
The critics largely shared that audience's admiration, and much of their acclaim was for Elizabeth. Edwin Schallert thought that her portrayal had given "special illumination" to the picture. "Here is a heroine as beautifully created as any seen in recent days on the screen," he wrote. "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." A. H. Weller in the New York Times called Elizabeth's work "the top effort of her career." Variety thought her performance was "so far beyond anything she has done previously that Stevens's skilled hands on the reins must be credited with a minor miracle."
All one has to do is watch A Place in the Sun to understand why Elizabeth, despite her provenance as merely a screen beauty who made headlines, rose above it all to ultimately eclipse her contemporaries. In that unsparing and breathtaking close-up in what Stevens rightfully knew would be the pivotal scene of the film, Elizabeth Taylor cradles Montgomery Clift as he pours out his pain to her. In that moment she transcends all of the lighthearted roles she had ever played and all of the scandal and sensation associated with her. With that one radiant scene, she became one of the great movie stars.
Elizabeth Taylor learned a very important lesson with A Place in the Sun. To be a truly great star required more than just manufactured romances and haute couture and fan-magazine covers. No press agent could do this part for her. To become truly great, Elizabeth had to do it all by herself.
And she did it magnificently. "Tell Mama," she says in that unforgettable scene, fully real, fully believable. "Tell Mama all."
Four
Acting Out
June 1955–October 1956
TOM ANDRE WAS HEADING into a war zone. Rattling over the back roads of west Texas in an open-air Jeep on a swelteringly hot afternoon, he was all too aware of the strife that awaited him on the set of George Stevens's film Giant—the director's first reunion with Elizabeth Taylor since their triumph in A Place in the Sun. The previous week, production manager Ralph Black—highly regarded in Hollywood as an efficient location man—had walked off the job. According to the report Black had made to Warner Bros., the studio producing the film, he could "no longer take the embarrassment of being abused before the entire company by Mr. Stevens." Andre had been hired to take Black's place, charged by Jack Warner himself with bringing some peace to the set.
It wasn't just the problems with Black. One memo called the entire set "explosive." The team spirit that had characterized A Place in the Sun (Monty Clift's occasional outbursts notwithstanding) was nowhere in evidence on Giant. Little mutinies were taking place almost daily. Long known for his demanding style, Stevens had become increasingly dictatorial in the past five years. After the huge success he'd had with A Place in the Sun and again with Shane two years later, few had the temerity to talk back. Stevens firmly believed that every last detail on a picture fell within his jurisdiction—a view that splintered the collaborative enterprise of filmmaking.
Case in point: Against the advice of veteran makeup supervisor Gordon Bau, Stevens had hired rookie Bill Wood to serve as his personal makeup advisor. Wood's résumé consisted mostly of B pictures, yet he was routinely asked to critique the work of people whom Bau called "far more capable men." Writing to the studio, Bau complained, "This situation is creating great disharmony in the makeup crew to the point that several of the men are threatening to quit the production. Should this occur, the situation will be most critical because there are no replacements available."
No kidding. Marfa, Texas—the site of the location shooting—was a forlorn little ranching town of 3,600 inhabitants drowsing under a big orange sky. The Giant company had been there several weeks
now, and some of them were going stir-crazy. Browbeaten from long days in the sun, they had to drive twenty-six miles to the town of Alpine to reach the nearest swimming pool. Occasionally some of the younger actors like Earl Holliman and Dennis Hopper would commandeer a Jeep to the Mexican border town of Ojinaga, sixty miles away, where they drank lots of tequila to forget, for a night anyway, the pressures of working for George Stevens.
Driving in from the tiny airport north of town, Tom Andre looked out along the hot, flat desert plains. Nothing for the eye to see but prickly pear cactus and dry, rugged earth stretching off toward the horizon in every direction. Marfa itself was just a main road with a couple of shops and an old movie theater. During the war, the army had set up an airfield in town, training several thousand pilots, but they had abandoned the site about ten years ago. "There was nothing to do in Marfa," said Jane Withers, the former child star who had a small part in the film. She would host Monopoly tournaments at her boarding house where she was allowed to serve nothing stronger than Coca-Cola. No wonder Holliman and Hopper were hightailing it to Mexico. The heat, strife, and boredom were wearing these worldly Hollywood types down. Their nerves were frayed. Tom Andre knew his work was cut out for him.
And the stars were just as combative as the crew, perhaps even more so. Of the three top-liners—Elizabeth, Rock Hudson, and James Dean—only Hudson, facing his first real test as an actor, got along with the director. "I followed him around like a puppy," Hudson said, glad to turn himself into "putty" and place himself squarely in the director's hands. But the mercurial, Method actor Dean wasn't nearly so pliable. He regularly infuriated Stevens by snarling in the middle of a scene, "Cut, I fucked up"—a decision that Stevens believed was his and his alone to make.
How to Be a Movie Star Page 14