Bio - 199 - Elizabeth Taylor: There Is Nothing Like a Dame

by Darwin Porter

  She was eager to hear his stories about working with all the big stars. Whatever name she brought up, he had to story to tell.

  “It was because of Garbo that I said goodbye to Louis B. Mayer and MGM,” Adrian claimed. “When the war came and her lucrative European market dried up, Mayer wanted to convert her into a sweater girl, a real American type like Lana Turner. I told Mayer that ‘when the glamour ends for Garbo, it also ends for me. She has created a type. If you destroy that illusion, you destroy Garbo on the screen.’ Garbo bolted from MGM, and I went with her.”

  “As for Joan Crawford, she begins every fitting the same way. She strips off all of her clothes and says, ‘Okay, Big Boy, here’s what you’ve got to work with.’”

  “As a man, you must be so tempted,” Elizabeth said.

  “Kid, you’ve got a lot to learn,” Adrian said. “Give me Francis Taylor any day.”

  Francis seemed embarrassed at this kind of talk, and tried to change the conversation to Elizabeth and her career.

  An hour later, Adrian informed Elizabeth that his wife, Janet Gaynor, would be arriving soon with her “husband,” Mary Martin.

  If Elizabeth was shocked by the use of the word “husband,” she tried not to show it. She couldn’t wait to tell Roddy about this luncheon. Her friend and confidant would want to know every juicy tidbit of gossip.

  Elizabeth had heard of Janet Gaynor, who stood only five feet tall, but had never seen any of her movies, including A Star Is Born (1937). She’d been told that Gaynor had won the first Oscar for Best Actress in 1928 and had appeared in Silent Pictures.

  When Gaynor and Martin arrived, Elizabeth tried to ingratiate herself with both women, focusing first on Gaynor and making use of her recently acquired information.

  Gaynor looked astonished when Elizabeth told her, “Francis said you were the youngest actress to win an Oscar and that you were only twenty-two. I will wait until I’m twenty-three to win my first Oscar so I won’t beat your record.”

  “That is so kind of you, you adorable thing,” Gaynor graciously responded.

  When Elizabeth talked to Martin, she discovered that she had another husband, Richard Halliday, yet was herself sometimes identified as the “husband” of Gaynor. Roddy would have to explain all these grown-up relationships to her more thoroughly.

  After lunch, Elizabeth sat with Martin, the Broadway singing star, in the garden, while the other three made lemonade. “I hear you’re a fabulous singer,” Elizabeth said. “There’s a rumor I’m going to sing in my next picture. Perhaps you’ll give me singing lessons?”

  “Just listen to Bing Crosby records,” Martin advised. “That’s what I did. Hollywood doesn’t know quite what to do with me. I’m in town to make a picture called Night and Day (1946).

  “Is there a part in it for me?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Martin said. “But I can offer you something else. A real prize. I have a divine boy, Larry Hagman, by my first husband. I think you and he would make an ideal couple.

  “I’d like to meet him,” she said.

  “He has great legs,” Martin added.

  “If only I did.” Elizabeth would later tell Roddy that whereas the legs of the female are usually commented on, those of males elicit less scrutiny. He’d inform her that in Hollywood, a man’s legs often get as much attention as a woman’s, at least during private encounters.

  “I’ll have Larry call you sometime,” Martin said. “You’re old enough to date now. When Larry turned fourteen—he’s two years older than you—I sent him to boarding school. But he started drinking a quart of whiskey a day. He’s on this ranch right now, being rehabilitated.”

  Elizabeth seemed generally pleased with her father’s new living arrangements, but as noted by all the adults who knew her at the time, she always tried to press for a favor from any actor, director, or producer she met. Adrian was no exception.

  When Francis was talking in the garden with Martin and Gaynor, Elizabeth moved in with a very special request. “I’ve given you Francis,” she said, perhaps shocking Adrian at how brazen she was for one so young. “Now I want you to give me something. I want you to duplicate those red-sequined ruby slippers you made for Judy Garland in that Oz picture. Please, pretty please!”

  Within a month, the red slippers arrived and Elizabeth loved wearing them. Then one night after Sara had a bitter fight with Adrian over Francis, she tossed the slippers into the garbage.

  As late as 1990, Elizabeth was still lamenting the loss of those ruby slippers. “My god, the damn things would be worth a fortune today, and Sara threw them in the garbage.”

  In 1949, when Elizabeth, with Nicky Hilton, attended one of Martin’s signature performances of South Pacific (1949) on Broadway, she went backstage to congratulate her. Upon leaving, and out of earshot of Nicky, she whispered to Martin, “I’ve seen your son’s picture. He’s gorgeous. Tell him I’m still waiting for that phone call from him.”

  “But you’ve got the Hilton boy now for a beau,” Martin said.

  “A girl can’t have too many beaux,” Elizabeth said. “When you wear one out, there’s always the next in line.”

  “Smart thinking, girl,” Martin said, kissing her good night.

  ***

  After the commercial success of National Velvet, both Sara and Elizabeth expected that she’d be besieged with film offers, but nothing was forthcoming. A rumor floated around the studio that Louis B. Mayer was about to cast Elizabeth in a musical.

  Growing impatient, Sara took Elizabeth to Mayer’s office, where they met Ida Koverman, his executive assistant, who had previously functioned as former U.S. President Herbert Hoover’s campaign secretary in California. She was to some degree like a gatekeeper protecting Mayer from unwanted intrusions. However, the studio mogul agreed to see Sara and Elizabeth.

  He was in a bad mood that morning.

  In a memoir, Elizabeth recalled, “Mayer looked rather like a gross, thick penguin. He had huge glasses, and he had a way of looking at you that made you feel completely squashable. You felt his vitality, but you also felt his enormous arrogance, his ego, his overbearing, his driving personality. To know him was to be terrified of him.”

  Elizabeth’s memory and her reality of that era didn’t match. That morning, she was not yet terrified of Mayer, and at her young age, she dared to confront him.

  Sara launched into the meeting by immediately saying that she’d heard that her daughter was going to be cast in a musical that required her to sing and dance. “I think you should hire a singing coach and a dancing coach for Elizabeth right now, since all her time is going to waste.”

  Mayer tossed aside the contracts he was reviewing and turned on Sara. “How dare you come into my office and tell me how to run my business. You and your daughter are guttersnipes. I took you out of the gutter, and I can send you back there. You’re so god damn stupid you don’t even know the day of the week.”

  Then the unthinkable happened. Not since John Gilbert slugged Mayer had an MGM star confronted him. Elizabeth barged over to his desk. “Don’t you dare speak to my mother that way. You can go to hell and shove MGM up your dirty asshole.”

  Then, in tears, Elizabeth ran from the office. Outside, she collided into the arms of Richard Hanley, Mayer’s devoted homosexual secretary.

  He held her in his arms and comforted her. “Now, now, Elizabeth,” he said. “Whatever happened will fade away. Why don’t you take the advice of Scar-lett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow?”

  He escorted her to her dressing room, firmly holding her hand. Once in the room, he dried her tears and kissed her forehead. “If something goes wrong tomorrow, you can always count on me. I’ll be there for you.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that promise,” she said. Perhaps without realizing it, Elizabeth had just begun one of the most vital relationships of her life, having discovered a friend and a confidant “until death do us part.”

  In the meantime, Mayer had sum
moned Koverman to his office and told her what Elizabeth had said to him. Koverman heard Sara pleading with the mogul not to fire her daughter. “She’s just an impetuous little girl,” Sara said.

  “Bring that nasty little brat back in here,” Mayer ordered Koverman. “Tell her I’m demanding an apology—not tomorrow, not later, but NOW! Get to it.”

  Koverman trailed Elizabeth to her dressing room, where she was preparing to leave the studio. “Mr. Mayer demands that you come back and apologize.”

  “Why don’t you tell your Mr. Mayer to kiss my ass,” she said. “On second thought, not that. That would get him too excited.”

  “Why you little bitch,” Koverman said. “Mr. Mayer never forgives, never forgets. You’re washed up at MGM. Too bad you couldn’t keep your damn trap shut. He could have made you a big star. Now he’ll see to it that no other studio hires you.”

  Louis B. Mayer with Elizabeth Taylor In spite of her demure smile, she detested the mogul.

  Shocked, startled, and filled with horror, Elizabeth faced the reality of what she’d done to herself. She ran into her toilet, slamming the door behind her. Koverman heard the sound of glass breaking.

  Having previously been involved in some fifteen suicide attempts at MGM, Koverman knew what the sound of breaking glass meant.

  Elizabeth Taylor was slashing her wrists.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Coming of Age:

  WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

  In the ambulance on its way to the hospital, Dick Hanley was at Elizabeth’s side after she’d slashed her wrists in the dressing room at MGM.

  “I’m here for you,” he whispered in her ear. “You’ll pull through.”

  Rushed into emergency, Elizabeth was resting in her private room only an hour later. Her wounds were superficial. The doctor told Hanley that she’d merely “scratched” her wrists with the glass and that the wounds would soon heal.

  As Dick sat by her bed, Sara barged into the hospital room. “Oh, my darling, my poor darling! They didn’t tell me right away.”

  Very patiently, Dick explained Elizabeth’s condition to Sara, who at first seemed to resent his intrusion into her daughter’s life. But when he was interrupted by a call from Louis B. Mayer, and when Sara overheard Dick’s remarks to the studio mogul, he won Sara’s heart.

  When he was able to speak, Dick explained how he had the situation at the hospital under control. “Under no circumstances can we let the press find out that Elizabeth slashed her wrist because she was fired. God, I can just see what the press would make of that. But I’ll see that they don’t find out.”

  “I’ll get MGM publicity on it to squelch this thing,” Mayer shouted.

  “In case anybody asks, we can say it was Elizabeth’s first onslaught of menstruation. No one had explained to her what that meant. She panicked. She’s no longer a little girl, and no one instructed her about the changes likely to occur in her body.”

  “I’ll buy that god damn lie,” Mayer said. “The papers won’t print it. Stay at the hospital. Don’t let anybody see her, and don’t allow her back on the lot until her wrists have healed. Who in hell does she think she is? Lana Turner? Tell her that her suicide attempts should come when, say, Frank Sinatra leaves her standing pregnant at the altar and her career is about to go up in flames.”

  During the next forty-eight hours, the only person Dick let into Elizabeth’s room included Sara as part of regular afternoon visits; a very concerned Francis; brother Howard, who told his sister she was crazy; and Roddy McDowall.

  Roddy liked Dick so much he even made a date with him for sometime “after this blows over and Elizabeth is safe and stable again.”

  Roddy sternly lectured Elizabeth. “Don’t you ever let me hear you pulling shit like this again?”

  When Sara came to visit during her final afternoon in the hospital, Elizabeth used her suicide attempt to demand concessions from her mother. Whereas Sara would have kept her in child roles for as long as possible, Elizabeth was demanding more grown-up parts. Elizabeth told her that as the breadwinner of the family, she could no longer be chaperoned day and night. She announced that she was going to start dating and that she would refuse any curfew imposed upon her.

  Sara was more or less forced to give in to her, but warned her daughter, “You must not have sex with these boys coming into your life. Perhaps a kiss on the cheek when they’re saying good night on your doorstep, but it mustn’t go beyond that in any way.”

  Later, Elizabeth confided to Dick, “Roddy has taught me how to have sex with boys without getting pregnant.”

  “Roddy should know,” Dick said with a wink.

  She smiled at him and took his hand. “So, your date with Roddy last night was successful?”

  “And how!” he said. “God has been very good to Roddy.”

  During her incarceration in the hospital, Elizabeth got to know her new friend. At the time Elizabeth met Dick, he was in his mid-thirties, having come to Hollywood from Indianapolis, where his Irish father worked for the railroads. “I came to Hollywood because I fell in love with Clark Gable on the movie screen and wanted to meet him,” Dick said. “One day at MGM, I found myself standing next to Clark at a urinal. That day, I lost my passion for him.”

  “My passion for Clark has dimmed, too,” she said. “After seeing Errol Flynn as Robin Hood, he’s become my imaginary new lover.”

  ***

  While Elizabeth was still in the hospital, Dick picked up the phone to hear an unexpected caller. The phone call had originated in San Simeon, that multi-million dollar palace the press baron, William Randolph Hearst, had built for his mistress, actress Marion Davies, on a mountain overlooking the California coast.

  Through her close link with the Hearst gossip maven, Louella Parsons, Marion had learned that Elizabeth was in the hospital.

  “This is Marion Davies,” the voice on the phone said to Elizabeth, “calling to wish you a speedy recovery and also to congratulate you. Last night, Willie and I saw National Velvet. He adored the picture, but mostly, he adored you. You really touched the old man’s heart. In spite of his reputation, at heart, he’s a silly sentimental fool.”

  “Oh, Miss Davies, I’m so honored to speak to you. Roddy McDowall has been to San Simeon and told me so much about you.”

  “This empty shell!” Marion said. “It needs to be livened up on the weekends, and Willie wants to invite you up. Come Saturday morning, we’ll send a limousine for you. And, for God’s sake, bring a date—preferably a hot one— and not that mother of yours.”

  “A date? You mean a real date and not a chaperone?”

  “Yeah, why not? Marion responded. “I hear you’re grown up…well, almost.”

  “I’m getting there,” Elizabeth said. “I known Mr. Hearst likes to run pictures of actresses in bathing suits in his newspapers. I hope in a few months, if my breasts keep growing at the rate they are now, that I’ll be posing for one of his photographers.”

  “I’d bet my left tit that you will. It’s time you got out in the world. Hell, when I was your age, I’d have five beaux a week on Broadway. We called them ‘Stage Door Johnnies.’”

  “Oh, please, Miss Davies, tell me how I can go about getting beaux. I bet I could have no better teacher than you.”

  “Sure, kid, I know the ropes. Just ask Gable, Chaplin, Old Joe Kennedy. They’ll tell you.”

  After chatting for another ten minutes, a thrilled Elizabeth put down the phone, turning to Dick, who had listened to every word. “I’ve been invited to San Simeon as the guest of Mr. Hearst and Miss Davies. It’ll be my first outing as a grown-up. I’m allowed to bring a date, but don’t tell Sara. I’ll tell her I’m going there alone without her being my god damn chaperone. How am I to get my cherry popped when she’s hovering over me?” She looked up at Dick with a great intensity on her face. “I’ve got to know something. Just how much power do you have with the young male stars at MGM? I mean, you being the one who decides who can go in to see M
ayer.”

  “Except for the established stars like Gable, I can get the younger ones to unzip for me on request,” he said. “They’re usually willing to do anything to get ahead.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “I want you to call Peter Lawford. Tell him he’s going to be my date during our weekend trip to San Simeon. Tell him he’ll also be sharing my bedroom.”

  “Your wish, my command!” Dick said.

  ***

  Elizabeth always remembered the limousine Marion Davies sent to carry her, with Peter Lawford, to San Simeon to party with William Randolph Hearst. “It was large enough for eight couples to have intercourse, with enough room for everyone to be comfortable while going at it,” she’d later tell Dick.

  En route, driving north from Los Angeles along the coast, Lawford entertained her with stories of the filming of Son of Lassie (1945). In this dog picture, he and June Lockhart had played the adult versions of the characters that Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth had portrayed in Lassie Come Home.

  “I know the dog adored you, but to me, he was a vicious bastard,” Lawford claimed. “That collie, playing a female in the picture, hated me and growled every time I came near him. But the script called for intimate scenes between us. The director ordered me to put raw meal under my arms and on my chest. My face was also rubbed with raw hamburger, freshly ground.”

  lower photo: Media baron William Randolph Hearst with Marion Davies

  upper photo: the Hearst Castle’s entrance

  “That’s how I got the animal to show love for me. Love, hell! The god damn dog was eating me alive. He almost cannibalized me!”

  As she would later tell Dick, Elizabeth learned for the first time that Lawford had very limited use of his right arm because of a childhood injury with shattered glass. “I did everything to hide that from the director,” he said. “In Lassie, I even did my own swimming in the treacherous waters of the Columbia River. I was left to my own devices, although every safety precaution was provided for Lassie to keep him from drowning. I was housed in a bedroom that must have been a maid’s closet, but Lassie was given a two-bedroom suite. Instead of Son of Lassie, Mayer should have titled the picture Son of a Bitch.”