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

by Darwin Porter

  Opening the box, he dazzled her with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. He turned over the box and let the stones fall onto her stomach. “C’mon,” he said. “I’m taking you to get married. I’ve had someone make the arrangements. We’ll be married tonight. The chapel’s already reserved.”

  Astonished at being on the auction block, she rejected both the stones and the proposal. Jumping up, she scattered the gems onto the pool tiles before racing back to her bedroom.

  That night over champagne and crêpes suzette, with Sara and Francis listening, Hughes proposed marriage to Elizabeth. Saying nothing, she excused herself and left the table, retreating back to her bedroom.

  The next day, Hughes sent Meyer to apologize instead of doing it himself. “Howard gets carried away sometimes,” Meyer told her. “He didn’t mean to insult you, certainly not rush you into marriage.”

  “Tell that fucking madman to stay away from me,” she shouted at Meyer. “Your boss bores me, flaunting his money. For god’s sake, he reminds me of Louis B. Mayer, and I have no intention of marrying that monster. Or your monster, either!” Showing him to the door, she slammed it in his face.

  Nonetheless, Hughes remained persistent and continued to pursue her, even after he’d flown the Taylors back to Los Angeles. From her home, Elizabeth telephoned Roddy McDowall. “I know what I want, and I don’t want Howard Hughes. A man can hit on me if he wants to, but when I’m not interested, the word is no. I don’t give a flying fuck who he is…or how much money he has.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth, tell Howard that I’m available.” Roddy said.

  Despite her protestations, she reluctantly agreed to go out with Hughes on three more dates. She didn’t really want to, but Sara kept urging her, almost launching an aggressive campaign to get her to see Hughes again.

  On their first date, he drove her to the Cocoanut Grove night club in the Ambassador Hotel to hear Merv Griffin sing. After the night was over, she avoided a kiss at the door and called Roddy to report on the evening. “Hughes was such an out-and-out bore,” she said. “I wouldn’t marry him for all his money. He just sat there, staring into space and never answering any of my questions. That’s because he’s deaf in one ear and won’t wear a hearing aid. He smelled like he needed a bath. His trousers were wrinkled and hung on him like a scarecrow. He wore dirty sneakers and no socks. His left toe stuck out of one of his shoes.”

  For his second date with Elizabeth, Hughes drove her to the airport. She thought the venue included taking her on a night flight over Los Angeles to see the dramatic lights along the coast. Instead, he flew her, against her wishes, to San Francisco.

  Once there, he checked himself and her into adjoining suites at the Fairmont and invited her out to a night club, Finocchio’s, the most famous club in San Francisco for female impersonators. Previously, on separate occasions, he’d escorted both Errol Flynn and Ava Gardner there to see the show.

  The headliner was a performer named Pussy-Katt, who had been born as Steve Clayton in Ohio. Her publicity read: “Pussy-Katt is much too pretty to be a boy—and much, much too pretty to be a mere gal.”

  Elizabeth laughed hilariously during the show and drank too much champagne. She insisted that Hughes stay around for the second show because she was reluctant to return to the Fairmont alone with him.

  Between acts, Pussy-Katt came to their table and engaged in conversation with them. Hughes had to excuse himself to make some phone calls.

  Elizabeth found Pussy-Katt very amusing. She was curious to learn how she knew Hughes. Pussy-Katt claimed that Hughes had read a book about eunuchs, including sexual practices in ancient Egypt. It seemed that the most beautiful boys in the land—each highly prized as sexual objects—were subjected to the practice of having their penises, testicles, and scrotums removed.

  According to the theory, sodomites of that era claimed that the young boys who survived the surgeries were more sexually satisfying because they had only one way to receive sexual pleasure—and that involved being penetrated rectally.

  Pussy-Katt claimed that in years previous, Hughes had persuaded her to fly with him to Mexico City, “where I underwent sexual mutilation. There wasn’t that much to cut off anyway, honey,” she told Elizabeth. “Besides, for $50,000, I was willing to surrender anything.”

  That night, back in one of the two adjacent suites in the Fairmont, Elizabeth refused to open the connecting doors in spite of his persistent knocking.

  For her third and final date with Hughes, he ordered Edith Head to design a special gown for Elizabeth—the most expensive she’d ever owned in her life. It was tasteful and elegant, with ample décolletage. Before taking her out, he had arranged a special fitting for her with Head, who had selected all black accessories for her. From Tiffany’s he leased a stunningly beautiful diamond necklace, which, according to legend, had once belonged to Marie Antoinette.

  She was astonished at the elaborate preparations he was undertaking just to take her to some party. He sent two hairdressers and a top make-up team to her home. “What is this?” she asked. “Is Hughes getting me ready for some sort of coronation?” A Rolls-Royce was sent to fetch her, its driver outfitted in shades of olive green. It was understood that Hughes would not be in the vehicle, but that he’d be waiting to welcome her at the entrance to the party.

  She was taken to a mansion in Bel Air where, as planned, Hughes met her and escorted her into a massive reception area. To her surprise, each of the guests, some sixteen in all, were middle aged or older men, each attired in a tuxedo. The champagne flowed, and troughs of caviar were served as she was introduced around. She recognized none of these men and doubted very seriously if they were from the film colony. Most appeared to be titans of industry.

  During the two-hour reception, Hughes discreetly arranged conversations between Elizabeth and each of the men there. Her upper-class British accent came back from memory. For some reason, she seemed to understand that he wanted her to impress each of these distinguished gentlemen.

  After the men left, Hughes revealed that she had been auditioned for the possible real-life role as First Lady of the United States. Each of the men she’d talked to were powerful contributors to the Republican Party, in search of a candidate to run for President of the United States in the (upcoming) 1952 elections. Already, “Hughes for President” clubs had formed across America.

  “But I’m too young to be a First Lady,” she protested. “First Ladies are Eleanor Roosevelt and Bess Truman.”

  “Not always,” Hughes said. “When Grover Cleveland was president, he married his bride, Francis, who was only twenty-one, about what your age will be when I run for president. The men wanted to see if you had enough poise and charm to function as a possible First Lady, and you passed the test by a country mile.”

  “I can’t marry you, Howard,” she said. “I don’t love you.”

  “Forget love,” he told her. “We’re talking raw power here. Is there no ambition in you? Just think—you’d become the most famous woman on the planet, the envy of the world, the most beautiful and elegant First Lady in American history, more famous and more widely publicized than that other Elizabeth over in England.”

  “I’ll sleep on it,” she said. “Please take me home.”

  Years later, Hughes would attempt one final launch into politics. In the meanwhile, however, he continued, through a surrogate, to pursue Elizabeth.

  One night, she received a call from the most handsome and dashing attorney in Los Angeles, Greg Bautzer. He’d been the lover of such stars as Ginger Rogers, Ingrid Bergman, Ava Gardner, and Joan Crawford. He’d been engaged to Lana Turner, Dorothy Lamour, and an unfortunate choice, starlet Barbara Payton, who later fell on hard times and became a prostitute, charging ten dollars a throw.

  Although Bautzer was twenty-one years her senior, she was thrilled to date him since he was considered the most desirable bachelor in Hollywood.

  She accepted his invitation to fly with him to a villa in Palm Springs. Except
for servants, she’d have the villa to herself, as he stayed in a suite at a nearby hotel.

  She worked for two hours preparing herself and dressing in her most glamorous outfit for the dinner he’d scheduled with her. Photographers would be waiting.

  When the doorbell rang, she opened it only to find Hughes standing on the doorstep, looking his usual bedraggled self.

  “I have something to show you,” he said, insisting that she walk out to door to his battered old Chevrolet. “It’s a surprise.”

  From the front seat of the car, he retrieved a red bandana like something Aunt Jemima might have worn. He opened it to reveal a queen’s ransom in jewelry purchased from Tiffany’s. It was larger than the cache of jewelry he’d tossed at her in Reno. “Come with me,” he said, “and all of this will be yours.”

  Racing back into the house, she slammed the door in his face. Packing hurriedly, she fled from Palm Springs and returned to Beverly Hills on her own.

  On the phone to Roddy, she asked, “Who does Hughes think I am? One of his bimbo starlets at RKO?”

  Before ringing off with Roddy, she said, “Howard Hughes is out of my life forever.”

  As it happened, she was very wrong about that.

  ***

  A short while after Janet Leigh introduced Elizabeth to “Johnny” (i.e., the gangster, Johnny Stompanato), she told Elizabeth that she’d broken up with him. “He frightens me,” was all the explanation that Leigh ever provided.

  In the two weeks that followed, flowers and expensive chocolates began to arrive at the Taylor household, carrying no message except for a card signed “Johnny.” Elizabeth wasn’t sure, but she believed that they were gifts from the mysterious former beau of Leigh’s.

  One Saturday afternoon, Elizabeth joined her brother Howard on the beach at Malibu. He’d brought along some school friends, all boys, but none of them showed any interest in her. Eventually the boys, including Howard, wandered off in pursuit of some girls farther up the beach.

  Within the hour, Johnny appeared on the beach, walking toward her in a white bikini so sheer he might as well have been nude.

  Suddenly, this strikingly handsome young man was sitting beside her. In addition to his impressive physique, the Italian American stud had flashing brown eyes, black wavy hair, and a courtly manner. George Raft had referred to him as “the most cunning and cock-sure man in Hollywood.”

  Two views of Johnny Stompanato (top photo) with Lana Turner, and (lower photo) dead from a stab wound administered in Lana’s house by the star herself.

  She didn’t know at the time that Johnny was the henchman and bodyguard for the notorious gangster, Mickey Cohen.

  In Cohen’s memoirs, In My Own Words, the mobster had written: “Johnny Stompanato was the most handsome man I’ve ever known that was all man. He was an athlete and a real man, without any queerness about him.”

  Eric Root, Lana Turner’s longtime companion, wrote in his memoirs, The Private Diary of My Life With Lana Turner: “Stompanato had a reputation for bilking and beating women. He was a punk—not a big-time gangster. He preyed on weak, lonesome, desperate, wealthy women and some wealthy men. He was a known pimp and hustler.”

  Elizabeth and Janet Leigh were exceptions to Stompanato’s usual dating pattern, which focused on richer, older women. He’d been married three times before, once to Helene Stanley, whose face and figure were copied by artists at Walt Disney Studios to create the images of both Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

  As Elizabeth would later confide to Roddy McDowall, “Johnny was the most seductive man I’ve ever met. He exuded charm and masculinity. When he talked to a girl, he gave her his undivided attention. His words were as smooth as velvet. As he held my hand, he kissed my fingertips, I was overcome by him.”

  Before leaving that day, Johnny Stompanato invited her to go with him to an exclusive party. “I didn’t even know your last name,” she said.

  “It’s Steele,” he said. “John Steele. I’m a businessman.” He failed to say what kind of business he was in.

  That Sunday night, he arrived at her Beverly Hills home at around six, driving a brand-new black Cadillac with red upholstery.

  After complimenting her on her beauty and her gown, he headed north along the Pacific Coast Highway. At a point near the southern edge of Malibu, he turned right, heading up a steep driveway.

  He stopped at a huge iron gate, where two armed guards stood at attention. “Hi, Johnny,” one of them called to him, as the other guard opened the gate. The car pulled into a lot filled with other Cadillacs. He escorted her to the main entrance to the house, whose columns evoked Tara in Gone With the Wind.

  “I’m taking you to a very exclusive private club,” he told her. “I’m a member. You’ll knock their eyes out.”

  The door was opened by a stately, gray-haired black butler in tails, who escorted them into the grand hallway, lit by a trio of mammoth crystal chandeliers.

  From there, Johnny guided her into a large parlor where well-dressed men, most of them middle-aged, sat drinking at tables with a bevy of expensively gowned women. Peggy Lee was on the small stage, entertaining the guests at this private party.

  Eased into their seats, Elizabeth and Johnny were served champagne as they listened to Lee’s last three songs. “She’s getting paid $10,000 to come here and sing a few numbers,” Johnny whispered to Elizabeth.

  After the show, Johnny sat quietly with Elizabeth drinking champagne. She learned that he’d joined the U.S. Marines in 1944 and that he’d been part of the U.S. invasion of China the following year. “I wanted to stay in China after the war, and I met this Turkish woman and married her. For a few months, I became a Muslim. My friends nicknamed me ‘Oscar.’”

  “Why such an odd name?” she asked.

  “I don’t mean to embarrass you, but it has to do with the length of something I usually keep concealed.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said, flushing red.

  She noted what he’d opted to wear that evening, a battleship gray, tailor-made suit with a dark orange silk shirt unbuttoned to the navel. He wore a silver-buckled leather belt and black lizard skin shoes.

  She later informed Roddy that, “I found Johnny highly desirable. Janet might have rejected him, but after the second bottle of champagne, I succumbed to his charms. He took me upstairs to one of the bedrooms. He didn’t exaggerate about Oscar. He has to be one of the most skilled lovers since Adam.”

  He dated her three more times, and on each occasion, he took her to the same gated mansion and the same bedroom.

  He told her that he’d evolved from being a Muslim to becoming a Catholic again, the way his Sicilian mother had wanted it. “I’ve got the Madonna under my skin, which means I experience an attack of conscience every now and then.”

  Confiding in her, he said that he’d once hoped to be an actor but had opted to become a movie executive instead. “Everybody in Hollywood is trying to climb to the top of the mountain. The route there is hazardous, and most poor slobs don’t make it. What they don’t know once they reach the top is that the route down is even more rugged and hazardous.”

  “Oh, God,” she said. “Is that what I have to look forward to?”

  One aspect of his work for Mickey Cohen involved the seduction of famous stars, both male and female, and secretly filming these liaisons. In one of the mansion’s bedrooms, unknown to his celebrity partner of the moment, he’d be filmed and/or photographed having sex. These secret films would later be used to blackmail the players.

  Cohen knew that Elizabeth was being paid only $2,000 a week, most of it—because she was still a minor—in trust through her parents. Whatever videography was crafted would be held in reserve until she became, as he predicted, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Then he planned to blackmail her with the contents of the film.

  Howard Hughes, through Johnny Meyer, had arranged for one of his men to trail Elizabeth to the gates of the mansion south of Malibu, and Hughes later learned that Cohen had fi
lmed and was holding a pornographic film featuring Elizabeth. Using Meyer as his go-between, Hughes delivered $50,000 to Cohen for the relinquishment of the secret film. Apparently, Elizabeth never found out about this generous act of intervention by Hughes. If she had, she might have been kinder and more receptive to his advances.

  According to Meyer, Hughes played Elizabeth’s porno tape repeatedly— almost as frequently as the one he’d previously commissioned with Marilyn Monroe and Guy Madison.

  ***

  Trying to forget about both Hughes and Stompanato, Elizabeth turned her mind to her career. It didn’t seem to be moving fast enough, and her pictures weren’t doing well enough to please her.

  Benny Thau asked Elizabeth to report to make-up for some early costume tests, one of which involved a bridal gown for Father of the Bride, even though she’d been scheduled to film A Place In the Sun before that.

  She encountered Ava Gardner sitting beside her in the make-up department. Gardner had heard that she’d dropped Hughes. “Good going, gal,” she said. “I’m glad you said no. You and I are the only cunts in Hollywood who can’t be bought. I’m more tantalized by the size of a man’s cock than I am by the size of his bank account. Surely you agree?”

  “Both, I think, are equally important.”

  “Right now, I’m running away from both Frank Sinatra and Hughes.” Gardner said. “I’ve got a new boyfriend, and he’s great in bed. His name is Johnny Stompanato, although he calls himself ‘John Steele.’”

  Elizabeth tried to conceal her shock.

  She never heard from “Johnny” again.

  ***

  In the immediate aftermath of the night of April 4, 1958, everyone in the world, it seemed, learned the name of Johnny Stompanato. He’d been stabbed to death after a violent quarrel in the home of his last and final lover, Lana Turner.

  Angered that Turner had not invited him to escort her to the Oscar ceremony, the gangster had threatened to “carve up” Turner’s beautiful face. In a “state of madness,” she ran down to the kitchen, where she retrieved an eight-inch knife. Returning to her pink satin bedroom, she stabbed him in the stomach. He lived for another fifteen minutes.