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

by Darwin Porter

  Cukor had angered officials at MGM when he announced to the press that the movie adaptation would have to deal up front with the issue of homosexuality. The battle heated up between Cukor and the studio, and the director eventually withdrew, asserting that he could not maintain the integrity of the Williams play because of the censorship imposed. In his place, Richard Brooks was designated as the film’s more compliant director.

  With Cukor off the picture, so went the focus on casting Leigh as Maggie the Cat. Just as she’d done in Elephant Walk, Elizabeth replaced Leigh as the female lead.

  Shooting on Cat began on March 12, 1958, when Elizabeth showed up on the set to meet the other members of the cast. Coming together with Newman, she said, “You’re more beautiful in person than on the screen, if such a thing is possible.”

  “You took the words out of my mouth,” he said. “Surely, you are the most beautiful woman in the world, maybe in the universe for all I know.”

  “Your flattery will get you everywhere,” she said. “If I were naming a perfume after you, I’d call it Temptation.”

  “If I were naming a perfume after you, I’d call it Enchantment.”

  “Come on, kids, break it up,” said the film’s new director, Richard Brooks, who was observing this interchange at the time. Elizabeth felt comfortable working with him. He’d helmed her through The Last Time I Saw Paris in 1954, and he’d later marry one of her best friends, Jean Simmons.

  Before introducing Elizabeth to the rest of the cast, Brooks invited Newman and her to lunch in the MGM commissary. Over a club sandwich, Elizabeth asked Brooks, “Did Lana Turner really want to play Maggie?”

  “She did indeed,” the director said. “She’s seriously pissed off at both you and me.”

  “It seems I’m always taking something from Lana,” she said. “Usually a man.”

  “Had Monty accepted the role of Brick, he would be eating lunch with you today instead of me,” Newman said.

  “Had Grace Kelly not run off and married a prince, Maggie the Cat would be blonde—and not me,” she said.

  In the words of Brooks, Elizabeth “behaved like a queen when she was introduced to her fellow cast members.”

  Burl Ives was cast as “Big Daddy,” the very Southern patriarch of the Pollitt family. As the film opens, he’s the only member of his clan who hasn’t been told he’s dying of cancer. His dysfunctional family gathers around him for last rites.

  Ironically, Ives was only one year older than the actor who had been cast as his son in the movie, Jack Carson, who interpreted the role of Gooper. The brilliant lesbian actress, Judith Anderson, tackled the role of Big Momma, with Madeleine Sherwood playing Gooper’s social-climbing, child-bearing wife, May. Gooper and May want Big Daddy’s millions and the plantation, too. Their quintet of children (identified early in the script as “no-neck monsters”) run amok amid the antiques and fine carpets of the Pollitt mansion.

  Over lunch, Brooks delivered disappointing news to his stars. MGM had rejected the first, very provocative, draft of the script. In that original version, Brick confesses his homosexuality and his undying love for Skipper to his wife.

  “You’ve got to understand my dilemma,” Brooks said. “The Production Code doesn’t even allow us to mention the word ‘homosexual’ on the screen.”

  At this point, they were joined at table by James Poe, a writer who was working with Brooks to craft a more acceptable version of the Williams play.

  Elizabeth knew Poe because he’d worked with Mike Todd on the script of Around the World in 80 Days. Both Poe and Brooks later became sources of information about the relationship between Elizabeth and Newman during the filming of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

  In many scenes during the early part of the film, the script called for Newman to appear topless, wearing only the bottom of his pajamas. He’d have to hobble around on a crutch, having broken his leg one gung-ho drunken night while running the hurdle at his old alma mater. He was trying to recapture the days of football glory he had shared with his deceased friend Skipper, for whom he is still in deep mourning, trying to drown his sorrows with liquor.

  In the filmed, watered-down version of Cat, Maggie lies to the family, especially to Big Daddy, asserting (falsely) that she is pregnant. In the final stages of the script, Brick, as played by Newman, backs her up in her lie. He is seen throwing his pillow into a position beside Maggie’s on the bed. The movie comes to an end as they are about to have a “horizontal reconciliation,” with the implication that he will penetrate her and that they will actually make that baby whose birth has already been publicly announced by Maggie. As part of the film’s happy ending, previous wrongdoings and misunderstandings fade away.

  As lunch in the commissary came to an end, Newman turned to Brooks and Poe, saying, “I’ll leave it up to you guys, as the writers, to show this shit to Tennessee.”

  Brooks tried to salvage the mood at the end of the luncheon with some good news: Whereas MGM had originally opted to shoot the picture, budgeted at two million dollars, in black and white, Brooks and Mike Todd had persuaded the studio to shoot it in Techni-color, if for no other reason than to show off the beautiful eyes of the two leading stars.

  Film director Richard Brooks

  ***

  The early rapport established between Newman and Elizabeth did not last through the film’s early rehearsals. “She’s totally lifeless working with me,” Newman told Brooks. “We have no chemistry at all. She’s holding back.”

  When the actual filming began, and after Newman had seen the rushes, he revised his opinion of Elizabeth. “The moment the camera is turned on her, she becomes radiant,” he said. “She’s a much better actress than I ever imagined. I’ve never seen anything like it. She’s a true film actress, not appropriate for the stage.”

  From the very beginning, Brooks was pleased with Newman’s work on the screen. “Even though we were forced to remove a lot of the motivation from Paul’s character, he pulled it off with his cool detachment cast opposite the hotto-trot Maggie. In spite of the weakness of the script, Paul would succeed in making Brick a creditable character, if not always properly motivated.”

  Mike Todd showed up on the set one day, introducing himself to Newman. He, too, had seen the rushes and thought Elizabeth “has never been better.” He made no comment on Newman’s performance.

  “I completely changed my mind about her,” Todd told Newman. “I didn’t want her to play Maggie the Cat. I even flew her to London to see Kim Stanley when she was appearing as Maggie in the West End. I took Elizabeth backstage and tried to get Kim to convince her that the role was not for her.”

  “And why not?” Newman asked. “She’s great as Maggie.”

  “I know that now,” Todd said, “but originally I had one serious objection. I said, ‘No one’s gonna believe that any man—even if gay—would turn down the chance to fuck Elizabeth Taylor.’”

  After only a few days of shooting, Elizabeth developed a severe head cold. She was running a dangerous fever and had to be sent home in a limousine. Brooks and Newman learned the next day that her illness had evolved into pneumonia.

  Executives at MGM were anxious for Elizabeth to complete Cat, for which she was being paid $125,000, according to the terms of her contract. But that contract was running out and slated to expire on June 1, 1958. After that, it was speculated that Elizabeth could command far more money on her next picture— at least $350,000, perhaps a lot more.

  Newman was still being paid the small salary in force as part of his original contract. Warners had asked MGM for only $25,000 for lending him out as the star of Cat. In contrast, Tennessee Williams was getting $450,000 for the screen rights to his play.

  Brooks was the first to inform Newman that he’d have to shoot around Elizabeth until she recovered enough to come back onto the set. “I know her,” he said. “She’s very fragile, a woman of delicate health. I feared something like this might happen. A head cold was bad enough, but pneumonia could th
reaten her life. I’ve just come from a meeting at MGM. They’re so worried that Elizabeth won’t be able to finish Cat that they’ve called Carroll Baker’s agent to see if she could be made available.”

  “I don’t think it’ll come to that,” Newman said in astonishment.

  “Let’s face it: Elizabeth could die,” Brooks said. “I’ve always had this intuition. I can smell death in the air.”

  ***

  On February 28, 1958, Todd had given a small birthday party for Elizabeth and included just a few friends. She didn’t want some big event for the celebration of this, her twenty-sixth year. Eddie Fisher was invited, as were David Niven and his wife, Hjordis. Art Cohn showed up and Todd uncorked a bottle of champagne to celebrate Cohn’s completion of his biography, The Nine Lives of Mike Todd.

  The producer dominated the evening’s conversations, talking about how wonderful Elizabeth was in the role of Maggie the Cat, “A sure-fire Oscar bet,” Todd predicted. He was filled with life and plans for the future, including the filming of his upcoming epic, Don Quixote.

  He told his guests that he and Elizabeth were going to board The Lucky Liz and fly to New York the following month. “I’ve painted the bedroom aboard our plane violet to match my little darling’s beautiful eyes.” Some 1,200 guests were scheduled to attend a Friars’ Club dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, honoring him as “Showman of the Year.” The guest list was impressive. It included New York State Governor Averell Harriman, U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell, and distinguished stage and film stars such as Sir Laurence Olivier.

  But just before departure, Elizabeth was too sick to make the trip. Not wanting to go alone, Todd invited Kirk Douglas, Eddie Fisher, director Joseph Mankiewicz, and comedian Joe E. Lewis to accompany him. He even asked Richard Brooks to take the weekend off from directing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But each of the men he invited had another commitment.

  AP reporter James Bacon originally accepted the invitation to go to New York, but an hour before departure, he called Todd and turned it down. “I urged him not to go,” said Bacon. “It was the worst night I could ever remember in Los Angeles, with torrential rain, thunder, and ‘second coming’ lightning.”

  Elizabeth Taylor and Mike Todd aboard her dangerous namesake

  Cohn, Todd’s biographer, whom he defined as “my second best pal after Eddie,” told him that he was free to fly to New York with him.

  Todd had also dragooned Dick Hanley into flying with him. However, at the airport, Todd changed his mind and instructed Dick, “Go back to my beautiful broad. She’s sick and might need you.”

  Before takeoff, Todd placed a final call to Elizabeth. “I love you, Lizzie Schwartzkopf. You’re beautiful, doll. Remember, save those sugartits for your loving man.”

  Elizabeth later told Dick, “Mike may have had a fear that something dreadful might happen. He came back into my bedroom and kissed me goodbye five different times before leaving.”

  She pleaded with her husband to postpone his late-night departure until dawn, but he assured her he’d be safe.

  “The night was very Macbethian,” she recalled. “He didn’t want to leave me. He said, ‘I’m too happy. When a man is as happy as I am, something goes wrong.’ I tried to go with him, but my doctor, Rex Kennamer, absolutely forbade it. When Mike left, my fever shot up dangerously.”

  Embarking on the final flight of his life, Todd flew out of Burbank Airport at 10:11pm on March 21, 1958.

  He had promised Elizabeth that he would telephone her from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where his pilot planned to stop for refueling. It was a call that never came in. He also promised to call from Kansas City, where he planned to pick up Jack Benny for the ongoing segment of the flight to New York. Throughout the eastbound route, the pilot and passengers encountered heavy thunderstorms, lightning, and strong headwinds.

  A report of what happened next was made available on April 17, 1959, nearly a year later, by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). An urgent message was received from The Lucky Liz by the night air traffic controller at Winslow, Arizona. The pilot, William S. Verner, requested clearance to climb to an altitude of 13,000 feet. The Liz was flying at 11,000 feet, and its wings were icing. The controller granted the request.

  The next time it was heard from, The Liz sent a radio message to the air controller at Zuni, New Mexico, reporting that it had climbed to 13,000 feet, that it had been caught in a violent storm, and that its wings were still icing. It was the last radio transmission from the doomed aircraft.

  At Grants Airport control tower in Grants, New Mexico, an air controller reported seeing a brilliant illumination of the March sky. At first, he thought it was a spectacular flash of lighting. However, an Air Force pilot, flying a B-36 through the same night sky, sent an air-to-ground communication, notifying the control tower that a plane had exploded. As revealed in the delayed CAB report, the time of the explosion was 2:40am.

  Spiraling out of control after the shutdown of its single engine, The Lucky Liz had plunged to earth through a thick fog and burst into flames.

  A CAB agent concluded, “The right master engine rod had failed in flight and the right propeller was feathered. Complete loss of control of the aircraft followed and the plane then struck the ground in a steep angle of descent.”

  The pilot lost control of the overloaded private plane. It had a weight limit of 18,605 pounds, but was actually carrying 20,757 pounds at takeoff. The extra tonnage contributed to the failure of the flight. The single engine failed, a situation aggravated by surface ice accretion. The anti-icing system was inadequate.

  Todd’s plane went down in the Zuni Mountains of New Mexico some twelve miles southwest of Grants. The bodies were scattered over a two-hundred yard, snow-covered crash site.

  At daybreak, a search party in New Mexico discovered the plane wreckage, which had turned into a funeral pyre for Todd, Cohn, and both pilots, Verner and co-pilot Thomas Barclay.

  Although the bodies had been charred beyond recognition, Todd’s corpse was initially identified because his skeleton was still “accessorized” with the gold wedding ring he’d worn since his marriage to Elizabeth.

  Later, when his ring was returned to Elizabeth, she had it melted down and reshaped for her finger. “I wore it every day until someone else who loved me told me to take it off. I have had two great loves in my life. Mike Todd was the first.”

  ***

  The AP reporter, James Bacon, may have been the first person in Los Angeles alerted to Todd’s death. An AP stringer in Grants, New Mexico, called Bacon to check up on him. “Your name was on the passenger list. I wanted to make sure you were still alive.”

  Shocked, Bacon explained that he had cancelled at the last minute. After getting details, he immediately called the Los Angeles Bureau of the Associated Press. Within fifteen minutes, news of the crash was flashed around the world.

  Morning programs on the U.S.’s East Coast and in London were interrupted to broadcast the breaking news.

  Even though millions of people around the world already knew about Todd’s death, Elizabeth did not. At around 5am, after a restless night, she’d fallen into a deep coma after taking sleeping pills.

  MGM was notified and immediately, Benny Thau phoned Dick Hanley, asking him to break the news to Elizabeth before the wire services started ringing her. He called Dr. Kennamer and asked him to drive to her home with him. When the men arrived, a maid told them that Elizabeth was still asleep upstairs. Dr. Kennamer suggested that he and Dick wake her up and tell her the news.

  She would later recall the moment the doctor and her friend walked into her bedroom as “one of the most traumatic moments of my life.” She had just awakened when the men came into her room. “When Dr. Kennamer and Dick came in, I screamed, ‘No, he’s not!’ even before they spoke.”

  Debbie Reynolds had been at her dressing table that morning taking out her rollers when the call came in that Todd had died. She called her husband, Eddie Fisher, in New York. He�
�d flown there on a scheduled commercial flight, with the intention of singing at Todd’s upcoming Friars’ Club gala.

  Fisher ordered Reynolds not to go to Elizabeth. It seemed he didn’t want to share the tragedy of Todd’s death with his wife. Defying him, she got dressed and drove to the Todd home to volunteer to look after Elizabeth’s children until she recovered.

  Just as Reynolds walked into the house, Elizabeth appeared at the top of the staircase, screaming, “No! No! It’s not true! It’s not true!”

  “I’ll never forget her look of terror and anguish,” Reynolds recalled. “I’ll also never forget that face—ashen, her violet eyes desperately sad, hair askew and wild—yet still incredibly beautiful, even in tragedy. And that piercing scream of agony after she called out Mike’s name.”

  In 2003, on the Larry King Show, Elizabeth recalled that night and how, consumed with grief, she ran out into the street. “I was Tennessee Williams’ Baby Doll, you know, with the little panties? I fell onto my knees in the street shouting, ‘No, not Mike. Not Mike. Dear God, please not Mike!’ I was almost run over by a car. My doctor, Rex Kennamer, and Dick Hanley picked me up and carried me back to my bedroom. Rex shot me with a hypodermic needle.”

  At Elizabeth’s home on Schuyler Drive, Dick put through a call to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’s director, Richard Brooks. “Todd’s dead. His plane crashed in New Mexico.”

  The director claimed he heard “this terrible shrieking noise in the background. I knew at once it was Elizabeth.”

  The first people to arrive at the Todd home were from MGM: Eddie Mannix and Benny Thau. She screamed at them, cursing them. “You don’t give a shit about Mike. All you want to know is can I finish your god damn swampy picture.”