Bio - 199 - Elizabeth Taylor: There Is Nothing Like a Dame
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“For the insights of Dick and Roddy, and to countless others, including Peter Lawford and Janet Leigh, I remain deeply grateful,” Darwin said.
Special mention should be made about contributions to this book by Van Johnson, Montgomery Clift, Stewart Granger, Sal Mineo, Shelley Winters, Peter Glenville, Ava Gardner, and Philip Burton, Darwin’s neighbor in Key West. Also, Tom Drake, Judy Garland’s “Boy Next Door” in Meet Me in St. Louis, shared experiences that have never before appeared in any book.
The first time Darwin ever saw “the violet-eyed goddess” was when he was a boy growing up in Miami. It was at a marina. Young and beautiful, Elizabeth was being escorted off a yacht by a handsome young man who turned out to be one of her first serious “beaus.” It was William Pawley, Jr., who had hoped to marry her.
In later years, because of his world travels as a writer and researcher for The Frommer Guides, Darwin witnessed appearances by Elizabeth in such cities as Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Monte Carlo, Cannes, and (most frequently) Los Angeles and New York.
His most memorable encounter with her was in Portofino, Italy, where Elizabeth and Richard arrived by yacht. As she made her way boutique shopping through the village, women came down from the hills, many holding up their bambini, hoping she’d purchase a baby boy or girl.
After surveying the hysteria she generated, Darwin, researching Frommer’s Italy at the time, retreated to the pint-sized La Grittà American Bar along Portofino’s waterfront. Author James Jones, who’d written the best-seller, From Here to Eternity, claimed that La Grittà was “the best waterfront bar this side of Hong Kong.”
Within the hour, Elizabeth invaded the bar, accompanied by Richard Burton and Rex Harrison, each of whom had been key players in the recent filming of Cleopatra with her in Rome.
“My companion and I had planned to have a drink or two and then retire,” Darwin said. “But we stayed until dawn and closed down the bar with the stars of Cleopatra. Seated only a few tables away from them, I eavesdropped on every word, although they ignored me. Much of what I learned that night, including insights into the offscreen persona of Miss Taylor, ended up in my chapter on Cleopatra within this book.”
The only real social contact Darwin ever had with Elizabeth was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where she had flown with Burton while he co-starred in The Night of the Iguana with Ava Gardner.
Darwin was a guest at the rented villa of Tennessee Williams where Elizabeth, without Burton, arrived as the guest of honor. “She had a wicked wit and amused us with outrageous stories told in ‘triple X-rated’ language. She was an amazing, fascinating woman.”
Her escort that night was a young Mexican screenwriter, Jose Bolaños, who at the time was infamous throughout Hollywood as Marilyn Monroe’s last lover.
“Thousands of fans adored Elizabeth, of course,” Darwin said. “But at certain times in her life, she had almost as many detractors. I personally adored her. Her memory will remain forever. Incidentally, she had a wonderful smell. Even when she left Tennessee’s villa that night, her aroma lingered. It was intoxicating.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Formerly a bureau chief and entertainment columnist for The Miami Herald, Darwin Porter is one of the world’s leading celebrity biographers, the winner of almost thirty literary awards. He has explored the lives of such figures as Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Merv Griffin, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Howard Hughes, Michael Jackson, John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, and Marilyn Monroe. In Damn You, Scarlett O’Hara, the private lives of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh were laid out in painstaking eloquence.
He is currently at work on Linda Lovelace’s Deep Throat: Degradation, Porno Chic, and the Rise of Feminism. That book is scheduled for a spring of 2013 release, simultaneous with the release of an upcoming movie about Lovelace’s tragic life and career.
Danforth Prince is a former staff member of the Paris bureau of The New York Times. With Darwin Porter, he has written more travel guides to more foreign countries than any other writer in history, specializing in the nations of Europe and the island nations of the Caribbean. He has co-authored four volumes devoted to film criticism, and has also co-authored four volumes within Blood Moon’s popular Babylon series—Hollywood Babylon, It’s Back!; Hollywood Babylon Strikes Again!; Frank Sinatra, The Boudoir Singer; and The Kennedys, All the Gossip Unfit to Print. As president and founder of Blood Moon Productions, he was honored in 2011 as “Publisher of the Year” at a consortium of literary critics and book marketers spearheaded by the J.M. Northern Media Group.
Publishing in collaboration with the National Book Network, he has documented some of the controversies associated with his stewardship of Blood Moon in more than 40 videotaped documentaries, book trailers, public speeches, and TV or radio interviews. Any of these can be watched, without charge, by performing a search for “Danforth Prince” on YouTube.com, checking him out on Facebook, or by clicking on www.BloodMoonProductions.com.
During the rare moments when he isn’t writing, editing, or promoting Blood Moon, he works out at a gym, rescues stray animals, talks to strangers, and attends Episcopal mass every Sunday.