Elizabeth’s seventh marriage was to Republican politician and about-to-be senator for the state of Virginia, John Warner, with whom she is pictured at center. Along with them are Michael Wilding, Jr., her daughter Liza, his daughter Mary, her grandchild Naomi Wilding, and daughter-in-law Jo Wilding.
John Warner successfully campaigned and was elected senator of the state of Virginia. Elizabeth was a devoted politician’s wife for a time, bringing her in contact with a new stratum of well-known names outside of Hollywood and the European jet set. Here in 1980, she meets then GOP presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and wife, Nancy, and Virginia governor John Dalton (second from left).
After decades of success on the screen, Elizabeth made a triumphant Broadway debut in The Little Foxes in 1981.
Playing tourist at the Great Wall of China with Mexican lawyer Victor Gonzalez Luna, to whom she became engaged in 1983. The romance ostensibly ended amid her despair following the death of Richard Burton in 1984.
Elizabeth’s boyfriend in 1988, George Hamilton.
Sara Taylor lived to be ninety-nine years old, well cared for all the while through the aid of Elizabeth. She attended a tribute to her daughter at Lincoln in 1988.
In addition to unqualified success in movies, theater, and humanitarian work, Elizabeth launched a line of best-selling fragrances, including Black Pearls, which debuted in 1996.
Elizabeth met her last husband, Larry Fortensky, during a stay at the Betty Ford Center in 1988 and married him in 1991.
An Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation benefit. The cause of fighting AIDS was one of the most important aspects of Elizabeth’s entire life.
Larry Fortensky was Elizabeth’s last husband. They divorced in 1996.
Elizabeth and one of her best friends, Michael Jackson.
As ever, decorated with an enviable adornment, the day she received the honor of being named Dame by Queen Elizabeth in 1999.
Elizabeth was awarded an Academy Fellowship from the British Academy in 1999.
In 2002, Elizabeth achieved the highest recognition in the United States given to a performer, the Kennedy Center Honors, given for a lifetime of contributions to American culture. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush pose with Elizabeth and her fellow honorees: James Earl Jones, Chita Rivera, Paul Simon, and James Levine.
Elizabeth passed away on March 23, 2011 of congestive heart failure. In her room at Cedars-Sinai Hospital she was comfortable and peacefully surrounded by those most important to her: her children. After she had survived numerous grave illnesses, the world was shocked to lose Elizabeth Taylor. Her final service was held the following day at Forest Lawn Cemetery. She had left instructions that the service must begin fifteen minutes behind schedule, so she would “be late for the last bloody judgment,” as Richard Burton used to tell her she would most certainly be. Even beyond the grave, after a lifetime of triumphant highs and heartbreaking lows, Elizabeth never lost her sense of humor.
THE FILMS
of
ELIZABETH TAYLOR
There’s One Born Every Minute
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
CAST
Hugh Herbert Lemuel P. Twine
Peggy Moran Helen Barbara Twine
Tom Brown Jimmy Hanagan
Guy Kibbee Lester Cadwalader, Sr.
Catherine Doucet Minerva Twine
Edgar Kennedy Mayor Carson
Guy Schilling Professor Quisenberry
Elizabeth Taylor Gloria Twine
Charles Halton Trumbull
Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer Junior Twine
CREDITS
Ken Goldsmith (producer); Harold Young (director); Robert B. Hunt, Barbara Weisberg (screenplay), based on story by Robert B. Hunt; John W. Boyle (photography); H. J. Salter (music); Jack Otterson, Martin Obzina (art directors); R. A. Gausman (set decorations); Bernard B. Brown, Charles Carroll (sound); Maurice Wright (editor); Vera West (costumes)
RELEASE DATE: June 26, 1942
RUN TIME: 60 minutes, black and white
As Gloria Twine
SUMMARY: Pudding maker Lemuel P. Twine is an unlikely candidate for mayor, backed by crooked local businessman Lester Cadwalader, who is the one really pulling the strings behind the mayoral race. Twine suddenly gains enormous popularity (and campaign funding) through the success of his patented pudding, which is packed with “essential” Vitamin Z. Cadwalader, now fearful of Twine’s power, turns on him and embarks on a smear campaign to discredit Twine along with his pudding. But through the support of his family—and a ringing musical endorsement from the youngest Twines (Elizabeth Taylor and Carl Switzer)—the pudding king ends up victorious.
notes
WHILE CROSSING OVER FROM ENGLAND, HOME TO AMERICA to escape the perils of Europe on the brink of war in 1939, Elizabeth and her mother, Sara, were treated onboard ship to a screening of the latest Shirley Temple film, The Little Princess. According to her mother, seeing the pint-sized princess of cinema in her first Technicolor feature, and in a story set in the England so recently lost to them, made a powerful impression on her little refugee daughter. The film’s influence on Sara Taylor was greater still, fanning the flames of her own desire: For the former stage actress, seeing Elizabeth in a career in the performing arts seemed not to be a far-fetched dream. With a final destination of Los Angeles, where Elizabeth’s father, Francis Taylor, was to run an art gallery owned by his brother, the Taylors were headed in the right direction to see their own little princess up on the big screen.
Elizabeth played the bratty daughter of the Twine family (pictured here) in There’s One Born Every Minute.
“The kid has nothing. Her eyes are too old. She doesn’t have the face of a kid.”
— UNIVERSAL STUDIOS CASTING DIRECTOR
Playing a smart-mouthed little girl, she clowned with Carl Switzer and sang a little campaign-song duet with him.
Living in Pasadena and then Pacific Palisades put the Taylors in close proximity to the film community and, primarily through Francis’s gallery at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Sara made some important friends—one being the fiancée of John Cheever Cowdin, the chairman of Universal Pictures. When she and Cowdin visited the Taylors, the movie mogul was impressed by little Elizabeth’s poise and beauty, and through him she landed her first film contract at Universal.
At the age of nine, Elizabeth made her screen debut in There’s One Born Every Minute. Politics met pudding in this zany low-budget comedy, which was originally called Man or Mouse. Playing a smart-mouthed little girl, she clowned with Carl Switzer (formerly of Our Gang fame as the beloved Alfalfa) and sang a little campaign-song duet with him. The comic number showed off the tuneful, if untrained, singing abilities that Elizabeth possessed as a child. Her voice certainly had volume, and Sara hoped it could develop to a degree that would boost her career. Universal even touted Elizabeth in the trades as a singer and dancer when she was first signed. She was no rival in that respect, however, for the studio’s resident young singing superstar, Deanna Durbin, then at the height of her fame.
Though she displayed energy and charm in her first role, the executives at Universal saw no future for Elizabeth under their aegis. Years later she recalled that casting director Dan Kelly “just didn’t like me.” Famous last words from Universal: “The kid has nothing. Her eyes are too old. She doesn’t have the face of a kid.” She did not make another film for the studio for the duration of her year-long contract. At age nine, it was on to the next job for Elizabeth.
With Catherine Doucet and Carl Switzer
With Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, former star of the wildly popular Our Gang short
In England, Sara Taylor hoped to one day make a good marriage for her daughter; when the war drove the family back to America, specifically to California, she seemed destined for the movies.
Lassie Come Home
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER
CAST
Roddy McDowall Joe Carraclough
Donald Crisp Sam Carraclough
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Dame May Whitty Dally
Edmund Gwenn Rowlie
Nigel Bruce Duke of Rudling
Elsa Lanchester Mrs. Carraclough
Elizabeth Taylor Priscilla
Ben Webster Dan’l Fadden
J. Patrick O’Malley Hynes
Alan Napier Jock
CREDITS
Samuel Marx (producer); Fred M. Wilcox (director); Hugo Butler (screenplay), based on novel by Eric Knight; Leonard Smith (photography); Daniele Amfitheatrof (music); Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse (art directors); Edwin B. Willis, Mildred Griffiths (set decorations); Douglas Shearer (sound); Ben Lewis (editor); Jack Dawn (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: December, 1943
RUN TIME: 89 minutes, color
SUMMARY: The Carraclough family has fallen on hard times, forcing them to sell young Joe’s beloved collie, Lassie. The dog is bought by the wealthy Duke of Rudling and is soothed by the affection of the duke’s niece, Priscilla, but for Lassie there is no place like home. After being taken far away, the journey back to the Carracloughs is a treacherous one, and proves Lassie is one extraordinary animal who belongs at the side of Joe.
With Nigel Bruce, who portrayed Elizabeth’s uncle in Lassie Come Home
REVIEWS
“Oftentimes, animal pictures make the unhappy mistake of attributing almost human rationalization to simple four-footed beasts. An outstanding virtue of this picture is that it does nothing of the sort. It treats the dog as an animal whose loyalty is all the more wondrous and appealing because it is simple and free of human wile.”
—The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)
“Elizabeth Taylor, pretty little moppet, gives promise of fine things to come.”
—New York Daily Mirror (Lee Mortimer)
notes
IN 1942 WORLD WAR II WAS RAGING AND PART-TIME AIR-RAID wardens were on duty even in Beverly Hills. Francis Taylor was one of them, Sam Marx was another. Marx’s full-time job was as a producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In the past he had worked on some of the studio’s lower-budget productions, a highlight being A Family Affair, which spun off into the enormously popular Hardy family series starring Mickey Rooney. Francis told Marx all about his beautiful, talented daughter and showed him a picture of her. Being a movie producer, it was a situation Marx had been in many times before. He agreed that Francis’s daughter was quite lovely but gently brushed him off.
Marx was currently at work on a screen adaptation of Lassie Come Home, based on the novel by Eric Knight. Set in England, the main characters included a boy, a dog, and a girl. Roddy McDowall would play the boy and a fledgling actress named Maria Flynn was set to play the girl, but the daily rushes showed that she and McDowall were not well matched because Flynn was a head taller than him. Marx needed a replacement for her in a hurry and asked the studio casting department to send over the girls that had been signed up for a recent film with an English setting, Mrs. Miniver. He also remembered Francis Taylor and asked him to send Elizabeth over to the studio. Marx later said that when Elizabeth arrived with her mother she was the obvious standout among the other girls. They made a screen test of her which remained memorable to Elizabeth because she was asked to act opposite a mop acting as a stand-in for Lassie. She photographed beautifully, she had the necessary English accent, and she was the perfect height for McDowall. The part was hers.
As charming as McDowall and Elizabeth were, it was the title character of Lassie Come Home who was the true star of the film. The fictional character of Lassie was made famous by a story by Eric Knight that ran in the Saturday Evening Post, and then was expanded into the novel Lassie Come Home, first published in 1940. MGM’s 1943 film was the first time Lassie made it to the big screen. It was the beginning of a major franchise; thereafter Lassie has appeared on radio, films, television, and comic books, and continues to well into the twenty-first century. In Lassie Come Home the female collie was portrayed by a supremely talented male collie named Pal. Pal assumed the “stage name” of Lassie and played the character onscreen into the mid-’50s, when one of his sons began starring in the television series. It remained a family business; Lassie has always been portrayed by descendents of Pal.
Production began on Lassie Come Home in September 1942. Elizabeth immediately took to both Pal and Roddy McDowall. Like Elizabeth, McDowall was a refugee from war-weary England. Four years older than Elizabeth, he had already appeared in over twenty films, the most notable being the Best Picture of 1941, How Green Was My Valley. Speaking in 1974, costar Donald Crisp remembered McDowall and Elizabeth as “the nicest little kids you’d ever want to meet. They were always on time and worked like little professionals.” The two became best friends on the set and remained so until his death in 1998.
Recalling his first impression of Elizabeth, McDowall said, “She was so rapturously beautiful a little girl that you couldn’t believe it.” Her looks, even as a child, caught people by surprise. After shooting her first scene in Lassie Come Home, cameraman Leonard Smith asked Elizabeth to remove her false eyelashes and was astonished to learn she was not wearing any. Shot in Technicolor, Elizabeth’s dark hair and blue-violet eyes were striking. Her salary for the film was $150 less than her canine costar, but MGM recognized her star quality and signed Elizabeth to a one-year contract.
“She was so rapturously beautiful a little girl that you couldn’t believe it.”
— RODDY MCDOWALL
MGM in those days was the most prestigious studio in Hollywood. It boasted of having “more stars than there are in the heavens,” and it spent lavishly on productions showcasing those stars, who then included Judy Garland, Lana Turner, James Stewart, Greer Garson, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable, and Hedy Lamarr. At the time, it was a coup for Elizabeth to have landed at MGM of all studios, and she would be in good company.
MGM studio portrait
Elizabeth was MGM’s newest contract player in the fall of 1942.
Jane Eyre
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX
CAST
Orson Welles Edward Rochester
Joan Fontaine Jane Eyre
Margaret O’Brien Adele Varens
Peggy Ann Garner Jane Eyre (as a child)
John Sutton Dr. Rivers
Sara Allgood Bessie
Henry Daniell Henry Brocklehurst
Agnes Moorehead Mrs. Reed
Aubrey Mather Colonel Dent
Elizabeth Taylor Helen
CREDITS
William Goetz (executive producer); Robert Stevenson (director); Aldous Huxley, Robert Stevenson, John Houseman (screenplay), based on novel by Charlotte Brontë; George Barnes (photography); Bernard Herrmann (music); William Pereira (production designer); James Basevi, Wiard B. Ihnen (art directors); Thomas Little, Ross Dowd (set decorations); W. D. Flick, Roger Heman (sound); Walter Thompson (editor); Guy Pearce (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: April 7, 1944
RUN TIME: 97 minutes, black and white
SUMMARY: Traumatic years growing up in an orphanage form a meek, soft-spoken Jane Eyre into adulthood. Jane takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall, the home of Edward Rochester, where she finds joy in Adele, her beautiful young charge. Jane also falls deeply in love with Mr. Rochester, whose tormented soul is both frightening and mystifying. Jane’s gentle manner wins his love in return, but their future happiness may be impossible because of the mystery in the tower of Thornfield, where Mr. Rochester’s wife, a raving lunatic, is kept locked away. The shocking revelations and ensuing drama test Jane’s spirit and the power of her and Mr. Rochester’s love.
With Peggy Ann Garner, Elizabeth created pivotal early drama in Jane Eyre.
notes
CHARLOTTE BRONTË’S CLASSIC NOVEL JANE EYRE, FIRST published in England in 1847, served as inspiration for many a film, stage production, and television series over the years. In 1943, the last Hollywood attempt at the story was from the poverty-row studio Monogram, starring Virginia Bruce and Colin Clive. Nine years had passed since that low-budg
et feature and Twentieth Century Fox planned on mounting the definitive Hollywood edition of the story, starring Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine and the most controversial filmmaker in Hollywood: Orson Welles.
Welles was only two years removed from Citizen Kane, the landmark film that earned him as many enemies in the industry as it did admirers. His detractors notwithstanding, no one could deny the revolutionary cinematic talent he displayed in his debut film and its follow-up, The Magnificent Ambersons. Welles, top-billed above Jane herself, took the reigns behind the scenes of Jane Eyre to the point where he was offered a producer credit, which he turned down. The talent of director Robert Stevenson, who went on to have a long and successful career in films, was not to be dismissed, but in film circles in years to come Welles was widely the one credited with bringing the brooding, moody quality of Charlotte Brontë’s novel to the screen. Welles was on a winning streak at the moment. Shortly after production he married the Love Goddess of Hollywood, Rita Hayworth.
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