MGM director Richard Thorpe, who had worked with Elizabeth in England a year earlier on the epic Ivanhoe, was workmanlike at the helm. Elizabeth had been married to Michael Wilding for five months when the film went into production and as an inside joke her husband appeared as an extra. Wilding’s career had thrived in England more than in America. MGM put him under contract and he was soon playing Joan Crawford’s love interest in Torch Song.
Elizabeth may have been happy in her home life at the moment, but without a strong director, leading man, or mentor regularly on the set to inspire her, she lacked the zeal for her work that marked recent experiences with films such as A Place in the Sun and Father of the Bride. She later said, “Much of my life, I’ve hated acting. I was doing the most awful films—walking around like Dracula’s ghost in glamorized B movies. . . . It was either that or be suspended by MGM, and I needed the money.”
A Finnish magazine cover of the period featuring Elizabeth
Costume test of Elizabeth in the role of Jean Latimer
Primping behind the scenes. Elizabeth debuted a new, shorter cut in this film.
Elizabeth was indeed glamorous as ever in The Girl Who Had Everything, and sporting a flattering new short hairstyle. Leading man Fernando Lamas cut a striking figure himself. He was fairly new to Hollywood and then renowned for his brief romance with Lana Turner. For costar William Powell, the beloved star of the Thin Man series and dozens of other acclaimed films over the past twenty years for MGM, The Girl Who Had Everything marked the end of his career at the studio. He would make only two more films before his official retirement.
Rhapsody
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Louise Durant
Vittorio Gassman Paul Bronte
John Ericson James Guest
Louis Calhern Nicholas Durant
Michael Chekhov Professor Schuman
Barbara Bates Effie Cahill
Richard Hageman Bruno Fürst
Richard Lupino Otto Krafft
Celia Lovsky Frau Sigerlist
Stuart Whitman Dove
CREDITS
Laurence Weingarten (producer); Charles Vidor (director); Fay Kanin, Michael Kanin (screenplay); Ruth Goetz, Augustus Goetz (adaptation), based on novel Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson; Robert Planck (photography); Johnny Green (musical director); Bronislau Kaper (musical adaptation); Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse (art directors); Edwin B. Willis, Hugh Hunt (set decorations); Douglas Shearer (sound); John Dunning (editor); Helen Rose (costumes); Sydney Guilaroff (hairstylist); William Tuttle (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: April 16, 1954
RUN TIME: 115 minutes, color
With passionate pianist James Guest, played by John Ericson
SUMMARY: Beautiful Louise Durant has been spoiled by her father’s wealth all her life and is used to getting what she wants. What she wants most is a violinist named Paul Bronte. His single-minded devotion to music leads Louise into the waiting arms of pianist James Guest. The pianist’s all-consuming love for Louise threatens to destroy his career and his personal well-being. Louise, meanwhile, cannot stop thinking about Paul, who has become a concert violinist. James turns increasingly to drink for comfort. When he needs her most though, Louise comes to James’s aid to give him the strength to go on with his music. She is then left to make up her mind which man is most deserving of her love.
REVIEWS
“The point of the whole story is to show off Miss Taylor wearing attractive gowns, sobbing in loneliness, or radiant at a concert. It is a ravishing show of feminine charm, in vivid color, but in it director Charles Vidor has evoked hardly a single honest gesture or expression. It looks as though Miss Taylor’s charm had struck everyone senseless, leaving nothing but this charm for the movie to go on.”
—New York Herald Tribune (Otis L. Guernsey, Jr.)
“Miss Taylor never looked lovelier than she does in this high-minded film, which is all wrapped up in music on the starry-eyed classical plane. Her wind-blown black hair frames her features like an ebony aureole, and her large eyes and red lips glisten warmly in the close-ups on the softly lighted screen. A wardrobe befitting an heiress is provided by M-G-M—which is not to the least out of order, for an heiress is what she plays. Any gent who would go for music with this radiant—and rich—Miss Taylor at hand is not a red-blooded American. Or else he’s soft in the head.”
—The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)
Rare candid shots of Elizabeth during the making of Rhapsody
notes
THOUGH SHE WAS NOT IMPRESSED WITH THE FILM ROLES MGM was doling out to her since Father’s Little Dividend, up to and including her latest assignment, prior to making Rhapsody in 1953, Elizabeth signed a new contract with the studio that upgraded her salary to $5,000 a week. It was money the Wildings could well use, now more than ever. Between The Girl Who Had Everything and Rhapsody, Elizabeth gave birth to their first child, Michael, born on January 7, 1953. Though only twenty-one years old, she had wanted children desperately for years. Therefore, regardless of the script or lack of excitement for her role, Michael’s birth made Rhapsody a happy memory for her.
Elizabeth’s costars were newcomers John Ericson and Vittorio Gassman. It was only Ericson’s second feature film, and Italian import Gassman’s fourth in America, leaving all marquee value in the film to rest on Elizabeth’s shoulders. Based on the novel Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson, Michael and Fay Kanin’s script was a soap opera glossed up in the grandest MGM manner. The story, which had Elizabeth mooning over a violinist to the tune of classical music over the course of two hours, seemed to crawl to a finish, and the fact that any man would choose a violin over the ravishing Elizabeth left audiences and critics mystified. Yet none could deny the sheer beauty of the production, particularly when director Charles Vidor’s camera closed in on Elizabeth’s face.
Is it truly impossible to have music and Louise? She is torn between two dedicated musicians in Rhapsody.
James Guest chooses Louise over the piano.
A Swedish magazine cover of the period
Regardless of the script or lack of excitement for her role, Michael’s birth made Rhapsody a happy memory for Elizabeth.
Rose’s designs never overpowered Elizabeth, but complemented her beauty.
Helen Rose designed Elizabeth’s exquisite wardrobe for Rhapsody, in the eighth film collaboration between star and designer. Like many other MGM leading ladies, Elizabeth loved working with Rose. The designer was an expert for films and female stars because she had the gift of being able to rein in her own artistic sensibilities and ambitions and instead let the star shine in clothes appropriate for the individual, the character, and the setting. “When I had someone as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor,” Rose later said, “I had to be very careful not to overdress her. It’s like a beautiful jewel. My job was to keep Elizabeth Taylor looking like Elizabeth Taylor.”
Working in the studio era, with craftsmen and stars all under long-term contracts, Elizabeth got to form close bonds with many of the people behind the scenes who worked with her from film to film, year after year. Hairstylists, makeup artists, and wardrobe woman were among Elizabeth’s favorite people at the studio, not the studio brass. Louis B. Mayer had left MGM in 1951, but there had been no love lost between her and the revered production chief. For all her glamour, Elizabeth was a down-to-earth person. Helen Rose later commented that Elizabeth was very generous and kinder to the crew on her films than to the studio executives who pulled the strings of her career.
Gowned by Helen Rose, between takes
“My job was to keep Elizabeth Taylor looking like Elizabeth Taylor.”
— HELEN ROSE
Elephant Walk
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Ruth Wiley
Dana Andrews Dick Carver
Peter Finch John Wiley
Abraham Sofaer Appuhamy
Abner Biberman
Dr. Pereira
Noel Drayton planter Atkinson
Rosalind Ivan Mrs. Lakin
Barry Bernard planter Strawson
Philip Tonge planter John Ralph
Edward Ashley planter Gordon Gregory
Madhyma Lanka Nritya Mandala Dancers dancers
CREDITS
Irving Asher (producer); William Dieterle (director); John Lee Mahin (screenplay), based on novel by Robert Standish; Loyal Griggs (photography); Franz Waxman (music); Ram Gopal (choreography); Hal Pereira, Joseph MacMillan Johnson (art directors); Sam Comer, Grace Gregory (set decorations); Gene Merritt, John Cope (sound); Alvin Ganzer (second unit director); Irmin Roberts (second unit photography); Francisco Day (assistant director); George Tomasini (editor); Edith Head (costumes); Wally Westmore (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: April 21, 1954
RUN TIME: 103 minutes, color
MGM was not the only studio capable of lush glamour photography. Some of her most stunning portraits were taken at Paramount for Elephant Walk.
SUMMARY: Ruth meets Ceylon plantation owner John Wiley in London and after a whirlwind courtship they marry. He takes her to his home in Ceylon—a mansion known as Elephant Walk. There Ruth observes an instant change in her husband’s personality, which eventually draws her to the handsome Dick Carver. John becomes cold and brooding, haunted by the mysteriously portentous memory of his late father, as well as the tangible menace of the herd of elephants that threatens to cut a path straight through Elephant Walk in search of water. Add to this toxic mix an outbreak of cholera and the result is a tale of ominous action without a moment’s letup.
Aerial view of the heroine of Elephant Walk (the mansion’s name), exhausted in the midst of a cholera outbreak
notes
PARAMOUNT PICTURES PRODUCER IRVING ASHER HAD ELIZABETH Taylor in mind for the female lead when he first conceived of making Elephant Walk. She was pregnant with son Michael when he first requested a loan out from MGM and was to give birth only a month prior to the start of principal photography, making her happily unavailable. Asher then obtained the services of Vivien Leigh for the film, and cast and crew departed for Ceylon (the former name of Sri Lanka) to shoot exteriors. After weeks in the heat of South Asia, Leigh’s fragile mental and physical health was depleted, she suffered from exhaustion, and shortly after returning to America to complete filming she suffered a nervous breakdown.
A replacement for Leigh was needed in a hurry. Since Elizabeth had by then given birth and was suitably recovered, Asher turned again to his first choice of leading lady, borrowing her from MGM for the sum of $150,000. Elizabeth’s and Leigh’s similarities of coloring and build allowed Asher and director William Dieterle to retain much of the footage that had been shot in Ceylon. As a result, in the location long shots, it is Vivien Leigh and not Elizabeth Taylor that one sees. They were also still able to utilize the majority of the costumes that Edith Head had created for Leigh by letting out seams and remodeling just a few. But like her predecessor in the role, Elizabeth did not walk away from the production unscathed. A wind machine blew a bit of steel into her eye and she had to be hospitalized.
Peter Finch, the man who a few years later was to have played Julius Caesar to Elizabeth’s Cleopatra, costarred, along with Dana Andrews. The lush, picturesque setting of Ceylon and a herd of elephants were the other major players in the film. Elephant Walk was part of a movement of films discovering new locales around the world besides more familiar alternatives to the U.S.—European and Latin American settings that were prevalent in films of the 1930s and ’40s. Movies of the ’50s such as King Solomon’s Mines, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Mogambo, and Elephant Walk intrigued the American public about far-off places in Africa and Southeast Asia. Ultimately in Elephant Walk, Elizabeth was aglow in Technicolor, the sets were luxurious, and the elephant-stampede finale all combined to make it a spectacle for the eye. Reviews of the day were tepid at best, but the film is undeniably intriguing and holds the viewers’ attention for a fast-paced 103 minutes.
Modeling an Edith Head design
With Dana Andrews, number two man in Elephant Walk and Elizabeth’s partner in creating an atmosphere of sexual tension
Elizabeth with Peter Finch as her brooding husband
Elephant Walk was part of a movement of films discovering new locales around the world.
She was only a bird in a gilded cage: Ruth Wiley in all her glory.
An outtake—there was very little laughter in the menacing mood of the movie
Dana Andrews and company review some of the glorious portraits made of Elizabeth in connection with the film.
The reaction to seeing a herd of elephants overtake one’s home
Observing the action from the sidelines
REVIEWS
“Unfortunately, the script that John Lee Mahin prepared from the Robert Standish book is lengthy and hackneyed in the build-up, and William Dieterle’s direction does not provide anything more than gaudy panoramas of a tropical palace to fascinate the eye. Miss Taylor’s performance of the young wife is petulant and smug. Mr. Andrews is pompous as the manager. And Mr. Finch, as the husband, is just plain bad. Abraham Sofaer as the native major-domo wears moustachios like a Turkish highwayman’s and has the best chance to be intriguing. But he does little more than roll his eyes.”
—The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)
“The novelty of the Ceylon backgrounds and pictorial beauty are recommendable points in Elephant Walk, an otherwise leisurely romantic drama that strolls leisurely through an hour and 42 minutes. Miss Taylor and Andrews appear more natural in their star spots [than Finch], thus have more impact.”
—Variety (“Brog”)
Beau Brummell
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER
CAST
Stewart Granger Beau Brummell
Elizabeth Taylor Lady Patricia
Peter Ustinov Prince of Wales
Robert Morley King George III
James Donald Lord Edwin Mercer
James Hayter Mortimer
Rosemary Harris Mrs. Fitzherbert
Paul Rogers William Pitt
Noel Willman Lord Byron
Peter Dyneley Midger
CREDITS
Sam Zimbalist (producer); Curtis Bernhardt (director); Karl Tunberg (screenplay), based on play by Clyde Fitch; Oswald Morris (photography); Richard Addinsell (music); Alfred Junge (art director); A. W. Watkins (sound); Frank Clarke (editor); Elizabeth Haffenden (costumes); Joan Johnstone (hairstylist); Charles Parker (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: October 6, 1954
RUN TIME: 113 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Captain “Beau” Brummell earns the respect of the Prince of Wales by being the only man brave enough to insult him. In time, Brummel becomes an essential member of the crown prince’s inner circle and a trusted advisor. Among the aristocrats he meets and falls for the lovely Lady Patricia, who is engaged to another—a far more stodgy man, not half as interesting as Brummell. Their budding love is stunted when Brummell again insults the prince and refuses to make apologies, earning him banishment from court. His pride also means losing Lady Patricia forever, as well as returning to the poverty from whence he came.
A costume test of Elizabeth as Lady Patricia
Fetching in her flaxen wig; no one thought to lighten those trademark eyebrows
In costume by Elizabeth Haffenden
REVIEWS
“Beau Brummell is an elaborate Technicolor period piece, lofty in manner and in principle. Most of the personalities in it are china figures, including Elizabeth Taylor as an eligible maiden of fashion and Rosemary Harris as the prince’s favorite. The notable exception is Peter Ustinov’s performance, which cuts through the high gloss and rigid poses of fancy-dress history. His lonely, pompous prince is animate and touching, as he captures and vitalizes this movie in a fine character role.”
—New York Herald Tribune (Otis L. Guernsey, Jr.)
“One of the handsomest color pictures ever made�
��so handsome, indeed, that one feels shabby, just sitting there watching it. . . . The lovely young lady with whom Brummell is supposed to be in love—and who is endowed by Elizabeth Taylor with dazzling beauty and the blossoms of appeal—is a foggy and vacillating creature who is never made sensibly clear . . . it is in the taste and artfulness of design, in the exquisite blendings of colors and in the mellow effects achieved through superlative use of the camera that Beau Brummell becomes a lovely film.”
—The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)
notes
THE REAL-LIFE BEAU BRUMMELL CUT A STRIKING FIGURE in Regency-era England with his tailored fashions, and he was credited with bringing into style the modern men’s suit and tie. He mingled in aristocratic circles and was quite the character—a dandy, as men who concerned themselves with outward appearance were known in his day. He also had a fall from grace that led him to poverty by the time of his death. The exploits of the rascally Brummell, also known to be a ladies’ man, fascinated the general public and his memory was kept alive well into the twentieth century, through numerous stage and screen incarnations.
Elizabeth Taylor Page 9