Elizabeth Taylor
Page 10
The famous English stage actor Richard Mansfield stepped into Brummell’s suits in a celebrated play of 1890 by Clyde Fitch. Fitch’s work was later adapted for the silent screen in a 1924 film starring John Barrymore and Mary Astor. Not much had been done on Brummell for quite some time though, when MGM producer Sam Zimbalist decided to bring the fashionable Englishman to the screen once more. Stewart Granger, whom MGM was molding as the hopeful new Clark Gable, was chosen to embody Brummell, and Elizabeth was to portray his decorative light of love, Lady Patricia. Peter Ustinov played a neurotic Prince of Wales and, it should be noted, was deserving of laurels for his performance.
Elizabeth and company again traveled to England for the filming, which took place primarily at the studios at Borehamwood and at England’s historic Ockwells Manor. Lensed in Technicolor and with no expense spared in either luxuriousness or authenticity, Beau Brummell was another finely crafted, if not momentous, historical drama from the studio that did them best. This was not a film of which Elizabeth was particularly proud. “I was so embarrassing in it,” was her critical assessment.
Lensed in Technicolor and with no expense spared in either luxuriousness or authenticity, Beau Brummell was another finely crafted historical drama from the studio that did them best.
Beau Brummell was filmed on location in England, with exteriors shot at the historic fifteenth-century Ockwells Manor.
Elizabeth and Michael Wilding with costar Stewart Granger and his actress wife, Jean Simmons
With Stewart Granger. Brummell was not always the easiest person to get along with.
Beau Brummell spots his love, Lady Patricia.
The Last Time I Saw Paris
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Helen Ellswirth
Van Johnson Charles Wills
Walter Pidgeon James Ellswirth
Donna Reed Marion Ellswirth
Eva Gabor Lorraine Quarl
Kurt Kasznar Maurice
George Dolenz Claude Matine
Roger Moore Paul
Sandy Descher Vicki
Celia Lovsky Mama
CREDITS
Jack Cummings (producer); Richard Brooks (director); Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Richard Brooks (screenplay), based on story “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Joseph Ruttenberg (photography); Conrad Salinger (music); Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II (song: “The Last Time I Saw Paris”); Saul Chaplin (musical supervisor); Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell (art directors); Edwin B. Willis, Jack D. Moore (set decorations); William Shanks (assistant director); Wesley C. Miller (sound); John Dunning (editor); Helen Rose (costumes); Sydney Guilaroff (hairstylist); William Tuttle (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: November 18, 1954
RUN TIME: 116 minutes, color
SUMMARY: While working as a journalist for a newswire service in Paris, Charles Wills falls in love and marries Helen Ellswirth. During their early years together Charles churns out news by day and works feverishly by night on the novel he wants desperately to get published. Helen supports his ambitions while leading a life of frivolity amid the omnipresent revelers of postwar Paris. Life changes after they have a daughter and acquire unexpected funds from an oil well. Helen settles down as Charles’s ambition deteriorates into alcoholism. One drunken binge inadvertently leads to Helen’s death from pneumonia after Charles locks her out of their home in the middle of a storm. The tragedy changes Charles’s life and after proving his stability through success as a novelist, he seeks to reunite with his daughter.
Cast shot, clockwise: Walter Pidgeon, Eva Gabor, Elizabeth, Van Johnson, and Donna Reed
REVIEWS
“Mr. Johnson as the husband is too bumptious when happy and too dreary when drunk; Miss Taylor as the wife is delectable, but she is also occasionally quite dull. Mr. Pidgeon is elaborately devilish, Sandra Descher as the child is over-cute, Donna Reed as the bitter sister is vapid. But the soft soap is smeared so smoothly and that sweet old Jerome Kern tune, from which the title is taken, is played so insistently that it may turn the public’s heart to toothpaste. This is something which we wouldn’t know.”
—The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)
“Richard Brooks’s direction has helped bring out the best in Johnson, and it has done the same for Miss Taylor. She is not only a stunning creature but a vibrant one as she flings herself into the role of an impetuous, alluring, pleasure-loving beauty. She wears yellow and red—the colors of gayety—but her performance is such that disillusionment is never out of sight. They are involved in something less than Fitzgerald in The Last Time I Saw Paris, but all concerned have done a capable job with the lesser materials at hand.”
—New York Herald Tribune (Otis L. Guernsey, Jr.)
Portrait of the conflicted Helen in The Last Time I Saw Paris
A French magazine cover of Elizabeth from the film
notes
THOUGH THE STRAINS OF THE UBIQUITOUS “THE LAST TIME I Saw Paris” are heard throughout the entire movie, it was not its namesake Kern-Hammerstein song but a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald from which the film took its inspiration. Fitzgerald’s story was called “Babylon Revisited,” but the studio decided against that title for the film lest audiences think it was another MGM biblical epic.
Far from that, The Last Time I Saw Paris was an interesting modern drama set in post–World War II Paris, presented as a mecca for lost souls and American expatriates. Fortunately for Elizabeth the film was only a loose adaptation of Fitzgerald’s story, or else she would have found herself with very little to do. The Epsteins and Richard Brooks’s script expanded the role of Helen Ellswirth through extensive flashback sequences that comprised the better part of the film. The tale was a soap opera but a good one, and gave Elizabeth one of the most multifaceted roles of her career to date. In the star’s own words, “That girl was offbeat with mercurial flashes of instability—more than just glib dialogue.” She played her second death scene in the movie (the first was in Jane Eyre). Ironically, both deaths were caused by pneumonia, an illness that plagued Elizabeth throughout her life and nearly ended it on more than one occasion.
The tale was a soap opera but a good one, and gave Elizabeth one of the most multifaceted roles of her career to date.
A moment with newly installed MGM studio chief Dore Schary
At the Academy Awards with husband Michael Wilding. This ceremony took place in her Paris period.
Behind the scenes with Donna Reed
Picking up on strengths from the role or from her costars or director always inspired Elizabeth to go above and beyond. In this case she loved her part but had long since grasped the struggle she had with critics assessing her work. The film’s director, Richard Brooks, said years later, “She told me, ‘What’s the use of my being a good actress? People pay no attention to it, anyway. They just say that, as usual, Elizabeth Taylor looked beautiful.’ She began to think of her beauty as a handicap, a liability.” No matter how good she was, it was indeed impossible not to comment on the way she looked. Her beauty in this film was enhanced by the costuming of Helen Rose, who used wardrobe to complement not only Elizabeth but her character. Helen Ellswirth enters the film in bohemian-chic black from head to toe, then puts a red plaid jacket over it and wears colorful clothing throughout the balance of the film, reflecting her seemingly happy-go-lucky spirit.
Elizabeth was top-billed in the film, above costars Van Johnson, Donna Reed, Walter Pidgeon, and Eva Gabor. For Johnson, Elizabeth’s leading man from The Big Hangover and one of MGM’s top stars for a decade, it would be his last role under long-term contract to the studio. The Last Time I Saw Paris was released in November 1954. It would be an entire year before the public saw her next film. The quick succession of Elizabeth Taylor releases paused as she took a break from moviemaking to give birth to her second child, Christopher Wilding, on February 27, 1955.
VE-Day celebration in Paris with Van Johnson and revelers
A p
arty at Maxim’s during filming, with friends Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift
Wardrobe test shot, in her dressing-room door
The magazine Screen Stories presented novelizations of popular films.
Giant
WARNER BROS.
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Leslie Benedict
Rock Hudson Jordan “Bick” Benedict, Jr.
James Dean Jett Rink
Carroll Baker Luz Benedict II
Jane Withers Vashti Snythe
Chill Wills Uncle Bawley
Mercedes McCambridge Luz Benedict
Dennis Hopper Jordan Benedict III
Sal Mineo Angel Obregón II
Rodney Taylor Sir David Karfrey
Fran Bennett Judy Benedict
CREDITS
George Stevens, Henry Ginsberg (producers); George Stevens (director); Fred Guiol, Ivan Moffat (screenplay), based on novel by Edna Ferber; William C. Mellor (photography); Dimitri Tiomkin (music); Paul Francis Webster, Dimitri Tiomkin (songs: “Giant,” “There’s Never Been Anyone Else But You”); Boris Leven (production designer); Ralph Hurst (set decorations); Fred Guiol (second unit director); Joe Rickards (assistant director); Earl Crain, Sr. (sound); William Hornbeck, Robert Lawrence, Phil Anderson, Fred Bohanan (editors); Marjorie Best, Moss Mabry (costumes); Gordon Bau (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: November 24, 1956
RUN TIME: 201 minutes, color
George Stevens, Jr., Elizabeth, James Dean, and George Stevens on the 595,000-acre Texas ranch known as Reata
SUMMARY: Texas cattle tycoon Bick Benedict visits Maryland to buy a horse and comes back with a high-spirited wife, Leslie. At home on Bick’s mammoth ranch, Reata, Leslie finds a less than welcoming sister-in-law, Luz, and ranch hand Jett Rink, who is contemptuous of Bick but privately idolizes Leslie. Leslie and Bick butt heads over her independent spirit and her humanity in defense of local Mexicans. Love sustains them through their differences, and they eventually have three children. Luz dies following a horse-riding accident and in her will she has left a small plot of land to Jett. Jett discovers oil on the land, making him a rich man with power he can easily misuse. Leslie and Bick’s daughter (Luz’s namesake niece), falls hard for Jett, to her parents’ dismay, but she will soon come to her senses. Over the passage of twenty-five years, Leslie and Bick come to a new understanding of each other and now watch over their children and grandchildren.
Aging Hudson and Elizabeth was no easy feat for the makeup department.
Filming one of the opening scenes with Rock Hudson
The Benedicts and their babies
REVIEWS
“Miss Taylor, required by her role to age 30 years, gives her usual alert, effectual performance in the earlier years of her role, and then displays a new artistry in meeting the sterner demands of parenthood and grandmotherhood.”
—Motion Picture Herald
“For all its three hours and twenty minutes Giant is engrossing storytelling in the best Ferber fashion—with director-producer George (Shane) Stevens and a splendid cast helping to make this one of the finest films of this, or any year. In starring roles, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson reveal new and unususpected talents, giving by far the most impressive performances of their careers.”
—Cue (Jesse Zunser)
“Under Mr. Stevens’ direction, an exceptionally well-chosen cast does some exciting performing. Elizabeth Taylor as the ranchman’s lovely wife, from whose point of observation we actually view what goes on, makes a woman of spirit and sensitivity who acquires tolerance and grows old gracefully. And Rock Hudson is handsome, stubborn and perverse but oddly humble as her spouse. However, it is the late James Dean who makes the malignant role of the surly ranch hand who becomes an oil baron the most tangy and corrosive in the film. Mr. Dean plays this curious villain with a stylized spookiness—a sly sort of off-beat languor and slur of language—that concentrates spite. This is a haunting capstone to the brief career of Mr. Dean.”
—The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)
Elizabeth touches up her own hair; a makeup man freshens her face.
Behind the scenes of Giant with Hudson and Elizabeth
notes
ELIZABETH’S BEST ROLE TO DATE CAME NOT FROM THE STUDIO that was managing her career in 1955 but from George Stevens—the man who had given Elizabeth her second best role to date when he directed her in A Place in the Sun. Giant, the sprawling novel of Texas and three generations of cattle titans, was the distinguished and at times controversial work of Edna Ferber. Ferber’s novels and plays had proven to be solid bets for Hollywood over the years, inspiring such cinematic triumphs as Show Boat, Cimarron, Dinner at Eight, Come and Get It, Stage Door, Saratoga Trunk, and So Big,.
Feeding water to a puppy. James Dean is in the background.
Mercedes McCambridge, Elizabeth, Hudson, Dean, and George Stevens. Between cast and crew on location there existed a spirit of camaraderie.
A candid shot, as Leslie Benedict
Elizabeth became close with both Dean and Hudson. Others on the set recalled there seemed to exist a bit of rivalry for her friendship between the two men, at least on Dean’s part.
The dream trio of Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, and Rock Hudson would star in Giant, but none of them was Stevens’s first choice when he conceived of the film. For the part of Jett Rink, Stevens considered Alan Ladd, the star of his most recent hit, Shane. Grace Kelly, fresh from her Oscar win for The Country Girl, was the original selection for the part of Leslie Benedict. Rock Hudson proposed Elizabeth Taylor to Stevens as an alternative when he could not get Grace Kelly. Elizabeth was thrilled to be second choice and back working with Stevens, though it was not entirely a bed of roses. Stevens was known to be tedious at times, as he liked to shoot scenes again and again from different angles. His was a proven formula that produced classic after classic, but he was a director who took his time. In the years since they had worked together on A Place in the Sun, Stevens had made two films; while Elizabeth had made nine.
A moment with Rock Hudson. Elizabeth called his performance “brilliant.”
With James Dean, who they said never stopped toying with that rope throughout filming
Off the set with Dean and a friend
Test shots for Leslie Benedict’s wardrobe
Stevens understood his leading lady as few of her directors ever did. “She was kept in a cocoon by her mother,” the director said, “by her studio, by the fact that she was the adored child who had had everything she wanted since she was eight years old. What most people don’t know is that there has been a smoldering spirit of revolt in Elizabeth for a long time.” The sense of revolt came through onscreen, as Elizabeth was more spirited than ever in Giant. She could not have asked for better male costars than Rock Hudson and James Dean to bring this out in her. She became great friends with both, though the two men themselves did not become close. Both were troubled to some degree and confided their secrets to Elizabeth. As with Montgomery Clift, people who were somehow wounded brought out her maternal nature, and she would remain loyal to them and their secrets to the end of their lives. Hudson called her “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. That’s outward beauty and inside, too.”
“What most people don’t know is that there has been a smoldering spirit of revolt in Elizabeth for a long time.”
— GEORGE STEVENS
The film was shot primarily on location in the small town of Marfa, Texas, in the summer of 1955. Stevens did nothing to discourage passersby from stopping to have a look at the moviemaking process. On the contrary, he invited locals to work as extras. The cast of the younger generation included a young Dennis Hopper and Carroll Baker, whom Paramount was aggressively promoting. Elizabeth was a year younger than Baker but portrayed her mother. The cross-generational theme of the movie required the three stars to age twenty-five years over the course of the film. Young and beautiful as Elizabeth, Hudson, and Dean were, it posed a great challenge to the makeup
department.
Tragedy struck days before production wrapped, on September 30, 1955. While watching dailies on the film, Stevens broke the news that James Dean had died in an auto accident while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder through Salinas, California. The Giant company, and the American public, were shocked. Elizabeth was deeply upset. Dean had acted in only three movies in his storied but remarkably short career; yet he had instantly achieved iconic status in the public’s memory as the rebel without a cause.
Dean went out on a high note with Giant. The film cost Warner Bros. over $5 million to make, but it netted more than $14 million, making it the highest-grossing Warner Bros. film to date. Critics and industry peers loved the film as much as the public did. Giant earned ten Oscar nominations including Best Picture and acting honors for Hudson, Dean, and Mercedes McCambridge. The Best Picture award that year went to Around the World in 80 Days. If her own film did not win, Elizabeth was happy Around the World took home the title, for during the making of Giant she was courted like mad by that film’s producer, Mike Todd, her future husband.