Playing an aging star involved with a much younger man, critics could not help but draw comparisons to Elizabeth’s own life. She had recently met Larry Fortensky, a man twenty years her junior, during a stay at the Betty Ford Center and they would be married on October 6, 1991, amid a media circus hovering above the storied setting for the wedding ceremony: Neverland Ranch, the home of Elizabeth’s good friend Michael Jackson.
REVIEWS
“[Screenwriter Gavin] Lambert has jettisoned much of Williams’ expressive, often searing lingo in favor of a more TV-oriented form of expression. The beautifully orchestrated scenes between Alexandra and Chance have been cut, the poetry and underlying philosophy discarded. Taylor stands in need of the imperious demands, the extravagant discourses and vulnerability that the play hands Alexandra but the teleplay doesn’t; Alexandra’s only an uninteresting drunk in Lambert’s reshaping of the shopworn film star. Harmon gives an ambitious college try at Chance, conveying none of the sensuousness and little of the heartlessness that Chance shares with Alexandra.”
—Variety (“Tone”)
“[Taylor-watchers] won’t be disappointed, because the lady still looks sensational. She may be taking a little sip of booze, smoking hashish, or hiding behind an oxygen mask to sober up, but she doesn’t look like anyone on the skids, or depraved, which she’s supposed to be.”
—New York Daily News (Kay Gardella)
“Sweet Bird of Youth starring Elizabeth Taylor is the ultimate tabloid TV.”
—The Village Voice (Amy Taubin)
Alexandra Del Lago tries to hang on to her beauty in Sweet Bird of Youth.
The Flintstones
UNIVERSAL PICTURES/AMBLIN/HANNA-BARBERA
CAST
John Goodman Fred Flintstone
Elizabeth Perkins Wilma Flintstone
Rick Moranis Barney Rubble
Rosie O’Donnell Betty Rubble
Kyle MacLachlan Cliff Vandercave
Halle Berry Sharon Stone
Elizabeth Taylor Pearl Slaghoople
Dann Florek Mr. Slate
Richard Moll Hoagie
Irwin Keyes Joe Rockhead
CREDITS
Steven Spielberg, Joseph Barbera, William Hanna (executive producers); Bruce Cohen (producer); Brian Levant (director); Tom S. Parker, Steven E. de Souza, Jim Jennewein (screenplay); Dean Cundey (photography); David Newman (music); William Sandell (production design); Christopher Burian-Mohr, Nancy Patton, William James Teegarden (art directors); Rosemary Brandenburg (set decorations); Kent Beyda (editor); Rosanna Norton (costumes)
RELEASE DATE: May 27, 1994
RUN TIME: 91 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Fred, Wilma, Pebbles, and Dino, make up the “modern stone-age family,” with best friends Barney and Betty Rubble in on all of their adventures. Fred loans Barney money so that he and Betty can adopt a baby boy, Bamm-Bamm. To repay his friend, Barney switches their results on an intelligence exam they are given at work to prevent Fred from failing. As a result, Barney finds himself out of a job while Fred is moved from digging in the quarry to an executive berth at Slate & Company. Unbeknownst to Fred, his boss, Cliff Vandercave and sexy secretary Sharon Stone are in cahoots to implicate Fred in an embezzlement scheme to benefit Vandercave. But all ends well for Fred and company in Bedrock.
As a Stone Age mother-in-law, with John Goodman and Elizabeth Perkins
REVIEWS
“If you’re looking for a yabba-dabbadoo time, it’s possible to get it from The Flintstones—but it helps to be under 12 or a die-hard fan of the early ’60s TV series. Otherwise, you will have to be content with the numerous visual distractions that are both the movie’s chief asset and liability.”
—New York Daily News (Jami Bernard)
“With all manner of friendly beasts, a super energetic John Goodman and a colorful supporting cast inhabiting a Bedrock that resembles a Stone Age version of Steven Spielberg suburbia, this live-action translation of the perennial cartoon favorite is a fine popcorn picture for the small fry, and perfectly inoffensive for adults. . . . Given that it requires her almost exclusively to complain about Fred, the mother role brings out Taylor’s coarse side, although she looks beauteous.”
—Variety (Todd McCarthy)
“All the characters remain faithful to the ’60s series, right down to their voices, costumes and roles in life. As Fred’s neighbor, best friend and co-worker at the quarry, Rick Moranis has that Barney Rubble smirk and second-banana attitude. Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma and Rosie O’Donnell as Betty are stay-at-home wives and mothers, and the actresses even have the characters’ unmistakable giggles down cold. Elizabeth Taylor offers a refreshing contemporary touch as Wilma’s social-climbing mother, Pearl Slaghoople. Miss Taylor looks as if she has just stepped out of one of her own perfume ads. In the middle of so much déjà vu, she works effectively against the grain, although she plays the classic complaining sitcom mother-in-law. ‘You could have married Eliot Firestone,’ she snaps at Wilma, ‘the man who invented the wheel.’”
—The New York Times (Caryn James)
notes
THE FLINTSTONES MOVIE, BASED ON THE BELOVED ANIMATED series of the 1960s, was a pet project of filmmaker Steven Spielberg for years. The production, directed by Brian Levant, mixed live action with computer animation and was a box-office smash. For the legendary role of Fred Flintstone, Spielberg looked no further than John Goodman, and in the other lead roles cast Elizabeth Perkins, Rick Moranis, and Rosie O’Donnell, who nailed the spirit of their animated counterparts.
Elizabeth, who had not made a movie for five years, said she participated as Wilma Flintstone’s nagging stepmother in the family-friendly picture for her grandchildren. She was also coaxed back to acting duties by a guarantee that the film’s U.S. premiere would be a benefit for her eponymous AIDS foundation that she founded in 1991. That year Elizabeth also launched her first, hugely successful perfume, White Diamonds. As an inside joke, when she is seated at a makeup table in the movie, a stone bottle engraved “White Diamonds” is visible.
“She was such a pro. She considered herself a working actress. There was no star behavior.”
— BRIAN LEVANT
Director Brian Levant found her a pleasure to work with: “She was such a pro. She considered herself a working actress. There was no star behavior. [Actors like her] who literally grew up on studio lots can just walk in and they own the place. She did her own makeup. The crew was just enraptured. The first day everyone wore a tie.” Elizabeth put everyone at ease by kidding with them. One day during shooting Levant accidentally stepped on her foot. She later came to the set on crutches. As Levant apologized profusely Elizabeth giggled. It was a joke. She made sure everyone knew that “ET” or “Elizabeth,” as she asked them to call her (not “Liz” or “Miss Taylor”), was not an untouchable movie goddess but one of them—even if the friends she brought to the set included Michael Jackson.
Though it was unexpected for Elizabeth to turn up in The Flinstones, she was as glamorous as ever.
These Old Broads
TV Movie
COLUMBIA TRISTAR/ABC
CAST
Shirley MacLaine Kate Westbourne
Debbie Reynolds Piper Grayson
Joan Collins Addie Holden
Elizabeth Taylor Beryl Mason
Jonathan Silverman Wesley Westbourne
Nestor Carbonell Gavin
Peter Graves Bill
Carlos Jacott Tom
Pat Crawford Brown Miriam Hodges
Suzanne Carney Connie
CREDITS
Carrie Fisher, Elaine Pope, Laurence Mark (executive producers); Lewis Abel (producer); Matthew Diamond (director); Carrie Fisher, Elaine Pope (screenplay); Eric Van Haren Noman (photography); Steve Tyrell, Guy Moon (music); Alfred Sole (production design); Jack D. L. Ballance (art director); Don Diers (set decorations); Casey O. Rohrs (editor); Richard P. Schroer (assistant director); Nolan Miller (costumes); José Eber (Elizabeth Taylor’s hairs
tylist); Christina Smith (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: February 12, 2001
RUN TIME: 89 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Kate Westbourne, Piper Grayson, and Addie Holden were once the queens of Hollywood, and are presently enjoying a revival, thanks to the success of the re-release of a film they made together thirty years prior. Gavin, a TV executive is determined to produce a television special starring the three women, but it is no easy task bringing their larger-than-life tempers and egos together. Trying to talk “these old broads” into doing the show is Kate’s estranged son, Wesley, with able assistance from their dizzy, high-powered agent, Beryl Mason. The three aging divas agree, but before the show reaches screens they rehash past feuds, argue over billing, fight over men, exhaust their creaking joints, and threaten to quit at every turn. Still, the show must go on!
REVIEWS
“There are plenty of zings and zippy one-liners, the stars’ ability to make fun of just about everything they’ve gone through in life is a hoot. (Reynolds and Taylor’s husband-stealing conversation will make Eddie Fisher very proud.) . . . All four thesps are game for anything, so there’s no shortage of wig-pulling knockdowns or bitchy standoffs.”
—Variety (Michael Speier)
“Don’t watch These Old Broads expecting sense or modern sensibility. You’ll only be disappointed. Watch for the sheer outrageousness of everything—their plots, the women, their cattiness, their sex obsession. . . . Amid the ribald repartee there’s slapstick and there’s sentiment. Reynolds is amazing with the body language. MacLaine acts up a storm in acting up, and Dynasty diva Joan Collins looks fabulous. Taylor shows up a few times, briefly—which is all we require, isn’t it?”
—Newsday (Diane Werts)
In good company in her last movie, with Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine, and Joan Collins
notes
THE GENESIS OF THESE OLD BROADS WAS A CONVERSATION about how there were no good roles in movies for older women between Elizabeth, Lauren Bacall, Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Reynolds, and Reynolds’s celebrated actress-screenwriter daughter, Carrie Fisher. Fisher got to work on a screenplay for them with writing partner Elaine Pope, but they could not interest any major studio in financing a theatrical release in spite of a stellar cast that included Elizabeth and Reynolds of the unforgettable Liz-Eddie-Debbie Scandal. According to Fisher, “All the studios said no even though they’ve made films with older men.” (Space Cowboys being a recent hit for Warner Bros.) So she took her script and her leading ladies to television.
“All the studios said no even though they’ve made films with older men.”
— CARRIE FISHER
Elizabeth holds a bottle of Passion, one among her successful line of perfumes.
Lauren Bacall was unavailable at the time of filming and was replaced by Joan Collins. Elizabeth agreed to do it as a favor to Fisher. Reynolds said, “Liz has health problems and was in a lot of pain, but she was a great sport. She said, ‘I’m doing this for you and Carrie, who I love as my own child. I did not do right by you in real life, so I’m doing this for you now.’” An appreciative Fisher promised Elizabeth that all of her scenes would be staged sitting in bed or in a chair.
The women all had a ball making These Old Broads, which ceaselessly poked fun at their well-known real lives.
The women all had a ball making These Old Broads, which ceaselessly poked fun at their well-known real lives. Each of the stars encouraged Fisher to put more of their own stories into the script for laughs. MacLaine, a well-known believer in reincarnation, asked her to play up the bits about her past lives. Elizabeth and Reynolds had long since patched up their friendship and Elizabeth insisted on going all the way in a scene in which their characters discuss how she had stolen Reynold’s husband decades ago. Reynolds recalled, “Liz told Carrie to write that scene because she said I deserved to have that after all these years. She kept saying, ‘Have her really tell me off and make it meaner—it’s not funny enough.’”
Surrounded by close friends, Elizabeth enjoyed making These Old Broads, but it would be her final film. There was by no means any letup in terms of her work in the ten years that followed before her death, at age seventy-nine, on March 23, 2011. A best-selling line of fragrances, including White Diamonds, Passion, Black Pearls, and Violet Eyes would be her biggest money-making venture. The House of Taylor, a jewelry line and culmination of a lifetime passion for precious gems, was launched in 2007. Most of all, though, Elizabeth devoted her time, money, fame, and all the energy her increasingly weakening body could muster to the cause closest to her heart: AIDS. Elizabeth truly wanted to make a difference and “change the course of the disease,” beyond just lending her name. Already heavily involved in the cause as a founding member of amfAR, Elizabeth went further by founding the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Over the years her work raised an estimated half billion dollars for research. As in all areas of her life, whatever Elizabeth did, she did it big.
At the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000 with Carrie Fisher, the co-producer of These Old Broads
At a 1991 event in which she auctioned off jewelry with proceeds going to amfAR. It was a benefit for one of the great passions of Elizabeth’s life.
acknowledgments
THIS BOOK CAME TOGETHER THROUGH THE ASSISTANCE AND support of many. First, as always, my mother and father, who encouraged my every writing endeavor from day one. Joseph Cruz: You were a real partner in this book. Thank you for your trust in me and your expertise. Your vast collection of Elizabeth Taylor photos made this book. Thanks to Lou Valentino for introducing us and for his own contribution to the imagery.
At Running Press: Chris Navratil, our Publisher—how lucky I am that you love classic Hollywood too. Greg Jones, I would never be in the happy position I am without you. My editor, Jennifer Kasius, thank you for your invaluable guidance. The design expertise of Susan Van Horn made this a beautiful tribute. Stacy Schuck oversaw the book from the production end.
Others whose love, friendship, patience, and support help me in a myriad of ways: For starters my “sisters” who inspired the dedication to this book include Jenny, Marissa, Jordana, Cara, Betsy, Melissa G., Melissa R., Danielle, Naomi, Gavy, Beata, Karen, and Darina. Trisha, Manny, Jess, my amazing siblings. My dear Frankie, your handiwork gave this book a stunning cover and your talent is inspiring. Markus and Indrani, thank you for the endless motivation in the past year to go above and beyond. I also find inspiration from my grandmothers, little Tristan and Michael, and the newest addition to my family: Ava.
This book would not be possible without the comprehensive archives and knowledgeable staffs of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the New York Public Library, the American Film Institute, the UCLA Arts Library, the USC Cinematic Arts Library, and the Free Library of Philadelphia.
And to Elizabeth: Writing about a legend can be intimidating, but delving into such a rich, full, and purposeful life inspired me from start to finish, and always will.
index
A
Abel, Walter, 132
Ackerman, Leslie, 273
Adler, Buddy, 164
Adler, Renata, 220
Ahern, Alston, 266
Ahn, Philip, 72
Albee, Edward, 189, 191
Alcott, Louisa May, 64
Alexander, Jane, 273, 274, 275
Alias Nick Beal, 199
Alice Adams, 225
Allen, Jack, 68
Alley, Kirstie, 276
Allgood, Sara, 32
Allyson, June, 62, 64
Ambassador’s Daughter, The, 74
American Success Company, The, 267
American Tragedy, An, 78
Ames, Leon, 54, 72, 236
Anderson, Judith, 139, 140
Anderson, Maxwell, 227
Andress, Ursula, 256
Andrews, Dana, 111, 113, 115
Andrews, Harry, 257
Ankrum, Morris, 42
Anne of the Thousand Days, 226–229
/> Antonio, Lou, 271
Arne, Peter, 154
Around the World in 80 Days, 131, 137
Ash Wednesday, 246–251
Ashcroft, Peggy, 218, 220
Asher, Irving, 112
Ashley, Edward, 111
Ashley, Elizabeth, 145
Askin, Leon, 236
Asquith, Anthony, 170
Astaire, Fred, 87, 97, 252
Astor, Mary, 49, 62, 118
Aylmer, Felix, 88, 99
B
“Babylon Revisited,” 122
Bacall, Lauren, 289, 290
Bachelor Mother, 74
Baddeley, Hermione, 216
Baer, Buddy, 88
Bagnold, Enid, 37
Baker, Carroll, 124, 130
Band Wagon, The, 199, 252
Bankhead, Tallulah, 166, 216
Bannen, Ian, 253, 256
Baptiste, Thomas, 240
Bara, Theda, 166
Bardot, Brigitte, 9
Barrymore, John, 118
Elizabeth Taylor Page 24