Bio - 199 - Elizabeth Taylor: There Is Nothing Like a Dame

by Darwin Porter

  Presented with the horse, Elizabeth decided to make permanent her policy of asking rewards at the end of filming. In the future, she’d request an expensive gift from the producer, and she usually got it.

  One day, the columnist Sidney Skolsky asked her about this. She was very blunt in her answer, knowing that he wouldn’t dare print her response. “One night after William Holden fucked me, he told me that all actors are whores, selling their bodies. Well, this is one whore who is not opposed to a few gratuities.”

  The gift of the horse occurred in 1944. Elizabeth thanked Berman profusely. However, years later, at the debut of discussions about producing Butterfield 8 in 1959, he encountered a very different Elizabeth, a woman jaded and sophisticated. “Aren’t you the guy who gave me that horse I rode in National Velvet?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I am,” he told her.

  “You son of a bitch,” she said. “I’m still paying for feed for that god damn nag.”

  After her encounter with Berman, Elizabeth told Sara, “I’ve heard that MGM without Berman has been compared to an American flag without the stars. But frankly, to me he looks like Mr. Magoo wanting to throw me down on the casting couch.”

  Opening during the Christmas season of 1944 at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, National Velvet was a smash hit. Although Rooney was the star, Elizabeth garnered most of the praise.

  Time magazine commented on her “pre-adolescent sexuality” on the screen. As far as it is known, this was the first time the press had discussed sexuality as it related to underage Elizabeth. Before her death, half the trees in Canada would fall to create the newsprint absorbed by articles addressing her sexuality.

  Enid Bagnold attended the premiere of National Velvet in London, describing it as “a glossy version of my story.” Later, she was horrified to read reviews of her work in the American press. One journalist asserted that “National Velvet is about sex, the story of a virgin on the dawn of puberty, who is in love with her horse.”

  Enid Bagnold, horrified at the reviews generated by the filmed version of her novel, National Velvet

  Another book critic referred to the novel as “juvenile pornography” and cited a passage from the book to prove his point:

  “The horse sprang to the surge of her heart as her eyes gazed between his ears at the blue top of the flint wall. She bent slightly and held him fast and steady, her hands buried in the flaming mane, firm on the stout muscles of his neck.”

  In her eighties at the time, Bagnold was appalled by such observations. “Balderdash!” she said. “What’s next? They’ll be talking nonsense about girls and goats.”

  Regardless of one’s individual perception of National Velvet, the movie was a smash hit—and so was its star, Elizabeth Taylor.

  From coast to coast, and abroad, especially in war-torn England, the word was out: MGM had a new star shining to prove its claim that it had more stars than there are in Heaven.

  ***

  As Elizabeth entered her teens, she spent most of her time concentrating on becoming a woman. To capitalize off the box office success of Lassie Come Home, Mayer forced her to film a sequel, Courage of Lassie, which was released in 1946. Director Fred Wilcox helmed a cast that included Frank Morgan, Harry Davenport, and George Cleveland. Elizabeth related particularly well to the distinguished white-haired “old man” of the Silent Screen, George Davenport, who had played Dr. Meade in Gone With the Wind, back in 1939.

  During the filming of Courage of Lassie, Elizabeth was reunited with the collie, Pal, which was actually a male dog playing a bitch. Originally, the film was entitled Hold High the Torch and later renamed Blue Sierra until Mayer found out. “You fuck!” he told Wilcox. “Get Lassie in the title.”

  Before the summer of the film’s release in 1946, it had been retitled Courage of Lassie.

  During his reprise movie, “Pal” was assigned the name of “Bill” and arrives onscreen shell-shocked after accompanying British troops into the trenches of World War I. “Most of my dialogue consisted of me standing around crying out, ‘Oh Bill’every ten seconds,” Elizabeth remembered, years later. “It was my last movie with a quadruped as my co-star. I wanted to appear opposite hot, hung, and hunky he-men.” [Roddy had recently taught her the meaning of the word “hung,” which subsequently became one of her favorite words.]

  In the film, she was cast opposite Tom Drake, who had had a brief role in The White Cliffs of Dover. Since then, he’d achieved fame as “the boy next door” opposite Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). In the reprise of the Lassie movie, he played the soldier who had trained “Bill the Collie” to become a killer.

  Elizabeth might have preferred a more virile beau, but Drake was handsome enough. We can assume that Elizabeth was indulging in hyperbole when she used the word “spread-eagled” in what she said about him later: “He was very sweet and soft-spoken. I did go after him, but he wouldn’t kiss me even when I spread-eagled myself before him.”

  At Roddy’s Sunday afternoon barbecue, she poured out her frustrations to her trusted friend and confidant. She’d later recall, “I’ve never seen Roddy so angry. I thought he was going to burst several blood vessels.”

  “That bitch!” Roddy shouted. “That cunt! That WHORE! I’d love to cut off his balls if I can find them. Guess what Miss Priss has done? He stole Peter Lawford from me. Those two get oral with each other night after night.”

  She was shocked. Not only did she learn that she didn’t have a chance with Drake, but that he was sleeping with the handsome young actor upon whom “I have the ultimate crush.” She commiserated with Roddy throughout the rest of the afternoon. “Ah, Hollywood. What’s a girl to do? For Peter, I’ve had to compete with Lana Turner and you, my dearest friend. That’s painful enough. Now Tom Drake. In the future, when I fall for a guy, I’ve got to be realistic. In Hollywood, with the most beautiful girls and the most beautiful boys in the world, it’s doubly hard for a girl in love to battle both guys and dolls for her man.”

  “Get used to it,” he warned her. “Hollywood is the most competitive town in the universe. The only time we can be sure that the object of each of our affections isn’t sleeping with someone else, male or female, is when we’re actually in bed alone with them.”

  “I can’t wait to grow up,” she said. “I’m so fucking young, my age is against me. Why aren’t there more child molesters out here?”

  “Don’t rush it,” he told her. “Wait just three years, and then every guy in Hollywood will want to plug you.”

  “Three fucking years?” she asked. “Are you out of your bloody mind? I can’t wait that long. I want it now!”

  She urged Roddy to line her up with a hot date. She’d been attracted to a young actor, Darryl Hickman, at one of Rodney’s Saturday afternoon cook-outs. “Give him my phone number, and see if he’ll ask me out on a date. Tell him I’ll let him fuck me if you’ll go out with me.”

  Ever since Hickman had appeared in Grapes of Wrath, Elizabeth had had a fantasy about him.

  Roddy called her two nights later. “Forget about Darryl. He told me he’s considering entering a monastery. Those monks aren’t even allowed to jerk off.”

  “Oh, fuck that!” she told him. “In all of Hollywood, aren’t there any real he-men who lust for a hot young pussy?”

  “Oh, Elizabeth, I’ll have to wash out your mouth,” he said. “No wonder Sara makes you wear a chastity belt.”

  In her 1987 memoir, Elizabeth Takes Off, she wrote, “I wanted to be a woman. I had a small waistline which I’d squeeze even smaller, knowing that it accentuated my bust and hips. I flaunted an hourglass figure at a stage when most young girls were still developing.”

  Sidney Guilaroff, her hairdresser, testified to her success. He recalled eating lunch with Pandro S. Berman in the MGM commissary a year after casting Elizabeth as the little girl in National Velvet. “When Elizabeth walked in to have her lunch, Berman was flabbergasted at the transformation of her body. Seeing her new
look, he told me, ‘I think I could go to jail for that!’”

  That afternoon at the commissary, Elizabeth was still at the stage where she was going around the tables asking for autographs from all the big MGM stars, such as Lana Turner (who drove her into jealous fits), Judy Garland (whom she envied), and Hedy Lamarr (who she wanted to replace as the most beautiful woman in the world). She spotted Katharine Hepburn involved in a deep conversation with Spencer Tracy. She walked over to her table and asked, “May I have your autograph, Miss Hepburn?”

  She recalled Hepburn’s reaction. “She granted me the autograph, but did not stop talking. Nor did she even look at me. The lezzie [a new word taught to her by Roddy] would later want to have a lobotomy performed on me.”

  Elizabeth was referring, of course, to her 1959 picture, Suddenly, Last Summer, in which she co-starred with Hepburn and Montgomery Clift.

  “That was the last day I ever asked anyone for an autograph,” Elizabeth said. “From then on, I let other people ask me for an autograph. There was no reserved seating in the commissary. I ended up sitting at table between Clark Gable, my idol, and Marjorie Main. I felt that both of these established older stars would like to get into my panties, which at the time were pink silk.”

  ***

  The domestic details of Elizabeth’s home in Beverly Hills changed in 1944, as she found out when a studio limousine deposited her at Elm Drive. Usually, Sara was with her, but not today.

  Going into the living room, Elizabeth found Sara busily reorganizing their possessions. “We’re moving out this weekend. I have rooms for us at the Riviera Club until I get our beach cottage in Malibu in order.”

  “Have we lost the house?” an alarmed Elizabeth asked. She’d later relate the details of this dramatic saga in her life to Roddy.

  “For the moment,” Sara said, “Francis and your brother, Howard, will stay on here. You see, my dear, Francis has found a replacement for Victor Cazalet. He’s fallen in love with Adrian, and they are going to live together.” Like the rest of Hollywood, Elizabeth was aware of Gilbert Adrian, the legal husband of the film star, Janet Gaynor, whom he’d wed in 1939, entering into a “lavender marriage” with the costume designer.

  Elizabeth knew Adrian because he’d designed the famous costumes for The Wizard of Oz. In time, over the course of a long and celebrated career, he would design gowns for more than 250 films.

  At MGM, he’d earned his fame by designing gowns for Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Jeanette MacDonald, Jean Harlow, and Katharine Hepburn. He’d designed costumes for Joan Crawford in twenty-eight films, creating those signature outfits with large shoulder pads, launching a nationwide fashion trend.

  The Grand Days of Hollywood Couture:

  top photo: Francis Taylor’s new love interest, Adrian, and

  lower photo, a “fitted suit” the designer conceived and commercialized in 1947.

  “Oh, Mommy, I want to meet him!” Elizabeth said, offering no sympathy that Francis had walked out on his family for the love of another man. Perhaps because of her father’s long relationship with Victor, Elizabeth was accustomed to such an arrangement.

  “Your father wants you to come over Sunday to have lunch with him and his new friend.”

  “What should I call him?” Elizabeth asked. “I called Victor ‘Daddy.’”

  “Think of Adrian as a surrogate stepfather,” Sara said. “In his case, ‘Daddy’ would not be appropriate. Perhaps ‘Uncle Adrian.’”

  Sara may have been surprised at how casually her daughter treated the news of her separation from her father. Later, Elizabeth would tell Roddy, “It was no big deal for me, no special loss. Hell, I’ve been fatherless for years anyway. I’ll not miss his slapping me around. I don’t know this Adrian person, but in a way, I can’t blame my father.”

  “And why not?” he asked.

  “Who wouldn’t like cock?”

  “Elizabeth, the way you talk sometimes makes me forget you’re still a little girl.”

  Before the afternoon ended, Sara delivered another bombshell. “Tonight, I’m entertaining a gentleman caller for a light supper. I’d like you to make an appearance, looking your very best, and then I’d like you to toddle off to bed. You can eat before he gets here.”

  “Do I know him, Mommy?” she asked.

  “No, darling, but you will. He’s Michael Curtiz, the director.”

  “I know him,” she said with a certain glee. “He won an Oscar directing Bogart in Casablanca. He was married to Errol Flynn’s wife, Lili Damita. God, how I wish I could marry Errol.”

  “I already know that,” Sara said. “In your bathroom, I noticed that those pictures of Clark Gable have gone down and were replaced by pictures of Mr. Flynn. You and he might hit it off. He’s famous for seducing underage girls.”

  “Oh, Mommy, Mr. Curtiz directed that wonderful film, The Adventures of Robin Hood. Errol looked wonderful in those green tights. I think he’s the handsomest man who ever lived. Do you think Mr. Curtiz will introduce me?”

  “You little vixen,” Sara said. “You’ll meet Errol Flynn over my dead body.”

  “Oh, Mommy, you try to spoil every thrill for me,” Elizabeth said. “I hope I’m not going to have to remind you that I’ve become the bread winner of the family.”

  Those words, painful as they were, must have hurt Sara a great deal. But she moved ahead, issuing orders and clarifications to Elizabeth: “Michael is married to Bess Meredyth, an unhappy union like mine with Francis. She’s an actress—not much of one—and a screenwriter…ghastly.”

  Elizabeth spent what remained of the afternoon preparing for her “audition” in front of Curtiz. Over the previous few weeks, she’d brought home various cosmetic creams, shades of lipstick, and face powders from the makeup department at MGM. She’d also borrowed three gowns from wardrobe that were adjusted to fit her perfectly, in case a boy called to ask her out. One was a strapless black velvet evening gown that plunged practically to the crack of her buttocks. Roddy referred to that dress as “anal-colletage.” She’d also, since discovering the joys of perfume, made off with three expensive bottles of it, including Chanel no. 5.

  For the finishing touches, she painted her fingernails and toenails scarlet. She chose golden earrings the size of curtain rings. “They bring out the gypsy in my soul,” she said. She tightened a black patent leather belt around her waist so snugly, she could hardly breathe, but by doing that, she made her rapidly growing breasts so much larger.

  Curtiz arrived on the doorstep carrying the present of a toy doll, but when he first gazed upon Elizabeth, he met what he later remembered “as a former child star hell bent on becoming the next Hedy Lamarr. She’d made herself up like the most expensive whore in a bordello, catering to those johns who liked their fresh flesh.” He’d meant to say “their flesh fresh,” but he often juxtaposed words.

  As she sat in the family’s living room with Curtiz, Elizabeth ignored Sara’s signals to get up and leave.

  “I loved Mildred Pierce,” she told Curtiz. “You’re such a brilliant director. Getting a good performance out of Joan Crawford…what a miracle man you are.”

  Curtiz appeared startled at the words coming out of Elizabeth’s mouth. Her line about Crawford was something Bette Davis might say, not a little girl.

  “I’ll always regret that I was not old enough to play Vida in the film,” Elizabeth said. “I know I could out-bitch Ann Blyth. I felt she was very sweet and just play-acting at being a bitch.”

  Still ignoring Sara’s signs of dismissal, Elizabeth pumped Curtiz for information about Errol Flynn: “He’s my favorite movie star. He’s so dashing, so handsome, so athletic. Could you tell me about him?”

  “I’m afraid all the stories I know about Flynn don’t belong in a children’s verses of book.”

  “He means, ‘book of verses,’” Sara said.

  “I know what he means, Mommy!” Elizabeth said, growing impatient with her mother. “Would you introduce me to him?”


  Curtiz looked at Sara. “That depends on your mother.”

  How to Handle One’s Parents: Michael Curtiz (top photo) at around the time he began dating Sara Taylor (right figure in lower photo), who’s helping her daughter, Elizabeth, accessorize.

  “Let’s make a deal,” Sara said. “You won’t get to meet Flynn, but I’m sure Michael can get you an autographed photo to put over your bed.”

  “That I can do,” Curtiz said. “It’s safer that way. After all, Flynn is always going around singing, ‘Thank God for Little Girls.’”

  Elizabeth must go to bed now,” Sara interjected. “It’s way past her bedtime.”

  As she was practically shoved out the door, Elizabeth made one last request. “Oh, Mr. Curtiz, would you please see that a role for me is written into your next picture?”

  “My dear, sweet girl, I fear I don’t direct pictures for child stars.”

  Ironically, one of Elizabeth’s upcoming movies would be directed by none other than Curtiz.

  ***

  At her Sunday lunch with Francis and Adrian, her brother, Howard, was nowhere to be seen, and she didn’t ask about him. Throughout the meal, she virtually ignored her father and concentrated on the costume designer instead. He won her heart when he told her, “I can’t wait for you to grow up so I can start designing gowns for you.”

  “The sooner the better,” she told him, “and don’t be afraid of a little décolletage. I’ve been introduced to Edith Head. The lez taught me the word décolletage.

  “I’ve stuffed many a brassière in my time, but in your case I don’t think I’ll have to.”