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

by Darwin Porter

  As Elizabeth later confided to Leigh, “Ty and I made several attempts, but I never got pregnant. I had a wonderful time trying.”

  After Power went with Elizabeth for a screening of A Place in the Sun, he seemed jealous of her scenes with Monty. “Critics are referring to you guys as the most beautiful couple on the screen. I want you to appear in a movie with me called Forever. It’s by my favorite author, Mildred Cram.”

  He explained to her that many of Cram’s novels had been made into films, including his favorite, Love Story (1939), starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne.

  Forever, the sixty-page novella by Cram, had been kicking around Hollywood studios for years, and was once considered as a vehicle for either Norma Shearer or Janet Gaynor.

  Unknown to Elizabeth, Power had suggested appearing in the film with Judy Garland when he was dating her. “I practically memorized it [the novella] word for word,” Garland claimed.

  Later, Power, in a Machiavellian flip-flop after he began dating Lana Turner, suggested it as a co-starring vehicle for Lana and himself.

  The romance between Elizabeth and Power that began one rainy afternoon seemed to disappear in the glare of the sun. As Elizabeth told Roddy, “I didn’t see the end coming. In spite of his protestations, I thought I could change him. Like Lana, I was in such a state of jubilation that I didn’t see the train wreck ahead. Suddenly, days would go by and he wouldn’t call. Then he’d show up with no explanation as to where he’d been. There were nights he could not sleep and would pace the floor until dawn.” She suspected he was deeply conflicted over his sexuality.

  “I remember, once when I brought up a future plan involving the two of us, he responded in anger,” she revealed to Roddy. “He told me that he didn’t want to think about tomorrow, only today. Then he started kissing me, and it went on forever. I, too, forgot about tomorrow. We got so carried away, we completely forgot that we’d accepted a dinner invitation from Janet and Tony.”

  Power later told his gay friend, actor Cesar Romero, that “Elizabeth and I might have continued dating a little longer but, like Lana, she was becoming too possessive. She was so very insecure that it became unbearable to live with her at times. She worried that in a few years, she’d be washed up because she claimed that she was hired by MGM only because of her face and breasts. Once I came back to her apartment and caught her painting wrinkles on this studio blowup of herself so she’d have an idea of what she’d look like when she was old.”

  Intuitively, Curtis seemed to know that Elizabeth’s affair with Power was over before she did. In Key West during the making of Operation Petticoat (1950), Curtis recalled that he let Power into Elizabeth’s upstairs apartment one afternoon when she was delayed at the studio.

  “We had a few drinks,” he said to Cary Grant and some gay friends working on the movie. “It was very hot in the apartment, and Ty suggested we strip down a bit. I guess one thing led to another. We balled each other. Or, more to the point, I balled him. He was a great bottom. By the time Elizabeth got home, Ty had fled. He’d already had his fun for the day.”

  Somehow, Hedda Hopper got wind of the Taylor/Power liaison and called her to inquire about it. Elizabeth refused to confirm or deny the romance which by then had already ended. She did, however, issue an enigmatic statement to Hopper which was never printed.

  “Tyrone Power is a closed chapter in a book never read.”

  ***

  Back in Hollywood early in 1951, Elizabeth learned that Harvard University’s Lampoon had named her “one of the most objectionable movie children of the year,” claiming that in Conspirator she gave “the worst performance of the decade.” She was also cited for being “objectionably ingénue.” The Lampoon said that she persists in her career “despite a total inability to act.” She also was the recipient of Harvard’s first Roscoe (“Oscar” spelled “sideways”), an award for bad acting.

  Her reaction to those Harvard students was graphic. “Every one of those fuckers can stick a fourteen-inch dildo up their dingleberry-coated assholes.”

  Dore Schary at MGM became so alarmed at some of her foul language that he asked her co-stars, Sara, and even some of her friends if they could “clean out her beautiful mouth. We expect words of love and compassion coming from it, and we get talk a whore would find offensive.”

  At a time when it was dropping stars, MGM wanted to hold onto Elizabeth, seeing great potential in her as a future moneymaker and a potent incentive to lure Americans away from their television sets.

  Finally her agent/lawyer, Jules Goldstone, and MGM came to an agreement on a new contract for Elizabeth. It would remain in force from 1952 through 1958, with an escalating salary beginning at $5,000 a week. Although that sounded adequate for the early 1950s, it was hardly lavish, as the tax bite in effect at the time took ninety percent of the upper tier of her salary.

  For her next MGM movie, Love Is Better Than Ever, Elizabeth would be cast opposite Larry Parks and helmed by a young director, Stanley Donen.

  She was cast as a dancing teacher, Anastasia, who falls in love with a smart theater agent, Jud, as played by Parks.

  His name was billed above Elizabeth’s because he’d become a major star in The Jolson Story (1946) and in its sequel, Jolson Sings Again (1949). He was among the first Hollywood personalities to admit that he had been a member of the Communist Party during testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. As a result, MGM postponed the release of the film until February 23, 1952. After his testimony, Parks’ promising screen career went up in flames, and the film became one of Elizabeth’s lightweight, less publicized efforts.

  During the filming of Love Is Better Than Ever, Elizabeth asked her director, Donen, to prove the validity of its title with a performance in bed. He obliged and a torrid affair began, brief in its intensity but scandalous because Donen was already married.

  Once, she tried to explain her attraction to Donen, which did not sound all that physical. “He is witty and wise and sympathetic to my problems. I know he’s always there for me if I need to cry on his shoulder.”

  Sara, who had been secretly anti-Semitic throughout most of her life, was not impressed with the short, swarthy, twenty-seven year old director. He wasn’t rich, and he was also a Jew. When she heard he’d worked with gay actor Gene Kelly and had been a chorus boy on Broadway, she assumed he was a homosexual with no supporting evidence that he was. She called Hedda Hopper and made that accusation, but Hopper wouldn’t print it. Sara also told the columnist that “Donen should be run out of town.”

  MGM hired Marjorie Dillon as Elizabeth’s stand-in because of their facial resemblance, height, and body structure. She was also assigned the task of looking after Elizabeth, who was sometimes breaking down into hysterical fits of uncontrollable weeping during the filming of Love Is Better Than Ever. “Hours would go by, and she seemed all right and in control,” Dillon claimed. “But the least little thing could set her off, and she’d flee from the set and run back to her dressing room, where she sobbed until her eyes were too red to face the camera.”

  Elizabeth warned Dillon to keep Sara off the set. “If she sets one foot in here, tell Dore Schary I’m leaving and not coming back.” Elizabeth threatened.

  Director Stanley Donen with Elizabeth Taylor

  Barred from MGM, Sara frequently called Dillon and pumped her for information about her daughter, especially for details about her ongoing affair with Donen. Sara claimed that “under no circumstances will my daughter ever marry a Jew.”

  Sara also asked Dillon, “Is it true that Donen is divorcing his wife? Where did Elizabeth go last night? Is he sleeping over at her apartment?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything,” Dillon said. “But everybody on the set knew that Donen had become Elizabeth’s lover.”

  Donen and Elizabeth formed a social group, “The Fox and Lox Club.” Curtis and Leigh were among the charter members, as were actors Barry Sullivan, Diana Lynn, and Colleen Gray, each a B-list star. �
��We got together for house parties and Sunday brunches,” said Marty Ragaway, a comedy writer and member of the group. “I saw Donen and Elizabeth together on many an occasion. I’d call it a transitional romance for her, love on the rebound.”

  Each member of Fox and Lox was assigned the task, on one Sunday or another, of hosting the other members. When Donen and Elizabeth were designated as co-hosts for a luncheon gathering of the club within her apartment, screenwriter Stanley Roberts was assigned the task of delivering the silver, cutlery, and porcelain. Elizabeth became seriously annoyed when Roberts was an hour late to a party which was quickly, without cutlery or porcelain, beginning to unravel. On the table was a big chocolate cake with peppermint frosting. As Roberts entered her apartment, she picked up that cake and smashed it in his face. Her guests were shocked and quickly made excuses to leave.

  That was the last meeting of the Fox and Lox Club.

  Even though Donen was still married, Elizabeth decided to get confessional and go public with her affair. She created a media-feeding frenzy when she showed up with him at the Academy Awards in March of 1951, where members of the press opted to define him as an escort and not as a serious lover.

  However, on April 5, 1951, she made an appearance with Donen at the premiere of Father’s Little Dividend at the Egyptian Theater. In the wake of their joint appearance, rumors spread the couple was secretly planning a wedding. Photographers ignored the other stars in a frenzy of snapping pictures of Donen with Elizabeth.

  Four days after the premiere, Donen’s estranged wife, Jeanne, filed for divorce, citing alienation of affection for “another woman.” Elizabeth was not named, but the whole world seemingly knew the identity of the “other woman” who had stolen her husband’s love.

  For the first time, Elizabeth was labeled a homewrecker in the press, a charge that would be frequently leveled at her in the future. When a reporter asked her the name of her next film, she sarcastically said it would be The Other Woman.

  After receiving so much bad press, she faced reporters and tried to defend herself. “I know I’ve been spoiled, but I think people are unfairly severe. I’m just a normal girl with the average faults and virtues, but being a movie actress, I wasn’t allowed to develop along normal lines. I’ve been able to wear a plunging neckline since I was fourteen years old, and ever since, then, people expected me to act as old as I look. All my troubles started because I have a woman’s body and a child’s emotions.”

  Larry Parks remembered Elizabeth frequently breaking down in tears on the set: “On occasion, she was unable to perform, and Donen offered her much comfort. Her personal life was in shatters, and her mother no longer seemed of much help.”

  At one point during the filming, she collapsed on the set and was rushed to the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. Registering under the name “Rebecca Jones,” she was diagnosed as suffering from nervous exhaustion.

  After she was released from the hospital, she flew on a short visit to New York to see Monty and Roddy. She checked into the Hilton-affiliated Plaza Hotel, assuming her visit would be gratis.

  Monty and Elizabeth behaved like lovers, but apparently it was a platonic relationship even though they often slept in the same bed together, cuddling each other against the night. She admitted to her new friend, Truman Capote, that, “I’ve slept with Monty but we never fucked.”

  Later, Capote reported that assertion to Tennessee Williams. “It’s just as well she didn’t fuck Monty,” Capote said. “Elizabeth would have been disappointed. I went to bed with him only once. He didn’t actually have a cock, just foreskin that looked like a puny piece of dried okra.”

  Shortly before she was scheduled to check out of the Plaza, the manager presented her with a $2,500 bill, telling her, “Miss Taylor, we are so sorry that you are no longer a part of the wonderful Hilton family.”

  Before her departure, and in revenge, she invited Roddy and Monty to her suite, where she ordered three pitchers of martinis for them before they went on a rampage. They removed the stuffing from pillows and crammed them down the toilet. They cut up the draperies and the sheets.

  Fans had sent her lots of flowers. They tossed them about the room and emptied wastepaper baskets onto the carpet. As a final gesture, she packed one of her suitcases with Plaza monogrammed towels.

  ***

  After the breakup of the Fox and Lox Club, Elizabeth accepted invitations to Hollywood parties. One of them originated with that dashing swashbuckler Stewart Granger, who had moved to Hollywood. He carried special greetings from Michael Wilding in London.

  Both Wilding and Elizabeth had written letters to each other since getting to know each other during her filming of Conspirator.

  Granger told Elizabeth that Richard Burton had arrived in Hollywood after vowing for years that he’d never do that. “He’s my house guest, and he’s here now. He’d like to see you. When he’s finished showering, I’ll send him out.”

  “After a few more defections of actors from the Britain, the press will start calling it ‘The London Invasion,’” she said.

  “Dick is unique,” Granger said. “You’ll like him or hate him. I met him at a small theater in Hammersmith when I went backstage to congratulate him on a performance. He opened the door to his dressing room, wearing a jock strap, with a can of beer in his hand. He said to me, ‘Oh god, a bloody film star.’ For us, it was love at first sight. We’ve been friends ever since.”

  Within fifteen minutes, Burton, wearing an almost see-through white bathing suit, headed toward Elizabeth, who was lying on a chaise longue. He was immediately attracted to her and wanted to talk. He would later recall the historic event, likening it to when Romeo first spotted Juliet

  “She was the most astonishing, self-contained, pulchritudinous, remote, removed, inaccessible woman I had ever seen,” Burton said. “Her face was divine, but her breasts were nothing short of apocalyptic. They would topple empires before they withered. Indeed, her body was a miracle of construction.”

  “She was so perfect she made me aware of my own imperfections,” Burton said. “Every pockmark on my face became a crater on the dark side of the moon. I lifted my hand to cover my cheek. As I did so, it occurred to me that she probably would find my hand as ugly as my face. I lowered it to my side and kept on staring.”

  She wished him well in his Hollywood career, but warned him “to watch your ass in this town unless you want to get it fucked. Everybody’s a god damn phony and a liar. Stars like Crawford and Stanwyck were former whores. There are one hundred pederasts per square mile. Some directors will hire you just to sniff your panties, preferably with skid marks. It’s one big parade of hustlers, pimps, dope fiends, alcoholics—you name it. If they’re not assholes, they’re shitheads. If not that, they’re fucking embezzlers who’ll rob you blind. Every time you let out a fart in this town, some jerk will try to sue you. Hollywood is nothing but a swarm of greedy locusts.”

  She was feeling particularly bitter that day, and she seemed to realize that her words shocked him. “Don’t they use words like that at the Old Vic?” she asked.

  “Yes, in Bloody Olde England they curse like fishmongers, but not necessarily on stage.” Then he wished her good day and walked away. Later, he told Granger, “That Elizabeth Taylor talks like a drunken lorry driver.”

  Elizabeth wanted to know what was going on between Burton and Granger. Out by the pool, when Granger’s houseman, an elderly gray-haired African-American, served her a drink, she offered him a twenty-dollar bill to tell her details about what went on in Granger’s house at night. Jean Simmons had not yet arrived in town.

  “Miss Taylor,” the old man told her, “I’m ashamed for my poor old eyes to have seen it. But these two Englishmen walk around jaybird naked, flaunting their junk and getting drunk as skunks. They go at it every night like two jackrabbits in heat. It’s against God’s will. Our Lord did not create Adam and Adam.”

  ***

  Dore Schary at MGM did not approve of Elizabeth�
�s relationship with Donen and shipped her off to England to film Ivanhoe (1952), a costume period drama starring her former flame, Robert Taylor.

  On her final night in bed with Donen, Elizabeth promised him that, “I will belong to you forever. I’ll be gone only a short time. And don’t worry, I won’t be fucking Robert Taylor. Been there, done that—not memorable.”

  After she got to London, however, letters and phone calls to and from Donen gradually ebbed until there were none at all.

  Months later, looking back on the interlude of her life that included Donen, Elizabeth told Granger, “Promises are made to be broken. It’s the way life works.”

  For Elizabeth, Donen became “emotionally obsolete” with the arrival of Michael Wilding in her life. But first, there was a major hurdle to overcome, and it was formidable: Marlene Dietrich.

  ***

  One of the motivations that prompted MGM to cast Elizabeth in Ivanhoe (1952), a medieval drama co-starring Robert Taylor, involved getting her out of the country and separating her from the potentiality of scandal associated with her affair with Donen.

  She had frequently tuned in to Tallulah Bankhead’s The Big Show, a ninety-minute radio program that would eventually lure some of the A-list stars in the entertainment business, including Marlene Dietrich and Ethel Merman.

  Elizabeth had steadfastly refused to go on the show, but Tallulah referred to her anyway. “Elizabeth, you know, my darlings, married one of the biggest men in the hotel trade, Nicky Hilton.” She was referring to Nicky’s endowment, which she’d sampled only the week before. “What else could I do?” she asked her friend, TV producer, Stanley Mills Haggart. “I met Nicky at Sardi’s and invited him home for a drink. He raped me, and darling, I struggled valiantly. The next morning, when we both woke up at eleven o’clock, I insisted he rape me again…and be even more forceful if I resisted.”