Elizabeth as Frances Andros
REVIEWS
“The V.I.P.s is so super deluxe in its lushness and lavishness, with so highly polished a surface that, if you haven’t your wits about you, you might, from time to time, mistake it for the solid gold Cadillac it resembles, courtesy of a couple of 24-carat performances by Margaret Rutherford and Maggie Smith. Mr. Burton’s performance is graceful and unremittingly gloomy and Miss Taylor’s is unremitting; both, of course, are beautiful to look at.”
—New York Herald Tribune (Judith Crist)
“The picture is a satisfying work because it delivers suspense and plot, nicely varied, handsomely acted, and funneled through the medium of some of the world’s best publicized performers.”
—New York Post
“The V.I.P.s is, gratifyingly, a lively, engrossing romantic film. . . . The crisis that Miss Taylor and Mr. Burton portray is a fairly solemn business, prickly and soaked in sentiment, in which neither character looks too sensible or good. Particularly the wife, although Miss Taylor plays her appropriately, with a strange sort of icy detachment—almost cruelty—toward both men, and is very lovely to look at, she does not generate much sympathy. Mr. Burton is better as the husband, particularly in the early scenes when he is weathering the shock of discovering the perfidy of his wife. . . . But all right. Their dramatic difficulty, while it may have a sad and shallow look, is sufficiently touching and engrossing to form a solid hub for the film. And around it swirls all this other suspenseful, amusing stuff.”
—The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)
With Richard Burton and Louis Jourdan
With Louis Jourdan
With Burton, playing her estranged husband
With Louis Jourdan, playing her would-be lover
notes
ON THE STRENGTH OF THE PUBLICITY GENERATED BY THEIR romance, and by Cleopatra in general, Elizabeth and Richard Burton were a box-office dream team for any producer. Burton signed up to do The V.I.P.s (then called International Hotel) first. When Elizabeth casually offered to do the film with him, producer Anatole de Grunwald leaped at the suggestion. Elizabeth was back working for MGM, though this time there was no commitment to the studio beyond one film. Production took place at Elstree Studios in England between January and March 1963.
The cast, assembled at the grand dinner party on the Andros yacht
Italian magazine cover depicting Elizabeth in the film
From Cleopatra to The V.I.P.s through the next nine films they would make together, Burton became Elizabeth’s favorite costar. She said in 1963, “He’s wonderful to work with because he gives you so much. Unlike so many actors, he’s not a stone wall. He has electricity.” The V.I.P.s was among their most successful films. It grossed $14 million worldwide. The story was in what was then often termed the Grand Hotel style, wherein the audience is given a glimpse into the world of a group of disparate characters, each with an evolving story of their own. In this case it would be more fittingly compared to Separate Tables, another hit multistory film from screenwriter Terence Rattigan. The format allowed an ensemble cast to shine, in this case including Louis Jourdan, Orson Welles, Margaret Rutherford, Maggie Smith, and Rod Taylor. Rutherford won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as a slightly batty duchess.
Elizabeth and Richard Burton were a box-office dream team for any producer.
Little known at the time, Terence Rattigan based his screenplay on an incident in the lives of his friends Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. At one time Leigh planned to leave her husband for actor Peter Finch but, as in the film, their flight was delayed, allowing Olivier time to go to the airport and change Leigh’s mind. The Oliviers reunited. A similar situation was played out in the film by Elizabeth, Burton, and Louis Jourdan.
As neglected wife Frances Andros
Hairstyling by Vivienne Walker-Zavitz. The diamond tiara had been a gift from Mike Todd.
Elizabeth always enjoyed wearing all or bits of costuming from her films offscreen, in this case to the premiere of Lawrence of Arabia.
After making The V.I.P.s, Elizabeth took time off from acting in movies herself and traveled with Burton to the locations of his work. Becket kept them based in England through the summer of 1963. The Night of the Iguana took them to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in the fall. Then it was on to Canada, and later New York, for a stage production of Hamlet. They would not be married until March 15, 1964. In the interim Elizabeth was seeking a divorce from Eddie Fisher while Burton’s own “Sybil War” raged on. He had been married to Sybil Williams for fourteen years and they had two daughters, Kate and Jessica. Burton struggled with conscience for months before coming to the decision to divorce his wife. Elizabeth embraced her role of impending stepmother. Kate Burton said, “Elizabeth and I got on from the word go. She is an irresistible woman. I loved her and she cared for me, too. I think in a lot of ways, because I wasn’t her own child, she could really enjoy me.”
While Elizabeth and Burton worked out their respective divorces, it was obvious to the world that they were living together wherever they traveled. Elizabeth was never one to sneak around for the sake of public appearances. She had fallen in love with Richard Burton and could not conceal it. They were a combustible pair who fought, laughed, and loved passionately. Elizabeth said, “We find we share the same sense of comedy and the ridiculous. That’s why we love each other. We feel exactly the same way about things.” Unlike her relationship with Eddie Fisher, which the public never fully accepted, Elizabeth and Burton were an irresistible pair. They were vilified as illicit lovers for a time but then embraced by the public on an international level. The power of Elizabeth and Burton’s dynamic coupling could not be denied.
Elizabeth was never one to sneak around for the sake of public appearances. She had fallen in love with Richard Burton and could not conceal it.
In London during the making of The V.I.P.s
Coming out of her dressing room
A candid shot of Elizabeth and Burton during the production
Elizabeth and Burton in The V.I.P.s, the second of eleven films they made together
The Sandpiper
FILMWAYS/METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Laura Reynolds
Richard Burton Dr. Edward Hewitt
Eva Marie Saint Claire Hewitt
Charles Bronson Cos Erickson
Robert Webber Ward Hendricks
James Edwards Larry Brant
Torin Thatcher Judge Thompson
Tom Drake Walter Robinson
Doug Henderson Paul Sutcliff
Morgan Mason Danny Reynolds
CREDITS
Martin Ransohoff (producer); Vincente Minnelli (director); John Calley (associate producer); Ben Kadish (production supervisor); Dalton Trumbo, Michael Wilson (screenplay); Irene Kamp, Louis Kamp (adaptation), based on story by Martin Ransohoff; Milton Krasner (photography); Johnny Mandel (music); Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster (song: “The Shadow of Your Smile”); George W. Davis, Urie McCleary (art directors); Henry Grace, Keogh Gleason (set decorations); Franklin Milton (sound); William McGarry (assistant director); David Bretherton (editor); Irene Sharaff (costumes); Sydney Guilaroff (hairstylist); William Tuttle (makeup); Elizabeth Duquette (Laura’s paintings); Edmund Kara (red-wood statue)
RELEASE DATE: June 23, 1965
RUN TIME: 117 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Artist Laura Reynolds’s free-spirited thinking defies social mores of the day. She lives with her illegitimate son, Danny, in a secluded home on the beach in Big Sur. By putting herself in charge of Danny’s education, she isolates the boy from the outside world, until authorities order her to send him to a private school run by Episcopalian minister Dr. Edward Hewitt and his wife, Claire. Dr. Hewitt’s staunch conservative views are the opposite of Laura’s, yet by challenging each other’s strongest convictions they become emotionally involved. They have an affair that results in Laura’s open-mindedness expanding to the po
int of finally enrolling Danny in the private school, where he flourishes surrounded by other young boys. Meanwhile, Dr. Hewitt decides to leave the clergy in hopes of discovering what he truly wants for his future.
Though her twenties were well in the past, Elizabeth was arguably at her most beautiful in this period.
REVIEWS
“The Sandpiper was made for the voyeurs among us who are willing to pay admission to see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton engage in illicit lovemaking in and out of bed and beach. They do it in Metrocolor and Panavision to boot, with some Big Sur scenery, some pre-freshman sociological chatter and some ludicrous artsy-smarty atmosphere thrown in for the higher thinkers in the crowd.”
—New York Herald Tribune (Judith Crist)
“Burton’s performance is of his usual high quality, his expressive face and cultured voice adding up to perfection. . . . There is some good drama in The Sandpiper and it’s a pity that the further it goes the more sudsy it gets. Director Vincente Minnelli should have known better than to let it take on a soap opera aspect.”
—New York Daily News (Wanda Hale)
“Built up to give the impression that it is taking a disapproving view of an adulterous affair between a free-thinking woman and an Episcopal clergyman, it is really a slick and sympathetic sanction of the practice of free love—or, at least, of an illicit union that is supposedly justified by naturalness. . . . All the best of it is given to the woman, whom Miss Taylor plays with the lofty and elegant assurance of a chicly dressed, camera-pampered star. Her arty and shallow pretensions of a bold, humanistic philosophy are never intelligently challenged. And Mr. Burton is compelled to play the clergyman in an annoyingly solemn, apologetic way. However, there are a lot of handsome and diverting incidentals in this film—a lot of scenic and environmental details to give it a sophisticated air and look. Much of it was shot on location in the coastal area of California’s Big Sur, with the rugged and beautiful seacoast to give the color cameras much grandeur on which to dwell. And Vincente Minnelli, as director, has captured the style and charm of an artist’s beach house and the clatter and splash of an artist’s friends.”
—The New York Times (Bosley Crowther)
Laura Reynolds lives life as free as a sandpiper.
notes
IN 1964 ELIZABETH AND RICHARD BURTON WERE THE WORLD’S most exciting couple, though by this time they presented a family picture, marrying in March and then adopting a daughter, Maria, later the same year. It was through no shortage of activity that when Elizabeth began work on The Sandpiper she had not made a film for more than a year and a half. Burton, meanwhile, had made two movies and starred in a stage production of Hamlet.
The Sandpiper began filming amid the spectacular scenery of Big Sur in northern California. It was a hot Indian summer on the location and Elizabeth made use of a small portable fan constantly on the set. From there the production moved to Paris, at the Burtons’ request. It was on the voyage to Europe to complete The Sandpiper that Elizabeth was reunited with Debbie Reynolds, then traveling with her second husband, wealthy shoe manufacturer Harry Karl. Over dinner together, the hatchet between them was buried once and for all, and they saw a great deal of each other on the ocean voyage to Europe.
Reviews were sharply critical of the free love, free-as-a-sandpiper thinking represented by the Laura Reynolds character, but it all holds up considerably better today.
On the Big Sur location with daughter Liza
Elizabeth as Laura Reynolds
With Morgan Mason, her son in the film
Elizabeth’s paintings in the film were the work of Elizabeth Duquette. This is the opening sequence.
With James Edwards and Charles Bronson. Sammy Davis, Jr. was once intended for the role played by Bronson.
Elizabeth and Burton played forbidden lovers in the film.
With Richard Burton at a reception just after their arrival in Europe
With Debbie Reynolds aboard the ship to Europe to shoot The Sandpiper
Signing an autograph for a young fan at the Sandpiper premiere in Los Angeles
Amid the star-studded assemblage at the Lido were Maria Callas, Ingrid Bergman, Aristotle Onassis, Guy de Rothschild, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth.
While in Paris filming The Sandpiper, Elizabeth and Burton attended the opening of a new review at the Lido nightclub, where spectacular candids were taken, but almost none seen in color.
As the free-spirited Laura Reynolds
Vincente Minnelli, who had last worked with Elizabeth fourteen years ago on Father of the Bride and its sequel, Father’s Little Dividend, directed The Sandpiper from a script by Michael Wilson and writer Dalton Trumbo, who was once blacklisted as a communist. Critics of the day opined that the views of Trumbo, as presented through his script of Sandpiper, were still not in line with the thinking of the general American public. Reviews were sharply critical of the free love, free-as-a-sandpiper thinking represented by the Laura Reynolds character, but it all holds up considerably better today.
Elizabeth negotiated another $1 million salary for the film. She said, “A lot of people may think that Sandpiper was written specifically for Richard and me in order to cash in on our notoriety. Actually the script has been knocking around for years and at first they didn’t ask Richard to be in it.” Now in their third film together, the Burtons were establishing a fine reputation as an acting partnership. Filmways vice president Mike Mindlin spoke of his experience on The Sandpiper, saying, “I have found them professional, extremely bright, sensitive, very well meaning, and serious about their work. They are also a hell of a lot of fun to be around.” Publicist Cynthia Grenier spent time on the Sandpiper set and observed, “They make such a marvelous couple. You see it rarely. There is a very nice feeling of how they play around with each other—mock hostility and jockeying for position.”
They make such a marvelous couple. You see it rarely. There is a very nice feeling of how they play around with each other—mock hostility and jockeying for position.
— CYNTHIA GRENIER
While not a critical triumph, The Sandpiper was a hit with Elizabeth and Burton’s enthusiastic fans, ensuring more Taylor-Burton films to come. When the press speculated if Elizabeth would change her professional name to Mrs. Richard Burton, he quipped, “If she were Mrs. Richard Burton on the marquees, I could get top billing at last.” The Sandpiper had another noteworthy success: the song which played over the titles, “The Shadow of Your Smile,” written by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster, won the Oscar for Best Song.
The couple drew all attention at the star-studded opening at the Lido during the making of The Sandpiper.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
WARNER BROS. / CHENAULT
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Martha
Richard Burton George
George Segal Nick
Sandy Dennis Honey
CREDITS
Ernest Lehman (producer); Mike Nichols (director); Ernest Lehman (screenplay), based on play by Edward Albee; Haskell Wexler (photography); Alex North (music); Richard Sylbert (production design); George James Hopkins (set decorations); M. A. Merrick (sound); Bud Grace (assistant director); Sam O’Steen (editor); Irene Sharaff (costumes); Sydney Guilaroff (hairstylist); Gordon Bau, Ron Berkeley (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: June 22, 1966
RUN TIME: 131 minutes, black and white
SUMMARY: George is a professor of history at a university run by the father of his shrewish wife, Martha, who needles him for his failure to rise in the ranks at the school. What Martha and George do best is incite each other to anger with below-the-belt remarks. They are joined for an evening by a young couple, Nick and Honey, and a night of alcohol-fueled revelations, betrayal, and revenge ensues. When Martha crosses the line by talking about their son, George takes his anger out on the guests. Martha takes young Nick to bed with her, and George strikes back where it hurts the most, bringing to light the reality about their son—and Ge
orge and Martha’s deep, ultimate need for each other.
“She’s so goddamn good in this—no other way to put it.”
—Richard Burton’s assessment of Elizabeth’s work in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Costume test shots of Elizabeth as Martha
Elizabeth was only thirty-three at the time she was offered the role of Martha. It was frightening but she knew it was the role of a lifetime.
REVIEWS
“[The film] has given Elizabeth the outstanding acting role of her career. She is nothing less than brilliant as the shrewish, slovenly, blasphemous, frustrated, slightly wacky, alcoholic wife of a meek, unambitious assistant professor of history at a university, over which her father reigns as president. The Albee vehicle has also given Burton a chance to display his disciplined art in the role of the victim of a wife’s vituperative tongue.”
—New York Daily News (Kate Cameron)
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