Elizabeth Taylor
Page 23
— VICTOR LUNA
Much had happened in Elizabeth’s life between the making of Between Friends and Malice in Wonderland. She entered the Betty Ford Clinic for help in overcoming alcohol and prescription drug dependency and came out in early 1984 determined to take proper care of herself. After overcoming the affects of withdrawal she began to feel and look better than she had in years, trimming a total of forty pounds off her once portly frame. Then Elizabeth was dealt a painful personal blow by the death of Richard Burton on August 5, 1984. Fiancé Victor Luna was with her when she received the news that Burton had died in Switzerland of a cerebral hemorrhage. Luna said, “I could not get her to stop crying. She was completely hysterical. When Richard died, part of Elizabeth died. . . . I had to leave her alone with her memories of Richard, the most important man in her life.” It was the beginning of the end of her relationship with Luna. Out of respect for Burton’s wife, Sally Hay, Elizabeth did not attend the funeral but was present at his memorial service in England. After taking time to recover from the shock of his death, Elizabeth returned to work in Malice in Wonderland.
North and South
TV Movie
DAVID L. WOLPER PRODUCTIONS/WARNER BROS./ABC
CAST
James Read George Hazard
Patrick Swayze Orry Main
Kirstie Alley Virgilia Hazard
Leslie-Anne Down Madeline Fabray LaMotte
Wendy Kilbourne Constance Flynn Hazard
Terri Garber Ashton Main Huntoon
Genie Francis Brett Main
Philip Casnoff Elkanah Bent
David Carradine Justin LaMotte
Elizabeth Taylor Madam Conti
CREDITS
David L. Wolper, Chuck McLain (executive producers); Paul Freeman (producer); Richard T. Heffron (director); Rob Harland (associate producer); Kathleen A. Shelley, Douglas Heyes, Paul F. Edwards, Patricia Green (teleplay), based on book by John Jakes; Stevan Larner (photography); Bill Conti (music); Archie J. Bacon (production design); Richard Berger (art director); Charles Korian (set decorations); Skip Cosper (assistant director); Michael Eliot, Scott C. Eyler (editors); Vicki Sánchez (costumes)
RELEASE DATE: November 3–10, 1985
RUN TIME: 561 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Orry Main and George Hazard meet and become best friends during military training at West Point. The Mains own a South Carolina plantation, complete with slaves, while the Hazard family of Pennsylvania has come to wealth by way of manufacturing interests. For years the men and their families interact, vacation together, find love, make enemies, and establish business partnerships. All the while, tensions between the North and South mount, leading to the outbreak of Civil War and putting the two friends on opposing sides on the battlegrounds of the war.
As Madam Conti
notes
BASED ON A TRILOGY OF BEST-SELLING NOVELS BY JOHN JAKES, the first part of North and South debuted as a six-episode miniseries on ABC in November 1985. The epic production, which took more than two years and a reported $25 million to mount, boasted an impressive array of guest stars, including Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Kelly, Johnny Cash, Morgan Fairchild, Robert Mitchum, and Jean Simmons. Elizabeth appeared in a glitzy role as the madam of a New Orleans bordello.
North and South was enormously successful and remains on the top-ten list of highest-rated miniseries in television history. It earned an Emmy Award for costume design and six other nominations in acknowledgment of the spectacular look of the series in terms of cinematography, music, editing, sound editing, hairstyling, and makeup. North and South, Book II, aired in 1986 while Heaven & Hell: North and South, Book III, lagged behind, not reaching the small screen until 1994. Neither sequel measured up to the critical or popular triumph of the first installment.
North and South was enormously successful and remains on the top-ten list of highest-rated miniseries in television history.
With director Richard T. Heffron and the ladies of her bordello
Elizabeth was one of many guest stars in this epic television production.
There Must Be a Pony
TV Movie
R. J. PRODUCTIONS/COLUMBIA/ABC
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Marguerite Sydney
Robert Wagner Ben Nichols
James Coco Mervin Trellis
William Windom Lee Hertzig
Edward Winter David Hollis
Ken Olin Jay Savage
Dick O’Neill Chief Investigator Roy Clymer
Chad Lowe Josh Sydney
Richard Bright the detective
Richard Minchenberg Ron Miller
CREDITS
Robert Wagner (executive producer); Howard Jeffrey (producer); Joseph Sargent (director); Mart Crowley (teleplay), based on book by James Kirkwood, Jr.; Gayne Rescher (photography); Billy Goldenberg (music); James J. Agazzi (production design); Ross Bellah (art director); Jack Harnish (editor)
RELEASE DATE: October 5, 1986
RUN TIME: 95 minutes, color
SUMMARY: A lifetime in the movies has not been kind to screen queen Marguerite Sydney. She is placed in a mental institution following a nervous breakdown. Upon her release, son Josh tries to rebuild their relationship, but is inhibited by her stronger-than-ever determination to make a career comeback. Handsome real estate mogul Ben Nichols comes into their lives just as Marguerite gets a break with a starring role in a TV soap opera. Ben brings stability into their lives, but before long they find that the demands on Marguerite’s time, alcohol problem, and occupational hazards do not always lead to a Hollywood ending.
With Robert Wagner
notes
ELIZABETH’S LONGTIME FRIEND ROBERT WAGNER BOTH produced and costarred in this screen adaptation of a semiautobiographical novel by James Kirkwood, Jr., the son of silent screen stars Lila Lee and Jack Kirkwood, Sr. Kirkwood adapted his novel into a three-act play in 1962, which starred Myrna Loy and Donald Woods, which failed to make an impact in spite of a fine cast. The film version, however, was well received. Looked at as an indictment of Hollywood, it is reminiscent of both A Star Is Born and Sunset Boulevard. Many reviewers drew comparisons to Elizabeth’s own life in their reviews but her character of Marguerite Sydney had little resemblance to the life of Elizabeth herself. While as extravagant as can be, as attested by many, Elizabeth was also a very down-to-earth woman in terms of her attitude and behavior toward people she encountered, whether fellow stars, crew members, or fans.
By now Elizabeth was heavily involved in her charitable work to raise awareness and funding for AIDS research, a cause which she took up in earnest when she learned her friend Rock Hudson was suffering from the disease. The actor died in 1985, the same year Elizabeth joined forces with Mathilde Krim, a researcher at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and other leading researchers to form the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). Krim later said, “In those days, celebrities took on safe causes. To take on AIDS was a really courageous act for a celebrity, and it took her kind of star power to draw attention.”
REVIEW
“[There Must Be a Pony] gives Elizabeth Taylor the best TV role she’s had yet—and she runs with it. . . . John Sargent’s direction [is] appropriate to the storyline and Taylor, who dominates her footage, responds in triumph. . . . Chad Lowe’s and Taylor’s scenes together are eminently credible. Lowe’s interp of the complex, lonely youth trying to handle his own difficulties as well as those of his mother, is a touching success.”
—Variety (“Tone”)
In There Must Be a Pony period, arriving at the Los Angeles airport with her daughter Liza and grandson Quinn Tivey
Poker Alice
TV Movie
HARVEY MATOFSKY ENTERTAINMENT/NEW WORLD TELEVISION/CBS
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Alice Moffit
Tom Skerritt Jeremy Collins
George Hamilton John Moffit
Richard Mulligan Sears
David Wayne Amos
&n
bsp; Susan Tyrrell Mad Mary
Pat Corley McCarthy
Paul Drake Baker
Annabella Price Miss Tuttwiler
Merrya Small Baby Doe
CREDITS
Harvey Matofsky (executive producer); Renée Valente (producer); Arthur Allan Seidelman (director); James Lee Barrett (teleplay); Hanania Baer (photography); Billy Goldenberg (music); Ninkey Dalton (production design); John Talbert (set decorations); Donald P. H. Eaton (assistant director); Millie Moore (editor); Nolan Miller, Ruby Manus (costumes); Cheri Montesanto (hairstylist, makeup)
RELEASE DATE: May 22, 1987
RUN TIME: 92 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Alice Moffit is a Boston-bred, Bible-toting, genuine lady in the 1870s Wild West with a serious penchant for gambling. After a lucky hand at five-card stud, Alice wins a high-class gambling hall/bordello, which she runs along with her cousin, John Moffit. While keeping her ladies of the night up on their Bible verses, Alice makes nice with bounty hunter Jeremy Collins, which threatens her relationship with John, who has always served as her faithful watchdog.
As Poker Alice
notes
POKER ALICE SEEMED TO ATTEMPT TO BE PART DESTRY RIDES Again, part Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, on a much smaller scale. Filmed in Tucson, Arizona, under the direction of Arthur Allan Seidelman, Elizabeth played the madam of a house of ill repute, for the second time in two years.
The film served as a star vehicle for Elizabeth and her boyfriend at the time, George Hamilton. A return of former fiancé Victor Luna and a brief relationship with (and engagement to) Dennis Stein had ended. She had just had a face lift and seemed to bloom on the arm of Hamilton, appearing slim, taut, and tanned. Joan Collins observed, “When she began dating my friend George Hamilton she was somewhat overweight, no doubt from the boredom of being a senator’s wife. George immediately took her in his capable hands and put her on a strict diet and started telling her how to dress and style her hair.”
They enjoyed their time together but her celebrity was undoubtedly a trial for Hamilton, who said at the time, “Nobody on earth is better company than Elizabeth Taylor, more lively, more fun, or more of a three-ring circus, despite her desperate wishes to the contrary.” It was a short-lived but memorable romance in Elizabeth’s life, commemorated by Poker Alice.
REVIEW
“Liz is marvelous in her new TV movie. The New, Improved, Better-Tasting Liz looks positively radiant. . . . Poker Alice is worth seeing for Liz Taylor. She is a star. More than that, she is a symbol, a fixture, of American culture. She is a legend. There aren’t many stars left from the pre-TV days. She has a glow that not even an appearance on Hotel can dim.”
—Newsday
With George Hamilton
Sweet-faced Alice Moffit is the madam of a bordello
Il Giovane Toscanini (Young Toscanini)
ITALIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM/CARTHAGO FILMS/CANAL +
CAST
C. Thomas Howell Arturo Toscanini
Elizabeth Taylor Nadina Bulichoff
Sophie Ward Sister Margherita
Pat Heywood Mother Allegri
Jean-Pierre Cassel Maestro Miguez
Nicolas Chagrin Maestro Miguez
Philippe Noiret Don Pedro II
John Rhys-Davies Claudio Rossi
Leon Lissek Superti
Carlo Bergonzi Bertini
CREDITS
Carlo Lastricati, Mark Lombardo (executive producers); Tarak Ben Ammar, Fulvio Lucisano (producers); Franco Zeffirelli (director); Pippo Pisciotto (associate producer); William H. Stadiem (screenplay), based on an idea by Franco Zeffirelli and Ennio De Concini; Daniele Nannuzzi (photography); Roman Vlad, Giuseppe Verdi (music); Gabriella Borni (choreographer); Andrea Crisanti (production design); Andrea Crisanti, Enrico Fiorentini, Angelo Santucci (set decorations); Danilo Sterbini (sound); Amedeo Giomini, Jim Clark, Bryan Oates (editors); Tom Rand (costumes); Cheri Ruff (Elizabeth Taylor’s hairstylist)
RELEASE DATE: October 7, 1988 (Italy)
RUN TIME: 109 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Rejected as a cellist by the selection committee at La Scala, eighteen-year-old Arturo Toscanini’s passion nevertheless makes an impression on impresario Claudio Rossi, who takes Toscanini on tour with his orchestra to South America. In Brazil, Toscanini is tasked with taming shrewish opera diva Nadina Bulichoff, who lives in a lap of luxury courtesy of her lover, Brazilian Emperor Don Pedro II. While convincing Bulichoff to rehearse, preparing for opening night, and falling in love with young missionary Sister Margherita, Toscanini also takes a firm stance against slavery in Brazil. By the time the show opens he has not only inspired Bulichoff to greatness but moves her to appeal for the abolition of slavery from the stage, as “There are things more important in life than music.”
As opera star Nadina Bulichoff
notes
THOUGH AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FILM, IL GIOVANE TOSCANINI was an Italian-French coproduction that had no theatrical distribution in the U.S., where it eventually gained visibility on television as Young Toscanini. The movie reunited Elizabeth with her friend and Taming of the Shrew director Franco Zeffirelli and starred her opposite C. Thomas Howell (then best known for a brief performance as one of the children in E.T.). Zeffirelli made this biopic on acclaimed musical conductor Arturo Toscanini in lavish style, costing $14 million. It was filmed in the southern Italian port city of Bari, primarily around its grand turn-of-the-century Teatro Petruzzelli.
With Il Giovane Toscanini and films such as La Traviata, Otello, and Pagliacci, Zeffirelli brought classical music to the masses. In describing the movie to the press, star C. Thomas Howell said, “it is about this kid who never quits and puts up with a lot of pressure and succeeds, kind of like Rocky with music.” The movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 1988, where it met with derision from audiences. It was not entirely the fault of the film itself but because Zeffirelli has recently fallen out of favor with the local cabal of filmmakers and performers because of his unpopular stance against Martin Scorsese’s controversial film The Last Temptation of Christ.
Elizabeth convincingly played an opera diva making a comeback, in a movie that was something of a comeback for her as well. It was her first feature film since The Mirror Crack’d in 1980 and her first work following another stay at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California, in 1988. After notable romances with George Hamilton and Malcolm Forbes in 1988, her interest turned to a construction worker she had met at the Betty Ford Center, the man who would be her last husband, Larry Fortensky.
REVIEWS
“A pompous comic strip rendition of the first bloomings of artistic genius amid costly overdressed sets, Liz in blackface singing Aida, and a Mother Cabrini nursing Brazilian slaves. Excess is the order of the day in Young Toscanini, and the film perversely won supporters for its very kitsch.”
—Variety (“Yung”)
“Elizabeth Taylor battles through, a star despite everything. One feels more pity for C. Thomas Howell (the boy from E.T.) who plays Toscanini with touching earnestness. Young Toscanini is a milestone in the cinema of kitsch and camp.”
—The Times (London)
With director Franco Zeffirelli and costar C. Thomas Howell
Sweet Bird of Youth
TV Movie
ATLANTIC/KUSHNER-LOCKE/NBC
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Alexandra Del Lago
Mark Harmon Chance Wayne
Valerie Perrine Miss Lucy
Kevin Geer Tom Junior
Ronnie Claire Edwards Aunt Nonnie
Cheryl Paris Heavenly Finley
Rip Torn Boss Finley
Ruta Lee Sally Powers
CREDITS
Donald Kushner, Peter Locke, Linda Yellen, Laurence Mark (executive producers); Fred Whitehead (producer); Nicolas Roeg (director); Gavin Lambert (teleplay), based on play by Tennessee Williams; Francis Kenny (photography); Ralph Burns (music); Buddy Epstein (music supervisor); Veronica Hadfield (production desi
gn); Roger L. King (art director); Marthe Pineau (set decorations); Donald P. H. Eaton (assistant director); Pamela Malouf-Cundy (editor); Del Adey-Jones (costumes)
RELEASE DATE: October 1, 1989
RUN TIME: 95 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Movie star Alexandra Del Lago has fallen from glory into a despair of drug and alcohol dependency. After her latest film flops, she retreats to Palm Beach, where she meets the opportunistic Chance Wayne, who hopes to use Alexandra to suit his own ambitions of fame and fortune. They are intimately involved by the time they reach his hometown, where Chance is persona non grata because after he left town, his childhood sweetheart, Heavenly, was forced to abort his child and then required a hysterectomy. As Chance seeks to reunite with Heavenly and continues to take all he can get from Alexandra, Heavenly’s brother and father are determined to run Chance out of town . . . or worse.
With Mark Harmon
notes
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’S SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH WAS ONE of the playwright’s greatest triumphs in the 1950s. It was a hit in every form, first appearing on Broadway in 1959, where it played at the Martin Beck Theatre for a run of 375 performances starring Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, and Rip Torn, who re-created their original roles in the acclaimed 1962 screen adaptation. An equally successful Broadway revival was mounted in 1975 starring Christopher Walken and Irene Worth.
The 1989 made-for-television version of Sweet Bird of Youth from British director Nicolas Roeg met with considerably less enthusiasm than past adaptations. It was a promising return to Tennessee Williams for Elizabeth, though she might have fared better if the teleplay had remained truer to Williams. Her costar was Mark Harmon, People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1986 and a respected actor as well. A member of the original stage and screen productions, Rip Torn made a return, though now playing Boss Finley instead of Tom Junior. Elizabeth’s favorite cast member, however, was her son, Michael Wilding, Jr., who played the small role of a film producer. When he told his mother that he had landed the part, Michael said, “She was delighted. She thought it was a hoot.”