Elizabeth

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  11

  he thought of himself as somewhat of a social misfit. He was foggy and scattered and didn’t “finish his sentences with strength,” as she noted. “We can all change, darling,” she would tell him, “and for you, that will prove to be a godsend.” Her brash manner may have proved a sticking point for previous suitors, but Francis found it refreshing, even enlivening. He was filled with an intense inquisitiveness about her, and to be so fascinated by anyone was, for him, a unique experience.

  Many people who knew Francis before he met Sara were dumbfounded by the changes they soon began to see in him. Her coaching led him to address many of his behavioral deficiencies, at least as she saw them. Under her influence, he began to walk with purpose and at a quicker pace. He shook the hand of every person he met with strength. He made firm eye contact. He spoke highly of himself to others; Sara loathed the British tradition of selfdeprecating humor and wouldn’t stand for it in her suitor. He took all of her advice seriously—and it worked for him. His transformation profound after just a few months, he knew he had one woman—Sara Warmbrodt—to thank for all of it. Indeed, he felt like a new man.

  Francis and Sara were married in 1926. Then, after one more show in New York, The Little Spitfire, Sara Taylor made the fateful decision to leave show business.

  Marrying and eventually raising children rather than having the career in show business she had originally planned was a decision Sara Taylor made for herself, not something she ever felt had been foisted upon her. “I gave up my career when I married Daddy,” she once said (referring to Francis), “and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t have made me take it up again.” As a Christian Scientist, she believed at a core, spiritual level that she could have her life exactly as she wanted if only she approached it with a positive and affirmative attitude. “Divine love always has met, and always will meet, every human need,”

  she would say. Therefore, she rarely complained about her life or about her decisions. Rather, she felt empowered to handle any-12 Elizabeth

  thing that came her way, and she hoped to pass the same kind of belief system on to the children she might one day bear. At this same time, a new branch of the Howard Young Gallery was about to open in London at 35 Old Bond Street in the heart of the British art center, and it was Howard’s idea that Francis manage the new establishment. He absolutely insisted upon it, in fact, for Howard was an assertive man who almost always had his way. Francis and his new wife moved to London and settled into a suite at the luxurious Carlton Hotel, paid for, of course, by Howard Young.

  Now that Sara had given up her career as an actress to be a wife, the rest of the world seemed to slip out of her view. Francis was her passion. For his part, he was just as devoted to her. While previously not a particularly effusive man, he now made an art out of romancing his wife. For instance, knowing Sara’s favorite chocolatier was Fortnum and Mason, Francis would regularly stop at the high-class grocer’s in search of the ultimate confection. He might surprise her with a bag of caramelized ginger, a tin of sweetmeats, or the traditional box of chocolates. He went to great lengths to show his devotion to her.

  For the next two years, Francis and Sara would travel all over Europe in first-class style—London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest—thanks to Howard Young’s generous underwriting of such excursions, many of which were business-related. In the process, they would traffic with the powerful and affluent of the art world and acquire from them old masters for the Young Gallery. It was a heady time, but it wasn’t to last, because when Sara became pregnant at the end of 1928, the couple decided to take root in London. Howard leased a lovely nineteenth-century cottage for them at 11 Hampstead Way. With its beautifully manicured gardens and pathways and its gorgeous views of the verdant Hampstead Heath, it was an enchanted place.

  In June 1929, Sara gave birth to their first child, a son named Howard (after his great-uncle). With the addition of the baby, the Taylors’ home was suddenly too cramped with just two bedrooms. Childhood

  13

  The couple did have a nurse, a cook, and a driver, after all. It would make sense, Sara decided, if at very least the nurse and cook could live at the house. Howard quickly accommodated her and solved the domestic problem by purchasing nearby—with cash—

  a larger eighteenth-century home (with Tudor and Victorian influences in its architecture) known as Heathwood, at 8 Wildwood Road, again overlooking the Heath. Delightfully landscaped with aged trees and colorful wildflowers, the redbrick home came complete with a large kitchen, stately dining and living rooms, pool and tennis court, and live-in accommodations for all of the help. Howard was a stunning baby who, his mother once proclaimed,

  “looked like a Botticelli angel.” He really did, with large, expressive blue eyes, wavy blond hair, and perfectly placed features. He was his daddy’s boy, though. Sara believed a father and son should share a special bond. Therefore, while she was an affectionate and effective mother, she would often abdicate parental duties to Francis. It was as if she saw the raising of her firstborn as an opportunity to further shape her husband into an even fuller, more responsible man. However, such devotion to Francis’s betterment would not last forever. Things would change dramatically, beginning on February 27, 1932—the day Sara gave birth to a daughter, a baby she and Francis would name Elizabeth. A Change in Sara

  T he new Taylor baby girl was named Elizabeth after both of her grandmothers and Rosemond after her paternal grandmother Mary’s maiden name. To be clear from the outset: She’s not fond of being called “Liz.” She’s disliked it ever since her older brother, 14

  Elizabeth

  Howard, used to tease her when she was a little girl by calling her

  “Lizzie the Lizard.” Also, the appellation had been appropriated by the press as part of the sensational “Liz and Dick” fanfare of the 1960s. She felt it was used as a way of thinking about her in reductive terms. She tolerated it then—and still does today—but, as she once told the present author, “People who know me and hope to get to know me better certainly do not call me Liz. They call me Elizabeth.”

  It’s been said that as a newborn Elizabeth Rosemond was covered from head to toe with a soft down of dark hair, like a newborn kitten. Actually, that description exaggerates the reality of the situation. In truth, Elizabeth was born with residual hypertrichosis, an excessive body hair condition. For a memoir she penned for McCall’s in 1954, Sara wrote, “As the precious bundle was placed in my arms, my heart stood still. There, inside the cashmere shawl, was the funniest looking baby I had ever seen!

  Her hair was long and black. Her ears were covered with thick black fuzz and inlaid into the sides of her head; her nose looked like a tip-tilted button, and her tiny face was so tightly closed it looked as if it would never unfold.”

  It’s safe to say by her mother’s description that poor Elizabeth was not exactly the prototypically beautiful newborn. This baby wouldn’t even open her eyes; Sara would tickle her cheeks in hopes that she might do so. When the infant obliged, all that could be seen were their whites because the eyeballs would inevitably roll back in her head. Sara felt, understandably, that she had reason to be concerned. However, after about a month, things improved. Thankfully, the excessive body hair began to fall away, revealing underneath the most gorgeous infant. When she finally took in the world, it became clear that she also had unusually bright, lavender-blue eyes, and, it would seem, even a double line of eyelashes. Elizabeth Taylor historian and photographer Tom Gates recalls a conversation he had with Elizabeth, and then later with Sara: “I once asked Elizabeth how she felt about being tagged

  ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in The World.’ She answered, ‘Oh, Childhood

  15

  that’s just silly. I see better-looking women every day just walking down the street.’ I later mentioned her remark to Sara one day while we were at the Regency Hotel, shortly after the Burtons married. ‘It’s true,’ her mom said, ‘she has no idea how
beautiful she is. But, I do remember shortly after she was born she gave us a good scare. The doctor told us that she had a mutation. Well, that sounded just awful—a mutation. But, when he explained that her eyes had double rows of eyelashes, I thought, well, now, that doesn’t sound so terrible at all.’ ”

  Indeed, with the birth of her daughter came a sea change in how Sara lived her own life. It was as if she saw Elizabeth’s birth as a challenge to mold a life from the moment it began. It was odd, some thought, that she didn’t feel that way about her son, Howard. She just didn’t. Elizabeth was, for her, special. Sara enrolled her in singing and dancing lessons by the age of two. It was also at that age that the Taylors visited America with the children, and brought them to New Orleans. “It was fun for all of us to see the excitement on Elizabeth’s face,” Sara once recalled, “as she sat in a high chair at Antoine’s, dining on Oysters Rockefeller and pompano baked in a paper bag—at 10 o’clock at night.” She was two years old, and “dining on Oysters Rockefeller.” The Good Life, indeed.

  By the age of just three, Sara had taught Elizabeth how to curtsy, shake hands, speak to adults . . . and, as she put it, “be a lady.” Some observers couldn’t help but feel that Sara was rushing the child past adolescence and into an early adulthood. Elizabeth did seem much older than her years, attentive and sophisticated beyond her age, unnaturally so for some. However, she was her mother’s daughter, and Sara was proud of her precociousness and refinement.

  With the birth of Elizabeth, Sara even seemed to lose all desire to make Francis the ideal gentleman. Although most husbands would probably have been relieved to not have to hear opinions about their grooming habits, clothing choices, and even posture and gait, Francis was not one of them. He had actually come to 16

  Elizabeth

  rely on Sara’s pointed criticisms. However, after Elizabeth entered their home, the Sara he had known began to drift away from him. While Francis was a proud father and himself captivated by his enchanting new daughter, he couldn’t help but miss the Sara with whom he had fallen in love. She certainly had changed. Totally absorbed by her daughter, she was Elizabeth’s now . . . not his. A story he would recount in great detail for many years can be viewed as relaying a defining moment in his relationship not only with his child but his wife as well. It happened when Elizabeth was just a toddler.

  As he would tell it later in life, Francis stopped into Fortnum and Mason on his way home from the gallery one afternoon and bought a bright gold box of candies for the first woman in his life, Sara. She had so often lit up at the sight of such treats that he looked forward to seeing that flash of girlish glee come over her, even if just for a moment.

  When he entered their home that evening, he closed the door quietly behind him, as Sara had previously instructed in case Elizabeth was napping. Upon entering the parlor he found his flawless daughter resting in a heavy, ornate crib that Sara insisted she hadn’t yet outgrown, even though she was about three years old. He walked toward her and knelt down close, studying the face that would one day capture the world. He opened the box, and then broke off a small bit of fudge for the toddler, much to her delight. At hearing her daughter’s giggles, Sara descended the stairs and discovered her child and her husband on the floor of the parlor. In a flash, she saw it all: the opened shiny box, the empty wrapper, the tiny, discolored fingers. She became extremely upset, and in one swift motion swept the child up and away from the offending box. “She doesn’t eat candy,” she said angrily. Sara’s tone and quick action took Francis off guard. For a moment, as he recalled it, he was speechless. When he told her that he’d gotten the sweets for her, she said that the last thing she needed was another box of candy. She also told him that if he ever Childhood

  17

  again dared to give their daughter sugary treats he would live to regret it. Then she rushed off toward the kitchen with Elizabeth, who was now whimpering because of the heated exchange. Francis would later say that he gathered what remained of the gift he’d brought home for his wife and walked to a nearby wastebasket, where he dropped it. Clearly, the woman who had softened him, summoned him out of the shell he once called home, existed no longer. Luckily for him he hadn’t emerged from that shell completely . . . and at that moment he began the process of pulling himself back into it.

  A Family Held Hostage?

  E lizabeth Taylor lived in and around London, England, for the first six years of her life, years she recalls as being “the happiest days of my childhood.” No wonder. She and Howard enjoyed a privileged life with servants and nannies at their beck and call, but not really because of anything Francis Taylor had done to ensure their security. In fact, the Taylors’ situation was an unusual one, because the family had been, in a sense, adopted by two wealthy men. The first of these benefactors, as we have seen, was Francis’s uncle by marriage, Howard Young. The other was a trusted family friend named Victor Cazalet.

  Howard Young was a remarkable man who ran away from his Ohio home at the age of ten with no money and by the age of eighteen was worth almost half a million dollars. He had made his fortune through photography, developing a chemical process that transformed old family photographs—certainly not of the best quality in his day, the late 1800s—into stunning works of art in 18

  Elizabeth

  convex oval frames. His invention became a sensation that soon swept the country. He then invested his money in oil, and as a result of his success in that endeavor, he was soon dealing in old masters in a new gallery in New York. The owner of homes in New York, Connecticut, Florida, and Wisconsin, he was responsible for relocating Francis and Sara to England in order that Francis might work at the art gallery he owned there.

  The daughter of a close friend of Howard’s wife, Mabel Rosemond, explains that “Uncle Howard came into the Taylor family when he married Mabel, the sister of Francis Taylor’s mother. There was always a lot of angst about Mabel. She was tough and demanding, not a big fan of Francis’s, whom she thought of as a very weak man. Sara and Francis were the poor relatives, so to speak, always traveling about with Howard, but, oddly, with Mabel never around. From my understanding, Howard and Mabel were estranged, but never divorced. They also never had children. Uncle Howard treated Francis as his own son but, though he was generous, it would be stretching things to say he was loving toward him.”

  It was when the Taylors relocated to England that they met the affluent Victor Cazalet, also in the art business and a Conservative member of Parliament who was known to speak out against antiSemitism in England. A confirmed bachelor, at just five feet three inches tall, he had the nickname “Teenie.” After he took the Taylors under his wing, the family would live in a succession of very large and beautifully appointed homes—and even summer homes in the English countryside—thanks to his largesse. For example, at one point, he lent the Taylors his sixteenth-century guest home on the property of his Kent estate, which was called Great Swifts. The Taylors happily moved in, had the electricity and water turned on (and the bills sent to Victor), and renamed the property Little Swallows. Francis did a great deal of remodeling of the home and, at Sara’s direction, planted elm, linden, and fruit trees. The family then used this home for weekend getaways. It would be at this Kent estate that Elizabeth first learned to ride horses, on Childhood

  19

  a New Forest pony named Betty that was given to her by Victor Cazalet.

  Thelma Cazalet-Keir, Victor Cazalet’s sister, recalled his affection for the young Elizabeth. “As a child, Elizabeth had a set of wooden block letters with which she first learned the alphabet,”

  she remembered. “Victor and she would spend hours together spelling out various words. Then he would read to her. She liked best The Secret Garden by Hodgson Burnett and insisted he read it aloud over and over again.”

  These two men, Howard Young and Victor Cazalet, virtually seeded the Taylor family’s prosperity, allowing them to remain unaffected by the worldwide depression. Francis fully understood what motiva
ted Howard to subsidize his family: He was a pushy relative who wanted to coax his nephew into a successful life. He was domineering and tough—much like Sara—and never let Francis forget that he was in charge. Francis understood that much, and learned to live with it. However, he never quite understood what was going on with Victor Cazalet and what kind of relationship this man had with Sara. Theirs was a close friendship with a lot of questions attached to it. Were they having an affair? Many people in their circle suspected as much. Others were certain that Victor, unmarried with no children, was homosexual. From all accounts, Francis never knew for certain what was going on. Then, when Victor suddenly presented him one day with a brand-new red Buick automobile, he truly didn’t know what to think. So he just accepted the gift. Something was very odd about the generous offering . . . But, then again, there were quite a few strange things going on at this time.

  “Over the years, I heard a lot of stories about Sara suggesting that if Howard ever dropped the ball, Victor would pick it up and continue to support the family,” said a family friend. “Yet, despite such maneuverings, my mother showed me many photos of everyone at dinner tables seeming to get along just fine. They were able to coexist, and I think it was Sara who was really controlling everyone in her midst—not Howard, not Victor, and certainly not 20

  Elizabeth

  Francis. No matter what these men thought, it was Sara who was running the show.

  “For instance, there were discrepancies as to who was paying for Elizabeth’s and Howard’s private schooling in England. Elizabeth went to Byron House, Howard to Arnold House. It was thought that Victor Cazalet paid for their educations. However, Mabel would insist that it had been Howard who had done so, and whenever the subject came up it was sure to become a hot dispute. Sara just kept mum about it, though, saying it was a private matter. Actually, I later learned that she got money from both men for those educations and then let them each think he was responsible for the schooling. Who knows what she did with the additional money? That was the kind of woman she was, very savvy but also manipulative.”