*Tom Gates recalls the first time he met Elizabeth Taylor, in the spring of 1964:
“Ever since I first began seeing images of her on magazine covers, I wondered if she could possibly be as beautiful in person. During a chance meeting with her publicist, John Springer, while I was still in school, he told me that among his many clients were both Elizabeth and Richard Burton. I literally begged him for an introduction. He said that he could invite me to a party that both would be attending. This was shortly after they married and were staying in Manhattan at the Regency Hotel. We were introduced, and I remember that as we shook hands I scrutinized her face. Amazingly, it was even more perfect than in her photographs. No matter how she turned her head it was like looking at a perfect sculpture; a sort of living work of art. Not knowing what else to say, I finally said something like, ‘It’s very nice meeting you, Miss Taylor,’ and with somewhat wobbly legs I walked over to a sofa and practically collapsed. One of the guests came over to me and asked if I was all right. ‘I guess so,’ I said, ‘I just met Elizabeth Taylor.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I know exactly how you feel. It happens to all of us the first time. After a while you get used to it.’ Well, I never quite got used to it.”
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not her own—could do no wrong. “He represented tranquillity, security, maturity—all the things I needed in myself,” she has recalled.
At the time, Michael Wilding, who was twenty years Elizabeth’s senior, was married to actress Kay Young, but they were separated, and in fact he hadn’t even seen her in a number of years. Distinguished, with his receding hairline and his tweed suits, he certainly seemed more the fatherly type than the lover. He suffered from epilepsy, a closely guarded secret at the time because of the stigma attached to the condition, and this very likely was at the root of his timid demeanor and cautious nature in public settings. He was soft-spoken and retiring and, like Francis Taylor, loathed confrontation. In time, when he and Elizabeth fought, he would always let her win the argument. He would simply be no match for her and would inevitably let her have her way, which suited her just fine. Indeed, it seemed clear to anyone paying attention that Elizabeth was entering a relationship that would strongly resemble that of her parents. Like Sara had done to Francis for years, Elizabeth was easily able to run roughshod over Michael. But, unlike Francis, Michael was also quite nurturing, caring, and protective. In a sense, he was her father . . . only bet- ter. Taylor family history also has it that Elizabeth saw a lot of Victor Cazalet’s personality in Michael Wilding, his charming banter and debonair manner, for instance. When she told Sara as much, Sara apparently said, “There will only be one Victor, and he’s gone now forever, so don’t try to replace him in your life. It’s no good, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth and Michael dated throughout the summer of Ivan- hoe, and he helped her tremendously by lending emotional support and doling out fatherly advice during what turned out to be a very difficult production for her. Based on the classic novel of the Crusades by Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe would also star Robert Taylor and Joan Fontaine. It was just the kind of historical, Technicolor epic that MGM did better than any other studio. Elizabeth was unhappy with the script, though, because there were two lead-Finding Her Way 97
ing ladies in the film—she and Joan Fontaine—and only one got the hero in the end. And it wasn’t Elizabeth. To add to her unhappiness, because she was in London making this movie, she was also unable to attend the wedding of her brother, Howard, to Mara Regan. Howard had just received his Army induction notice and wanted to be married before he was shipped off to war. He and Mara originally had a date in mind that would have made it possible for Elizabeth to attend, but then moved the ceremony up to June 23, 1951. Elizabeth was disappointed that she could not be present for her brother and his new wife, especially since both had been in her wedding party to Nicky Hilton.
Ivanhoe would be well-received when it was finally released in 1952. But Elizabeth had no interest in this movie at all, primarily because she simply wasn’t emotionally or physically equipped to make it. Every day was torture for her. She gave such a lackluster performance in her scenes that the vocal track of practically every one had to be rerecorded by her in Hollywood later during postproduction just so that she could be properly understood. During this time, Elizabeth began to feel that she was falling for Wilding, and over a few weeks he started to reciprocate. Though some in his circle felt that he was only becoming interested in Taylor to further his career and public image in America, Michael insisted that his motives were genuine and that he was drawn to her because he’d simply never met anyone like her before. Besides, he didn’t enjoy acting anyway, or so he said during one dinner conversation; when asked about his future ambitions, he said he just wanted to retire to a country home and live a quiet and peaceful life. Of course, the question posed whenever he made a statement like that one was: What are you doing with Elizabeth Taylor, then? Actually, he would say, he didn’t really like actresses very much, as a rule.
When Elizabeth decided she wanted him as her second husband, Michael wasn’t so sure about the sensibleness of such a move. He was more mature and experienced in his reasoning and resisted taking the relationship to the next level, saying that he 98
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felt they were moving too quickly. Ivanhoe wrapped production in October, and by that time Elizabeth was frustrated that she’d not been able to get the answer from him that she wanted, which was yes to a marriage proposal. By this time, she was used to having her way, and few people could deny her when she desired something. To merely conclude that she was selfish, though, would be too simplistic a conclusion. She was a world-famous movie star and, as such, a woman who had grown accustomed to entitlement. The world revolved around her—she didn’t ask it to do so, or try in any way to spin it in her favor, it just always had, for as far back as she could remember. It was the only way she knew it. Moreover, as she got older she began to feel that she simply could not be alone. She had always had someone watching over her, be it Sara Taylor or the movie studio, and she was used to it. She didn’t know how to be an independent woman.
To her credit, at least she had the courage and spirit to try love again after the bloodbath of her marriage to Nicky Hilton. She could have easily abandoned the notion and become permanently disillusioned about her future, but she didn’t. Her imagination had been inflamed, her emotions stirred by the possibility of having a life’s companion, and maybe even raising a family with him. She was her mother’s daughter, after all, and as such, she was nothing if not tenacious. She believed she could achieve anything if she set her mind and heart to it—even a good marriage. After finishing Ivanhoe in October, Elizabeth returned to the United States uncertain as to where she stood with Michael Wilding and even considering the possibility that perhaps it was not meant to be. She still had business with Nicky Hilton, unfortunately, concerning stock in the Hilton hotel chain that she’d received as a wedding present from the Hilton family, as well as some other issues relating to the divorce settlement. Obviously, she didn’t wish to see him. However, on another level, she had to admit that she also couldn’t wait for him to be able to look at her and recognize that not only had she survived his brutality, she had Finding Her Way
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continued to thrive as well. Once in New York, she checked into the Plaza Hotel.
Sara and Francis decided that they would not allow their daughter to meet with Nicky Hilton alone, so they flew to New York with Elizabeth’s attorney and also took a suite at the Plaza. When Nicky showed up at the first meeting with Elizabeth and her parents, he seemed to be the same calm, well-mannered young man he’d been before the wedding. After all, no one would have been able to guess during his courtship of Elizabeth that once he had a few drinks in him he could explode in horrible violence against any woman. Now he seemed to be that same person again, laughing it up with Francis as if he’d never laid a hand on the man’s daughter. Immediately after that meeti
ng, Elizabeth began to despair that she was the one responsible for bringing forth such unspeakable violence from Nicky, actually taking responsibility for what had happened in their marriage. “He’s just the way he was before he knew me,” she said through her tears, “so I must have done something or said something . . .” It is said that during this emotional breakdown Francis Taylor first learned that his only daughter had been viciously beaten during her marriage. He was, understandably, devastated by the revelation. This was the 1950s. Spousal abuse was not yet the subject of discussion and debate in public forums, such as on televised afternoon talk shows, that it is today, and Sara and Francis truly did not know how to deal with its psychological complexities and ramifications. There was just no way that the Taylor parents were equipped to deal with the trauma Elizabeth had suffered and the post-traumatic stress she apparently continued to experience. They decided that they needed a few days to come up with a strategy to handle things, but then, much to their dismay, Elizabeth began sneaking out with Nicky on dates! They feared that the situation, left unchecked, could easily evolve into their daughter agreeing to a second marriage to a wealthy batterer. Knowing her impulsive nature and confused emotional state, it was not a farfetched notion. They had to put a stop to it. 100
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It was Francis Taylor who made the first move toward a solution: He telephoned his uncle Howard at his home in Connecticut and asked for his advice, explaining the full scope of the problem—or at least as much as he understood at the time. It’s not known if Howard Young had been aware of the beatings Elizabeth had suffered, but it’s likely that this conversation with his nephew marked the first he had been exposed to this family secret. Howard promised that he would take care of the problem. Indeed, he was a man accustomed to having the final word in any disagreement, a person some considered a bully, and, certainly, one who had cowed Francis for most of his life. However, his personality and temperament would serve the family well in the troubling and ongoing problem Nicky Hilton presented in their lives. Howard telephoned Elizabeth at the Plaza Hotel and invited her and Nicky to his estate in Connecticut for dinner and an overnight visit. She was surprised by the invitation, considering what had happened between them before she left for England, but also happy that he was not holding a grudge against her. She eagerly agreed to see Howard and bring along her ex-husband. A Taylor family member who was not alive at the time but who has heard the story many times recalls, “The family history has it that Uncle Howard treated Elizabeth and Nicky to a sumptuous meal and delightful evening. Then, the next morning before Elizabeth had awakened, he met with Nicky privately. He offered him
$20,000 to disappear from Elizabeth’s life forever, never see her again, never contact her again, never have anything to do with her, and only deal with her through his and her attorneys from that moment on. Well, $20,000 was peanuts to Nicky Hilton. He laughed in Howard’s face and said, ‘No deal.’ You didn’t laugh in Uncle Howard’s face and get away with it. Howard hauled off and punched Nicky in the gut and leveled him right onto the floor. Then he said that if Nicky didn’t leave his niece alone he would get on the phone and call every columnist he knew in Hollywood and tell them that Nicky had beaten Elizabeth during their marriage, thereby ruining him and the Hilton family name forever. Finding Her Way
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The threat of being revealed as a man who had beaten America’s sweetheart—Velvet Brown from National Velvet, Kay Banks from Father of the Bride—was the only thing that made Nicky stop and think. He backed off and said he would take Elizabeth back to New York and leave her alone. Then, according to the way I heard the story, he said, ‘Can I still have the $20,000?’ And Howard said, ‘Fuck you. You should have taken it when I offered it. That offer is now rescinded. Now get out of my house, you little bastard.’ An hour or so later, Nicky drove Elizabeth back to New York. I understand that on the way back, he told her he was serious about a German actress named Betsy von Furstenberg, and he wouldn’t be seeing her again, ever. I don’t know how she took it, probably not well, knowing Elizabeth. I only know that it was finally the end of Nicky Hilton in her life. I am pretty sure she never saw him again.”
Michael Wilding
W hen Elizabeth and her parents returned to Los Angeles after the Hilton-related business meetings in New York, Elizabeth telephoned Michael Wilding in London to ask if he might want to come to the States to visit her. He agreed to do so, and the two spent the winter months of 1951 in California dating and getting to know each other away from public scrutiny. On December 12, Wilding was granted a divorce. That night, he and Elizabeth were dining at Romanoff’s restaurant in Los Angeles when he pulled from his vest pocket a sapphire-and-diamond ring. He intended it to be a simple token of his feelings—a commemoration of his new freedom and a commitment that he was indeed interested in pur-102 Elizabeth
suing a future with her. However, when he went to put the ring on her right hand, she snatched it from him and put it on her left hand, third finger. “That’s where it belongs,” she told him, beaming. Then she kissed him and said, “Now, that makes it official, doesn’t it? Or shall I spell it out for you? Will you marry me?”
At first, Sara and Francis were unsure as to whether or not Elizabeth should marry again, or at least so soon. Marianne Lincoln worked for Francis Taylor in his Beverly Hills art gallery at the time and recalls that the Taylor parents both made an effort to learn what they could about Wilding during his time in Los Angeles because they felt much guilt over allowing Elizabeth to marry Hilton, even though they could not have stopped her if they wanted to. They made it clear that they thought Elizabeth should wait before jumping into another marriage. They had no problem with Wilding and thought he was a decent person who would treat her well, but they were conscious that they had thought the same about Nicky Hilton. Simply put, they were worried about their daughter and just wished that she would be more cautious with her heart.
Lincoln, who now lives abroad, recalled a conversation she had with Francis as they were preparing for a Los Angeles exhibit in the spring of 1952. “She has everything, yet she faces, I fear, a life of heartbreak,” Francis told her, according to her memory. “You can thank Sara for that, for pushing this life on her.” He was, clearly, still angry at his wife, blaming her for Elizabeth’s lot in life, and not even trying to hide his feelings about it. “Look at her,” he said of his daughter. “She’s nineteen and will be married twice already.”
“Maybe this time it will work,” Marianne offered hopefully.
“He is twenty years older than she is,” Francis reminded her.
“How is it possible that it will work?” Still, he said that he and Sara would dutifully attend the wedding in London, as soon as Elizabeth sent word back to them that it had been officially scheduled.
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in a brief, ten-minute service in Westminster at the Caxton Registry Hall. She had ultimately decided not to give her parents enough warning to allow them to make the trip abroad, explaining privately to a Taylor relative that she didn’t want them present, “because I know they aren’t supportive of me and Michael, and I’m just not going to put up with it from them. I have enough on my mind with the picture I’m making.” Sara was heartsick, Francis not so much. He seemed distant and pensive during this time, as if he’d found a place of calm within and wasn’t about to leave it to cross swords with anyone. However, Sara couldn’t stop crying about the missed opportunity to see her daughter marry again, and also couldn’t comprehend why Elizabeth would have such animosity toward her, especially after she had been so supportive during the nightmare of Nicky Hilton. It just didn’t make any sense to her. “[Uncle] Howard told me that she’s secretly mad at Francis,” she told one relative,
“but she can’t be mad at me, too, can she? What did I ever do to her?”
Of course, considering what Elizabeth had just put her parents through with
Nicky Hilton, it would have been a nice gesture to invite them to her wedding. However, she knew they were ambivalent about the marriage, and she didn’t want them to spoil her day. They had to settle with taking photos of themselves holding a picture of Elizabeth and Michael on their wedding day, which MGM then sent the media. It was a very odd thing to agree to do, but they did it anyway.
According to Elizabeth’s new contract with MGM, Sara Taylor was still on the payroll, but she had much less to do with Elizabeth’s career by this time. It was a juggernaut now, traveling along on its own power and speed and no longer requiring Sara’s people skills to keep it on track. Plus, Elizabeth was not exactly open to helpful suggestions at this time in her life, and even Sara knew better than to try to tell her how to act out a scene on a soundstage. The days of Sara standing on the sidelines and making faces at Elizabeth as she tried to work were long gone. Because Eliza-104 Elizabeth
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