3.24.11: Elizabeth Taylor and her baubles

Elizabeth Taylor and her baubles

The sidewalks were coated with a light silvery slush. Or gold, depending on the street light. 9:30 PM. Photo: JH.

March 24, 2011. Yesterday was cold and sunny in New York and then in early evening we had a hailstorm, with some snow mixed with rain. The streets and sidewalks were coated with a light silvery slush and the cold wind could cut through if you were without overcoat.

It seemed to rain baguette diamonds last night. Photos: JH.

Down at the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) last night, at their Gallery on 22 East 60th Street, they held a night-before-opening preview of an exhibition of photos of the legendary French artist/composer/ filmmaker/bad boy Serge Gainsbourg.

The exhibit, which coincides with the 20th anniversary of the death of the artiste, is called Initials L.G. It features portraits as well as rare and unusual images of the man, taken by Helmut Newton, William Klein, Tony Frank and others who documented his celebrity. The man had a penchant for notoriety that enhanced his cultural stature.

For those of us non-French who had perhaps heard the name, or perhaps not, and knew nothing about him, he had a kind of persona almost impossible to develop in the American culture, let alone understand. His own brand of wit and decadence presented frequently in provocative ways made him infamous as well as famous. And beloved, too.

Pianist, singer, beatnik, raconteur, poet, actor, filmmaker, photographer, painter, novelist, he was practically canonized by the French. Francois Mitterand referred to him as a literary descendent of Apollinaire and Baudelaire.

He was regarded as a musical genius, a painter who left behind several canvases, a filmmaker. Thrice married, his relationships were well known, his last wife being British actress Jane Birkin (whose greater lasting fame is preserved in a leather handbag designed to her specification).

This exhibition is considered a tribute to the artist’s “subversive flair” and “vivid imagination. It was first shown on the 10th anniversary of the Fifth One Fine Art Photography gallery in Belgium. It then ran at Sotheby’s in Paris where it was a huge success, and will now run here at the FIAF Gallery for exactly one month, until April 23rd.

There was a huge crowd filling the FIAF Gallery last night, despite the wet and wild weather. They were all glad to be there and I think, for not a few, it was a chance to taste a bit of the wine of Paris days and nights.

The wall in front of the former home of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin for whom the Birkin bag was named.

As the entire world now knows, Elizabeth Taylor died yesterday in Los Angeles, after a long illness. She turned 79 just three weeks ago and had been ill for some time. She was present in the lives of two generations of Americans and always with an aura that gave her a kindness and a sparkle.

Anyone born before the 70s couldn’t imagine the enormity of her fame that practically erupted during the making of the film Cleopatra in Rome in the early 1960s.


	Burton and Taylor in a scene from "Cleopatra" where their love affair began.

It was there she met – while still married to Eddie Fisher, the singer who had left his wife Debbie Reynolds for her four years before – Richard Burton. Their on-set affair was such a sensation that at one point in 1962 The New York Journal-American was putting out extra-editions a day in the afternoons, updating the public on the affair of the most famous lovers in the world.

She was at the zenith of her natural beauty, just 30 years old. He had that voice that gave him stardom and was handsome with the bluest eyes burning to match her bright violets. Together their attributes created a charisma and a saga that made them bigger and more famous than before, commanding record salaries.

We knew everything about them (or so it seemed). They lived like royalty, accessible to their entourages and public. When Burton came to New York to play in Hamlet at the 46th Street Theater, Taylor, of course, came with him. Every night about a half hour before the final curtain, a crowd of sometimes thousands would congregate and fill the entire block, roadway and sidewalks, of West 46th Street between Broadway and Eighth – waiting to catch a glimpse of the golden couple.

“She had a completely photogenic face,” Lillian Burns Sidney, who was the acting coach at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1938 through 1952, once recalled to me about her. “She had no bad angles. The camera loved her. And Elizabeth always got what she wanted,” she added, as if to point out the power of that phenomenon.

Lillian had hired me to write an autobiography for Debbie Reynolds. The two women were the last (and only) two contract players at the MGM Schoolhouse.

Elizabeth Taylor with her friend Rock Hudson in a scene from the 1956 film "Giant", when she was 23 and he was 31.

Elizabeth with Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds at the opening of Fisher's show in Las Vegas, three months after the death of Mike Todd.

Elizabeth was only five weeks older than Debbie (whose 79th birthday is one week from tomorrow, April 1). Lillian Sidney served as a mentor on Debbie’s book and often provided this writer with detailed background stories about the process of studio filmmaking where the talent under contract was as much a product as the films themselves. As glamorous as it looked to outsiders, it was work intensive and the actors were practically owned by the Studio and the powers-that-be.

Not so with Elizabeth Taylor, Lillian once pointed out. “Elizabeth always got what she wanted, not only when it came to the men. When she was just little girl making National Velvet, she fell in love with that horse. She wanted that horse – which was studio property, of course.”

Little Elizabeth Taylor with Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Right: An emerald from Taylor's vast collection of jewels. Below: With her first husband Nicky Hilton on their wedding day.

When the picture was finished – Elizabeth was 12 – Lillian was asked to make a request for the horse to Mr. Mayer. “Uh uh,” Lillian shook her head slightly, remembering Louis B. Mayer’s reaction that day. “Mr. Mayer did not give away studio property to his actors, let alone a 12-year-old, pretty as she was, and talented as she was. And that horse belonged to the studio.”

Elizabeth got her horse.

Several years later, now 19 and a full fledged star, and having already married and divorced her first husband, Nicky Hilton (the late great-uncle of Paris Hilton), Elizabeth was being romanced by a rising young director at the Studio. He “wooed” her with jewelry. Baubles. She liked that even then. So great was the director’s desire to please that he spent more than he had, and checks started bouncing down at Tiffany, van Cleef and Cartier.

Under such circumstances, the merchandise must be returned. Or else. But because it was for Elizabeth and the Studio wanted to keep her happy, the Studio made them good. Anything to keep their star happy.

In the early 1980s, having gone through several marriages, marrying and divorcing Richard Burton twice, as well as enduring many health issues, and living a somewhat nomadic international life, Elizabeth Taylor moved back to Los Angeles where she grew up. The career had waned. She was 50. But she was still Elizabeth Taylor, the Star. People talked about her but rarely saw her as she lived quietly and privately surrounded by her family, her animals, her entourage and close friends; it wasn’t a big social life. Public interest in her had not waned. It was as great as ever, perhaps because she was rarely seen in public.

I was invited one night in ’82 or ’83 by Lizabeth Scott, one of the great film-noir actresses of the 1940s, to a dinner over at Universal City where Rock Hudson was being honored. Elizabeth Taylor was going to present the award to him. We were also seated next to the table for Taylor’s party, assuring an excellent view for us curious locusts.

Hudson and Taylor’s longtime friendship was well known but interest was heightened at this particular moment because it was widely rumored that Rock Hudson was suffering from AIDS – then still a new and terrifying disease about which little was known except that it spelt a gruesome death for its victims. It was also confronting the issue of Hudson’s sexuality which was never a secret in Hollywood but also never discussed by anyone publicly. Ever.

The fatal quartet: Mike Todd and Elizabeth Taylor and their friends Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.

This particular evening would be important because it was obviously a statement. And Elizabeth Taylor’s participation was key on several levels including the curiosity of us oglers. There was also dual curiosity in this Hollywood night: seeing Elizabeth Taylor in the flesh in all her glory, and seeing Rock Hudson in the flesh hindered by illness.

The dinner was held in a large banquet hall on the lot overlooking the San Fernando Valley. There were several hundred guests attending the black tie affair. Everyone was there, and happily seated at the appointed hour. Everyone except Elizabeth Taylor. And since it couldn’t really start without her, everyone was aware of her non-presence.


	The Burtons with Bobbie and Ethel Kennedy.

	Liza Minnelli, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor. The actor's illness had begun to take its toll.

The proceedings were delayed for about an hour and the guests were beginning to get restless when she arrived. We were first aware of it because of a great deal of activity just outside the glass doors of the entrance to the hall.

Photographers, paparazzi. This was in the days before digital, and all cameras came with those bright blazing lights that turn night into day.

Suddenly everyone in the room was aware of this wide and white halo of lights, dozens of them, that was slow moving, hovering into the room. Like some kind of low-flying saucer, it lit up the entire cavernous space with its otherworldliness.

As it came closer, we suddenly could see the star in its center, accompanied by her entourage and escorted by her son Michael Wilding Jr.

Finally the constellation reached the table next to us, and with much ado of the troops dispersing, everyone took their seats. Including The Star who looked like she’d stepped right off of the screen, bringing everything with her, lights, costumes, and all the glitter. This, read the message: is what a Real Star looks like.

And so it was, and so it will always be.

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