wuh Pohc. Sine. 1931 . commander here since .w
Someone who knew well the compassionate,
charming young girl of yesterday tells what might have caused
her to become the woman she is today
By ADELE WHITELY FLETCHER
Liz and Richard Burton costar in
"Cleopatra." Their next: "TheVIPs."
Where did Elizabeth Taylor go
the young Elizabeth with her rare
beauty of body and spirit? Those of us
who knew her when she was a little girl
and a young woman will never cease to
wonder.
Elizabeth had that extra sense of communion
that is given only to the few. Like a sensitive in
strument, she seemed able to tune in on the hearts
and minds of people and of animals, too.
When she was a toddler in England, she
charmed the birds with her tiny sounds so that,
chirping, they would fly low around her.
When she was a little older, her mare Betty
threw her the first time she tried to ride her. But
Elizabeth determinedly and patiently led the
horse around the garden explaining how she was
her new mistress and that they must be friends.
Betty continued to give others a bad time, but
after that she was always gentle with Elizabeth.
The single quality of the young Elizabeth that
remains recognizable today is her fierce deter
mination. This was a splendid thing when it was
aligned with her early empathy and compassion.
But harnessed to her present self-indulgence, it is
frightening.
The girl she used to be would have been morti
fied by the editorials in the Italian press that con
demned her affair with Richard Burton. But the
woman she has come to be dismissed them, say
ing, "It's only because we're in a Catholic coun
try that there's all this fuss."
Stories of the young Elizabeth have been told
often enough to be legendary. Among them is
Mrs. Taylor's story of how, when Elizabeth was
three years old and quite ill, she implored her
parents to let her self-appointed godfather, Maj.
Victor Cazalet, M.P., sit with her so her parents
could get some rest.
This sounds unlikely for a three-year-old, and
there have been times when Sara Taylor's tales of
her daughter have exceeded our belief. But this
story we do believe; it is so wholly in keeping
with the sensitive child Elizabeth used to be.
It was also a prelude to her first wedding day
when, coming down the aisle with Nicky Hilton,
she paused at the family pew to kiss her mother
tenderly. She planned the honeymoon, too, so that
she and Nicky, following a week at Carmel, Calif.,
and prior to their departure for Europe, would be
home for Mother's Day.
Should Elizabeth be reminded of these episodes
she would almost certainly dismiss them with an
emphatic, "Corn !"
Maybe they are a little corny. But they're
pleasanter to think about than her subsequent
disdain of her parents any time they've pre
sumed to disapprove of something she has done.
Or the way they seem to be summoned (this,
we're sure, at the behest of public-relations ex
perts) whenever public disapproval runs high.
Sara Taylor automatically puts a glamorous in
terpretation on everything Elizabeth does. But
there have been times when we wished we knew
the private thoughts of Francis Taylor, a retired
art dealer and a most dignified, knowledgeable,
and conservative gentleman.
To trace how Elizabeth's aggressiveness and
ruthlessness came into being, let us take her
husbands after Nicky Hilton, one by one. (Later
we will come back to Nicky, whom she loved
before she showed these characteristics.)
Husband No. 2 was Michael Wilding. Elizabeth
proposed to him when she was a divorcee of 19.
Twice her age, he hesitated. But she was totally
unabashed and phoned daily until he said yes.
Her pattern of feverish pursuit had begun.
The Wildings lived lavishly and casually in a
$75,000 mountaintop ranch house with all kinds
of animals and, eventually, their two sons,
Michael and Christopher. Elizabeth went about
in her bare feet much of the time. She often for
got to order dinner. And she and Michael, laugh
ing at mounting debts, showered each other with
jewels, cars, or anything that caught their fancy.
Husband No. 3, Mike Todd, was equally ex
travagant. Her engagement ring was 29 '2 carats.
"Thirty," Mike grinned, "would be vulgar."
During THE time she was on location in Ken
tucky for "Raintree County," he hired a
plane and flew her to Chicago for lunch one day
in the elegant Pump Room. On their wedding
night, fireworks of entwined hearts with the ini
tials "M. T." and "E. T. T." lit the Mexican sky.
After their marriage, she had a green Rolls Royce
to match his black one.
When Liza was born prematurely by Caesarean
section, Elizabeth opened her eyes to hospital
walls hung with a Renoir and a Monet.
Husband No. 4 was Eddie Fisher, who had
been best man at her wedding to Mike Todd.
Their relationship began a few months after
Mike's death and was marked by an ever-increasing
sclf-centeredness on Elizabeth's part. Having
"captured" Eddie, she laughed at those who
urged her to send him back to Debbie Reynolds,
his wife of less than three years, and their two
small children.
How different this was from the young Eliza
beth. At 13, she wrote and illustrated Nibbles and
Me, a little book about a chipmunk she had cap
tured and then freed because she feared it was
a wife or husband.
What caused the change? I am convinced that
it was during her honeymoon with Nicky Hilton
at Monte Carlo that the woman Elizabeth
promised to be was lost.
Nicky loved to gamble. She cared nothing for
it and used to wait for him in the Casino foyer.
Occasionally she would plead, "Please, Nicky,
can't we go home now?" But he always wanted
to play a little longer. Sometimes she returned to
their hotel alone. And mornings, while he slept,
she often appeared alone on the beach, her alarm
ing loss of weight showing, her beautiful face
white and strained.
When this honeymoon was over, the marriage
was, too. Friends believed Elizabeth was dis
traught and urged her to see a psychiatrist. But
she refused : "I have to fight this myself."
SHE FOUGHT IT HERSELF and managed to over
come a breakdown. No one has ever accused
her of lacking spirit. But she did not save herself
as a psychiatrist might have been able to do
from the harm that had been done her psyche.
It was, I'm sure, the hurt and humiliation
Elizabeth knew at Monte Carlo that since have
compelled her to triumph in her romances at all
cost as if, over and over, she must prove her
attraction for men to herself and to the world.
Anyone as accident-prone and as frequently ill
as Elizabeth must be unhappy. Within a l.'l-year
span, she is reputed to have had 56 illnesses, in
juries, and accidents.
We find Elizabeth's recent pattern frightening:
her inability to be on time . . . her short-lived
marriages . . . the uncaring way she imperils
the financial structures of her movie producers
. . . her frequent hospitalization with recurrent
rumors of sleeping pills.
Those of us who have known Elizabeth for
many years believe she could reclaim some portion
at least of the beauty of spirit she used to possess.
Her empathy is still working. Her acting, which
gets better and better, is not the result of any
theory or technique. It comes from the sensitivity
with which she identifies with her characters.
"I think about them," she says, "until I feel
what they would feel." Surely if she can identify
with fictitious people, she can identify with real
people, too like the wives and children of the
men she's attracted to or anyone who may, for one
reason or another, stand in her way.
Should Elizabeth ever focus her fierce deter
mination upon reclaiming the woman she once
promised to be, nothing will stop her.
And if she does not? Again, nothing will stop
her. Then "Whatever happened to Elizabeth
Taylor?" may no longer be a fanciful question.
It may be a very tragic one.
Knniily Weekly. January 27. lilfij
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