BETWEEN HER precocious childhood debut in films that were old Hollywood at its most innocent – National Velvetand the Lassieseries – and her fiery tour-de-force in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Taylor became one of the great icons of her era. From the start, she was one of the most striking beauties ever to appear on screen and the epitome of Tinseltown glamour.
The doe-eyed child star later proved she was no shrinking violet when it came to dealing with the man’s world of Hollywood. Her reputation as a tempestuous diva, who knew her worth, added the ingredient that ensured here was a true legend. While she made her share of forgettable films that made no great demands on her considerable acting talents, her luminous screen presence was such that even in her lesser roles Taylor was a magnetic force in front of the camera.
Five Oscar nominations – two successes among them – are a testimony to the serious side of her acting abilities. In Virginia Woolfshe was more than a match for Richard Burton and opposite him in the film that spawned their off-screen relationship, Cleopatra, she was as dazzling as the jewels men showered on her.
The effect of her striking good looks on the Welsh actor was such that he went into lyrical overdrive: “She was famine, fire, destruction, plague . . . her body was a miracle of construction . . . she was unquestionably gorgeous”.
Her accomplishments as an actor were often overshadowed by her private life and the publicity surrounding her eight marriages and marital break-ups. While all of her relationships were fodder for the gossip and showbiz columns, it was her affair and marriage to Burton that kept the paparazzi on her trail and prefigured today’s obsession with celebrity. That sometimes turbulent relationship and her scarlet woman image even caught the attention of the Vatican, which accused her of “erotic vagrancy”.
In her later years as a Hollywood grande dame, Taylor lived in the afterglow of the adoration she received as a young actor whose performances had more than a hint of the erotic about them. But she didn’t become a Hollywood recluse: when it was still a taboo subject she took up the cause of HIV/Aids research and was very publicly to the fore in her support of the gay community. One of the greatest tributes paid to her came from a screen idol who himself happened to be gay, Montgomery Clift, when he said she was “the only woman I ever met who turns me on”.