How to Be a Movie Star (55 page)

What everyone was waiting for was Martha. On June 24, 1966,
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
opened at the Criterion Theatre in New York. Two thousand people pushed through the doors to watch the Burtons spit, snarl, and scrape at each other. At first, the Production Code Administration had refused to grant the film a seal of approval, but then Jack Valenti, the new president of the Motion Picture Association of America, had pressured the group to change its mind. But many theaters, including the Criterion, would allow those under eighteen to attend only with a parent or guardian.

The seal proved irrelevant. By refusing to change a line of the script, Nichols, Lehman, and Warner Bros. had accomplished something tremendous: They had effectively ended three decades of the Production Code's draconian rule. "The Code is dead," the trade paper
Motion Picture Daily
editorialized the week after
Virginia Woolf
's premiere. Indeed, the PCA was soon obsolete, replaced by the ratings system that would dominate for the next thirty years.

The legacy of
Virginia Woolf
would be a new era, one that, as Vincent Canby described it in the
New York Times,
allowed "the public morality in film to reflect more accurately the state of private morality." Once again, it was Elizabeth Taylor at the center of a moral contest, and once again, she was on the winning side.

In fact, she won more than that. From coast to coast and across the Atlantic, critics were swooning over her bold portrayal of Martha. "The finest performance of her career," crowed the
Motion Pic-
ture Herald.
The
New York Times
agreed, calling Elizabeth's work "sustained and urgent...[charged] with the utmost of her powers."
Variety
thought she'd earned "every penny of her million plus," and
Time
declared that she was "loud, sexy, vulgar [and] pungent" while still achieving "moments of astonishing tenderness." Indeed, "astonishing" is the best way to sum up her performance. She slashes her way so fiercely through the film that we can almost see the rips in the celluloid made by her fingernails. She's cruel and cunning, and yet we root for her, too. She inspires compassion as much as revulsion, perhaps even more so. At the end of the picture, one sits back out of breath, heart pounding. It is a remarkable cinematic achievement. The widespread consensus among critics was that the little girl who had started out making pictures with Lassie had surpassed all expectations that anyone ever had for her.

Elizabeth was flabbergasted. She'd expected to be skewered by the critics. As the picture wrapped, she'd told Lehman that reviewers always blasted her. He suggested that maybe she should have someone screen her reviews for her, but she wouldn't hear of it. "I'm not a masochist," she said, "but I do want to read everything that they say about me, even if it's bad." This time, she was pleasantly surprised and deeply gratified.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
would be the third biggest movie of 1966. Elizabeth was perched atop the list of box-office stars once more, with Julie Andrews her only female rival. So it was with some cockiness that she sauntered onto the set of
Reflections in a Golden Eye
to begin work. When presented with the idea of shooting a television documentary on the set as a promotion for the film, Elizabeth refused out of hand, defending her decision to her furious producer, Ray Stark, by saying, "I am told by a recent report from the motion picture trade papers that none of my pictures have ever lost money. These pictures were made without the benefit of a television documentary."
(Cleopatra
had finally reached its break-even point a few months earlier.)

Despite shooting in Rome and being directed by John Huston, Elizabeth didn't enjoy making
Reflections.
For the first time in four years, she didn't have Richard as a costar. He made sure to stick close by, however, bowing out of
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
in case his wife needed his help. If she'd had her way, Elizabeth would never have made another film without Richard at her side. He pooh-poohed the idea: "We don't want to be seen as Laurel and Hardy." Elizabeth countered, "What's so bad about Laurel and Hardy?"

In many ways, her role in
Reflections
was an old familiar one: the beautiful woman left unfulfilled by a repressed, tormented homosexual. But this time Elizabeth's character acts out on her own, engaging in her own affair and scheming against her husband. It was a tricky part to make sympathetic, and despite Huston's best attempts to direct her, she never really found her way. Part of the problem was that she'd expected to be working opposite Monty. But her old friend had been found dead in his home in July—a personal loss for Elizabeth that was made even worse by the casting of Marlon Brando to replace him. Although she liked her costar personally, Elizabeth found Brando's habit of continually blowing his lines, sometimes on purpose, terribly irritating; it recalled the "Method" madness inflicted on her by James Dean a decade earlier.

On top of that, she resented playing second fiddle to Brando's character. It was enough of a conflict that Stark penned a private memo to Huston: "Please let's at least write in enough scenes for Elizabeth so there can be no doubt about it being the best of co-starring parts. We can always either not shoot them or cut them out later."

So it was with some relief that she finished up the picture and hurried off to Dahomey (now Benin) in western Africa to make another picture with Richard,
The Comedians,
directed by Peter Glenville. Meanwhile, a world away,
The Taming of the Shrew
opened in New York on March 8, 1967, to surprisingly good box office; Shakespearean films didn't normally bring in the crowds. But apparently the Burtons still could. In gorgeous pastel Renaissance costumes, Elizabeth is a heaving-bosomed delight. Audiences seemed to consider all the kicking and sparring and jumping into haystacks as a glimpse into the Burtons' famously tempestuous private lives.

Hollywood was impressed. Elizabeth could still pack them in after twenty years. But would they reward her for it? She'd been nominated for an Academy Award for
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
No one had doubted that she would be. But the question on people's minds was whether Academy voters—Elizabeth's peers—felt that she'd already been rewarded enough. Those million-dollar salaries, those jewels, those houses in Switzerland and Mexico. And she already had one Oscar. Well-known award handicapper Bob Thomas gave the odds to Lynn Redgrave for her engaging performance in
Georgy Girl,
a favorite among young moviegoers. But Marilyn Beck, one of the new breed of writers who'd appeared in the wake of Hedda and Louella, had a different view, predicting that Elizabeth and Richard would be the first husband and wife to take home joint Oscars. "The emotional climate seems right for this to be the Burtons' year," Beck wrote in her syndicated column. "For Liz and Richard are now among the filmland's favorites, and don't think that such things don't have a lot to do with selecting a winner."

This was more proof of how times had changed. Elizabeth and Richard were no longer just tabloid fodder. Now they were "filmland's favorites," causing a sensation wherever they went, spicing up parties with a dash of old-time glamour in an increasingly blue jeans–and-T-shirt industry. When Elizabeth's name was read as the winner on the night of April 10, the applause that thundered through the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was heartfelt. Unlike the night six years earlier when she'd won for a film that she'd respected much less, Elizabeth was not present to receive her award. She was no longer a denizen of Hollywood; she graced them with her presence only on rare and special occasions. But the next day her photo landed on the front pages of newspapers around the world. Richard didn't win, however, much to her chagrin, and neither did Mike Nichols, but Sandy Dennis did take home the supporting actress trophy.

Despite the slight to her husband, it seemed that in this new world order, Elizabeth Taylor was still queen. She alone had anticipated what was to come. Every criticism made of her, every action taken against her, was eventually proven wrong or overturned. Her way of seeing the world prevailed, as the lawsuits she faced were settled one by one, largely in her favor. When one of the exhibitors suing over
Cleopatra
argued that he'd lost revenues because audiences didn't want their money going to "that woman," Appellate Judge Gilbert H. Jertberg looked at him in disbelief. Undeterred, the exhibitor pressed forward, even if he had no evidence that Elizabeth and Richard had hurt his business. All he had to bolster his argument was his own umbrage. "In this case," he said indignantly before the court, "they were each married to someone else."Jertberg gave him a trenchant look. "But that's no longer very shocking, is it?" the judge asked.

Indeed, it was not.

"We're all
dieting,
so no dessert," Elizabeth told her entourage one night in the royal suite at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. "That's why we are ordering lima beans, corn on the cob, steak and kidney pie, and mashed potatoes."

Elizabeth was thirty-five years old and on top of the world. Whatever she wanted, she could have. And tonight she was hungry.

"God, I love food," she gushed to Liz Smith, entertainment editor for
Cosmopolitan,
as the entrées arrived. "And wine, I adore wine." But when she took a gander at the bottles that Richard had ordered, she scrunched up her face. "Really, Agatha," she said, using one of her pet nicknames for her husband. "Are you saving money again? Really, I don't believe you, you are so
cheap.
"

"Quiet, Tubby," Burton responded, "or I shall belt thee in thy tiny chops."

"Listen," Elizabeth said, wagging a finger at the waiter. "I think I'll have a hot fudge sundae."

No one dared remind her about the diet.

Glancing around the hotel suite, Smith pondered what exactly it was that made the Burtons so larger than life. She watched as Alexandre fussed over Elizabeth's hair while the star polished off her sundae. Behind them, a secretary was on the telephone, ordering lingerie from Henri Bendel. "Money, stardom, fame, and married sexual excess were not their gods," Smith observed, "at this point, anyway." It was
food,
she realized, penning a hilarious, notorious piece about the Burtons' culinary intemperance.

And yet while Smith was being funny, she was also quite serious. By the later part of the 1960s, Elizabeth's raison d'être was the voracious acquisition of all that would sustain, fulfill, and satiate her: wine and mashed potatoes and hot fudge sundaes, to be sure, but also Alexandre's elaborate Parisian hairstyles and the lacy slips sent over from Henri Bendel.

And the jewels. Definitely the jewels.

As the Burtons and their crew sailed "unobtrusively" out of the Plaza, Smith hurried to tag along, taking notes all the way. Elizabeth wore a coffee-colored suede coat trimmed with fox. Her eyes were "flashing like 'walk' signs." They climbed into a robin's-egg-blue Rolls-Royce in order to ride two blocks to David Webb's jewelry store. When they walked in, store employees sprang to attention "as if we were wearing stocking masks," Smith wrote.

"I want to see some rings and things," Elizabeth announced. "Nothing over $5,000." Trays of jewelry suddenly materialized around her. Alexandre was nearly orgasmic, slipping rings onto his fingers, but Richard just rolled his eyes. "A steal at $4,000," he said sarcastically, looking at one piece.

Elizabeth shot him a look. "Richard, you don't understand, man. This stuff is not just ordinary diamonds-and-rubies junk. This is
it
now—it's very chic." She already had several of the gold and silver rings jammed onto her short, chubby fingers.

Turning her attention to the sales clerk, she asked sweetly, "What will these pieces be with my
spectacular
discount?" With a grand wave, she indicated several leopard, zebra, and serpent rings. "Never mind," she said quickly. "Send them to the hotel, and these too." She pointed at a $2,500 cigarette lighter and a $29,000 shell purse.

This was Elizabeth's fame now. In October 1967 there were no movies on the immediate horizon. Three had just opened:
Reflections in a Golden Eye
and
The Comedians
in New York and
Doctor Faustus
in London. None were big moneymakers. The cockiness that Elizabeth had displayed to Ray Stark now rang awfully hollow; for the first time, not just
one
Elizabeth Taylor movie, but
three,
failed to cash in at the box office. Not even
Reflections
—which had promoted the latest (and as always discreet) nude shot of La Taylor with a suggestive tagline, "Leave the children home."

Yet in some ways box office didn't matter anymore to Elizabeth. In February 1968 the New York premiere of
Doctor Faustus
brought out the Robert Kennedys and the Peter Lawfords and even Spyros Skouras, who let the past be the past and toasted the Burtons grandly. Outside the theater, another riot broke out. "We just stepped right on one poor man who had fallen," Elizabeth said. "I couldn't help it, the way they were shoving and clawing at us."

"It was Bobby Kennedy who saved us," Richard said, describing the fracas the next day. "He just took over. He turned to those cops and snapped, 'Is there a police car outside? Well, get the Burtons into it.' He is a fantastic person."

"We adore Bobby Kennedy," Elizabeth echoed. "We simply adore him."

Richard couldn't get over the fuss that people still made over them. "Here were these two middle-aged people, Elizabeth and me, merely trying to get into the cinema," he said.

Elizabeth sighed. "I thought we were all through with that sort of thing. I thought we had gone over the popularity hill. The crowd was strange: not the usual types along in years who might hang around to see us, but a young groovy bunch—like hippies almost."