How to Be a Movie Star (7 page)

Once more, their destination was Bricktop's. The hostess herself, cigar in hand and orange hair glowing like fire in the smoky club, welcomed them. Bricktop could be counted on for support. In the past, she'd tossed out tourists and darkened the lights so that the couple could "nuzzle over their vino." This night, when the photographer Umberto Spagna tried to enter, Bricktop confiscated his camera. But Spagna was still able to report back to his editors what he'd glimpsed inside: "Miss Taylor and Burton kissing each other many times." Gilberto Petrucci was, as usual, luckier than most, managing to slip into the joint with his trusty Rolleiflex under his coat. Approaching the stars' table, Petrucci asked Burton if he could take a picture. Perhaps eager to make amends for his assault on the young man, Richard looked over at Elizabeth, who just smiled enigmatically. "Yes," Burton told Petrucci. "You may take one picture."

They want pictures, so let's give them pictures.

Elizabeth Taylor knew how to be famous. By 1962 she was routinely called "America's queen," the sexy, glamorous counterpoint to that other Elizabeth across the Atlantic. Like authentic royalty, Taylor was expected to live in palatial homes amid riches and splendor that set her apart from common people—and she didn't disappoint. But like real kings and queens, she was also expected to show herself from time to time. Elizabeth understood this. At this particular moment the people needed to see her, and so out into the limelight she strode in her leopard-print fur coat. Yes, she'd give them pictures—but always in her way. When she'd had enough, she'd flip the photographers the finger, ruining their shots.

She knew how to end a publicity session. In 1962 there were still some pictures that would never be allowed in print.

She might not have jumped in the Trevi Fountain the way Anita Ekberg did in
La Dolce Vita,
but she might as well have. Elizabeth and Richard partied at Bricktop's until 3
A.M.
, causing another round of pandemonium as they left. The next day newspapers around the world splashed photos of the couple across their front pages.
LIZ AND BURTON FROLIC IN ROME; KISS, DANCE,
bannered the
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.
"How did I know the woman was so fucking famous?" an astonished Burton asked. "She knocks Khrushchev off the front page!"

It was the kind of coverage publicists live for—yet Jack Brodsky was still unsure how the Taylor-Burton stroll along the Via Veneto would play with the public. As
Cleopatra's
publicist, he'd been forewarned about their plans; he'd wired his assistant in New York the day before: "Burton, Taylor going out in public for first time. Get under the desk. Am terrified." So were the Fox higherups. But they seemed to agree that it was time to make a move, take a chance. But it was essential that Elizabeth and Richard not appear out of control. So Brodsky made sure every reporter got the memo that the two stars, despite their late hours, had arrived on time in the morning, ready to go to work.

That weekend brought more of the same. "Elizabeth Taylor and her three children piled into Richard Burton's black and white Lincoln today and they all went off to the beach," Reynolds Packard reported in the
New York Daily News,
"with photographers on motor scooters swarming around them like flies at a picnic." Burton was able to shake them off along the winding roads leading out of the city, but the happy family-to-be was caught later that day at Corsetti's restaurant at Torvaianica. Seated around a large table, Elizabeth, Richard, and the children were eating seafood cocktail and lobster. Afterward Elizabeth insisted on topping off the meal with a lavish dessert, a sweet concoction of ice cream, strawberries, pineapple, and Chartreuse, a liqueur made by Carthusian monks.

When she was finished, she patted her stomach and declared herself "quite satisfied all around."

That night Kurt Frings, the former pugilist who'd strong-armed Fox into agreeing to Elizabeth's groundbreaking salary, arrived in New York from Rome. He was carrying a "personal message" from Elizabeth to Eddie Fisher—as if all the publicity with Burton hadn't been message enough. Fisher was finally forced to face facts. On April 2, the day after Elizabeth and Richard's beach outing, Louis Nizer, the attorney for both Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, announced that the couple would be seeking a divorce in a release that one news report compared to "an official military or diplomatic conference communiqué."

No word from Sybil. Richard had not yet assured Elizabeth that he, too, would leave his spouse. But that didn't stop "Liz and Dick" from continuing to frolic—and sell lots of newspapers. They became the talk of two continents now more than ever, setting the stage for scandal. Hedda Hopper wasn't the only one sharpening her claws. Gossip columnist Suzy was the first to weigh in. "Elizabeth Taylor is going to have her cake and eat it, too," she wrote. "And if she wants
your
cake—watch out. Because she's going to get it. She got Debbie Reynolds' cake. Frosting and all. And she licked her ruby lips over every last crumb. Now she's after Sybil Burton's cake ... Such a rich diet, no matter how strong a girl's stomach, can sometimes give her indigestion. I think Miss Taylor is going to get indigestion."

Elizabeth understood what she faced. Columnists like Suzy and Hopper were declaring that her career was over. A harried Dick Hanley was taking messages at all hours from studio executives worried that the publicity would tip against them. And though Elizabeth wouldn't learn of it for a few more weeks, her actions had even inspired passionate debate in the corridors of power—the Vatican and the United States Congress—over what to do about this moral "vagrant."

Some years later the poet Philip Larkin would famously opine that sexual intercourse was invented in 1963—a metaphorical observation of changing cultural mores—yet, in fact, Larkin seems to have been a year off. For it was in April 1962 that an adulterous couple first stared defiantly into the cameras and flaunted their "sin" without apology. It's hard to imagine today, with marriage being largely irrelevant among celebrity couples, how incendiary such behavior was once considered. But the last star who had so transgressed, Ingrid Bergman (who'd borne a child out of wedlock with the director Roberto Rossellini in 1950), had found herself persona non grata (at least in the United States) for nearly a decade. Elizabeth, by refusing to hide her affair with Burton, was confronting similar public standards. Yet she seemed to be betting that the world had evolved since Bergman's troubles. And if it hadn't, she was prepared to nudge it along.

Elizabeth Taylor knew what worked. She had been out there a long time and could sense the climate. Heading out with Richard once again along the Via Veneto, she wore her Egyptian eye makeup and hoop earrings from that day's shoot. Studio-generated press releases, run nearly verbatim in newspaper fashion sections, had been proclaiming for weeks that Cleopatra's "fantastic, exotic" beauty was the latest trend for women. The cover of
Look
featured Elizabeth's exotic face and asked, "Will her new Cleopatra look change your hairdo and makeup?" Society hairstylist Michel Kazan had developed a special Cleopatra hairstyle; Kurlash had launched a new line of false eyelashes called "Egyptian Eyes." Syndicated fashion columnist Tobe advised readers to copy Elizabeth's look if they wanted "to be first with the newest."

Elizabeth was fully conscious of her ability to set the vogue. Sitting beside Burton in the front seat of her Cadillac, her chin held high, her exotic Egyptian eyes undisturbed by the popping of flashcubes all around her, she looked every inch the queen.

And she knew very well that tomorrow morning millions of newspapers would be sold because she had decided to venture out onto the street. She was also just as confident about
Cleopatra;
hadn't every film in which she'd starred been a hit so far? Who could resist seeing Taylor and Burton together on the screen after all this?

Of course, she couldn't be certain about everything. She didn't know just how brutal the battle with Hedda and her cronies might become. She didn't know if the script Joe Mankiewicz was rewriting every night would turn out to be any good. She didn't know if Eddie would drag her name through the mud, or if he'd attempt to take Maria from her. And she certainly didn't know if Richard would ever divorce his wife.

But as she stepped out of the Cadillac and into the glare of the flashing cameras, she knew one thing and she knew it very well.

She knew how to be a movie star.

Two

Educating a Movie Star

Spring 1943–Fall 1945

S
ARA
S
OTHERN
T
AYLOR
had just one thing on her mind that morning in the spring of 1943 as her driver steered her Chrysler down Washington Boulevard past the long stucco wall separating Lot One from the street: making her eleven-year-old daughter Elizabeth, seated demurely beside her, a star.

At the studio gates her driver rolled down his window to signal a turn as Sara and her daughter gazed up at the tall Corinthian columns guarding the entrance. It was here at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that Elizabeth Taylor learned her first lessons in how to be a movie star. As they drove onto the lot, Elizabeth kept her eyes on the white marble Thalberg Memorial Building with its central tower. Her mother had carefully explained that inside were the offices of Louis B. Mayer, the studio head who figured more prominently in Sara's cosmos than any deity.

Their driver let them out on the wide avenue that ran down the center of the main lot. Regular players affectionately called it "the alley." Elizabeth had been working at MGM for several months now, making $100 a week just to come in every morning even if she wasn't needed for a film. In fact, she'd made just two pictures in that time, one for the studio and one as a loan-out to Fox; both had been small parts that, while showy, had done little to promote the career of the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl. Sara was tired of it. Her daughter's future was her
job,
she believed. Wasn't MGM paying her an additional hundred a week for "coaching and chaperoning services"?

Not wasting a second, Sara spotted the director Clarence Brown, set to helm
National Velvet,
the story of a little English girl who masquerades as a boy and rides her horse to victory in the Grand National. Sara took hold of her daughter's hand, and Brown's quiet morning walk by himself was suddenly ended.

"Two diminutive but formidable females," as Brown described them, blocked his way down the alley where actors and extras in full-dress costume were making their way to the soundstages. Brown looked askance at mother and daughter, who spoke simultaneously.

"She's the right actress to portray Velvet Brown," Sara insisted.

"It's my favorite book," Elizabeth added.

Not wanting to give false encouragement, Brown—the director of Garbo and Norma Shearer—beat a hasty retreat down the alley, but his pursuers were not the kind to be shaken off easily. They pursued him all across the lot, "prattling on," hounding him past Stage Five, where production numbers for MGM's musicals were shot. Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson were there that day, tapping their way across the stage for
Thousands Cheer.
Judy Garland might have been there that day as well, shooting the final scenes of
Presenting Lily Mars,
the pinnacle of her teenage glamour period.

But nothing could distract mother and daughter from their chase. Shouting a breathless litany of reasons why Elizabeth would be perfect for the film, they stalked Brown past Stage Fifteen, the largest soundstage in the world, where MGM prop men were busy assembling a full-scale aircraft carrier for
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.
By the time Brown had reached Overland Avenue, the tenacious pair was still scurrying behind him, harrying him onto Lot Two, a surreal landscape of fantasy and illusion. The brownstone facades of New York overlapped with nineteenth-century London. Across the way was Tarzan's jungle and Esther Williams's shiny modern swimming pool. Mother and daughter pursued the director past mirage after mirage: the ruins of the Chinese temple from
The Good Earth,
the Main Line mansion of
The Philadelphia Story,
Andy Hardy's house. Opposite the train station last used in
Waterloo Bridge
stretched a replica of a New York pier, complete with a life-size ocean liner. Actually, one
eighth
of an ocean liner. That was all the camera needed. It was a landscape of bits and pieces.

No doubt Elizabeth paused to marvel, or at least tried to. "I was terrifically impressed," she'd recall after her first tour of the studio. "The lot was so huge—at that time they were doing maybe thirty films at once and it was teeming with life—people dressed up in Greek clothes, people dressed up as cowboys, people dressed up as apes, and real live movie stars. Of course, everybody, even the extras, looked like movie stars to me."

In 1943 MGM was a veritable city unto itself. "When I think of MGM," said actress Elinor Donahue, "I think of light and color and flowers and bigness. Everything was just
big.
" Indeed, more than thirty soundstages on five different lots covered 176 acres. A private police force with nearly fifty officers kept the peace. There was a clinic, a dentist's office, a foundry, a commissary that fed employees at any time of the day. "It was a complete city," said actress Janet Leigh. "You could live there."

The commissary was surprisingly egalitarian, with extras rubbing elbows with stars, and everyone sipping Mr. Mayer's mother's chicken soup made with matzo balls. "The commissary seemed huge to me," Donahue said. "Years later, when I went back to MGM, it didn't seem quite so big, but for a young girl it was enormous. Lunches were called usually around the same time, so you'd have the whole lot in there. You'd look out and see Judy Garland and Spencer Tracy strolling in from their sets, still in costume. The place was filled with every star. I remember Xavier Cugat coming in carrying his miniature Chihuahua in his pocket."