By Samantha Gleisten
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Young Elizabeth Taylor with kitten.
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"The human being who acts is the human being who lives. That is a terrifying circumstance," wrote the famed American method-acting teacher Lee Strassberg. Although she never had an acting lesson, nothing could be closer to the truth for Elizabeth Taylor.
Volumes have been written on her film career, tumultuous and numerous marriages, struggles with self-image, substance abuse, and her valiant fight against the AIDS epidemic. She is a living legend who captivates her audience on and off the screen. Taylor is the last of a lost breed. She is a Hollywood star, borne of the studio system, the last of America's screen royalty.
Born on February 27, 1932 in London, England, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor spent her first seven years in England, where she learned how to ride a horse and pirouette. "I learnt to ride in England bareback, but I had to leave [my horse] in England when the War broke out, but they were the happiest days of my childhood because I rode and I went to ballet school," remembers Taylor in GREAT PERFORMANCES' "Elizabeth Taylor: England's Other Elizabeth."
As World War II spread through Europe, Taylor's American-born parents decided to return to the United States. They settled in Beverly Hills, where Taylor was first noticed by talent scouts at the tender age of ten. She made her motion picture debut in THERE'S ONE BORN EVERY MINUTE in 1942. The following year, Taylor's film career began to take form when her father met MGM producer Sam Marx. After hearing about little Elizabeth's English accent, Marx auditioned Taylor for the film LASSIE COME HOME. She got the part, and became part of the roster of actors under contract with the famed studio: "They signed me up for eighteen years," she recalls.
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Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor's co-star in NATIONAL VELVET and THE MIRROR CRACK'D.
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The film that truly determined her status as an emerging star was NATIONAL VELVET, released in 1944. Playing Velvet Brown, Taylor captivated audiences with her beauty and natural talent. "She was a little girl, she was eleven years old, and I remember being, even at that time, dazzled by her. Her coloring was so extraordinary. The violet blue eyes, and the dark hair and rack freckles, and the natural color in her cheeks; she was just the most glorious looking little girl I had ever seen," recalls NATIONAL VELVET co-star Angela Lansbury.
Seven years and ten films after she played the young girl determined to win the Grand National Steeplechase in NATIONAL VELVET, she starred opposite Montgomery Clift in A PLACE IN THE SUN. She was only 17, and had gracefully blossomed before the camera, without missing a beat. The film marked Taylor's transformation and defined her as an adult actor capable of great emotional depth. "I still would camp around on the set and drive everybody mad and give them the giggles and be silly and all that, but when I saw Monty [Clift] preparing I thought, my God, it isn't all about just having fun. And I think that's when I first looked at him and saw how involved he was: his whole being. He could make himself shake, and he couldn't stop after the director said 'cut.' He would sweat real sweat, and I thought, I've just been playing with toys," remembers Taylor.
The pair lit up the screen with their electric beauty again in RAINTREE COUNTRY (1957) and SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1959). "They're a pair of beautiful people who can welcome the camera up close, and who can share their emotional intensity and passion very easily in front of the camera. Whatever [Clift's] training was that gave him access to that kind of thing that he could use as a performance, she had the same access by some kind of natural instinct," says Jeanine Basinger, film historian, Wesleyan University.
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Film historian Jeanine Basinger.
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Taylor's striking beauty has been a muse to many. In the words of Truman Capote: "The face, with those lilac eyes, is a prisoner's dream, a secretary's self-fantasy: unreal, non-attainable, at the same time shy, overly vulnerable, very human with the flicker of suspicion constantly flaring behind the lilac eyes." Her artful yet human gaze ignited each character she portrayed with the right combination of intensity and sensitivity. Add natural instincts, ready subtext, and an acute emotional intelligence, and perhaps we arrive at what makes Taylor's performances sizzle.
A mark of her impact can be felt with a mere mention of some of her most memorable roles: as the energized, lovesick Maggie in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, opposite Paul Newman; her Academy Award-winning performance as Gloria Wandrous in BUTTERFIELD 8; her powerful role as the beautiful Queen of the Nile in CLEOPATRA; and, of course, Martha, the middle-aged harridan on a booze-filled night, in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, playing opposite her then-husband, Richard Burton. The pair delivered a spine-tingling performance of incredible depth and complexity. She won her second Academy Award for the role of Martha, arguably her best. "The best work of her career, sustained and urgent. She gets vocal variety, never relapses out of her role, and she charges it with the utmost of her powers," wrote the NEW YORK TIMES.
Elizabeth Taylor is a transformational actress, capable of creating complete and distinct worlds for each of her characters. "You get a rush of being that person, and being true to that person and what they would do -- not what you would do, what they would do," says Taylor.
She has appeared in almost 80 movies; she has received three Oscars, including the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her work in the fight against AIDS, and 15 other notable awards. Last May, she was dubbed Dame Elizabeth Taylor by the Queen of the country of her birth, in celebration of her life's work.
Actress, humanitarian, businesswoman, as well as author, Elizabeth Taylor has done it all. As she said in one of her books, ELIZABETH TAKES OFF: "I believe in taking life in both hands and squeezing the most out of it." And she has certainly accomplished just that.
Photo of Elizabeth Taylor: Pictorial Press.
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