“She certainly followed her heart. Regardless where it took her.” —Jerry Seinfeld
“If love is blind, Elizabeth Taylor has gone blind at least a dozen times. Temporarily . . . she’s pretty clear-eyed. She doesn’t let an affair or marriage cut her off from the rest of her life.” —Jack Haley Jr., director (That’s Entertainment!)
“The public thinks of Miss Taylor as just an actress and a very glamorous wife. There’s much more to her than that.” —ET’s publicist Chen Sam
“Like the little girl in the fairy tale, Elizabeth is in love with love. She’s happiest when she is in love.”
—mother Sara Taylor
“Being a mother is a vital part of Elizabeth’s life. She is a devoted mother, and has been for a long time. . . . Her husbands are also a big part of Elizabeth’s life, but only part of her life. Of course, when photographs and newsreels show only her and her latest husband, that’s all the world sees and knows about.”
—friend since childhood Roddy McDowall
“When we did Lassie, Come Home, Elizabeth said she wanted a Collie of her own. Or a Collie puppy and a baby. I teased her, I asked which would she choose, a puppy or a baby? She said a puppy because it was easier to take care of and quieter than a baby, which her mother probably wouldn’t let her have.”
—Roddy McDowall, four years ET’s senior
“We’d both gone to the MGM high school, which was one room with a tiny bathroom where Elizabeth would hide to avoid lessons. The teacher would wait about fifteen minutes and then knock on the door and ask if Elizabeth was all right. Elizabeth always had some excuse for why she needed to be locked in the little girls’ room. She was growing from a beautiful child into a beautiful woman who didn’t think she needed to spend time on lessons. I was seventeen and still planned to be a gym teacher.”
—Debbie Reynolds
“Like many pretty child actresses, Elizabeth Taylor didn’t assume she’d be acting forever. Most girls considered the option of giving up acting for a good, meaning moneyed, marriage. . . . By sixteen or seventeen many of them had had their fill of acting, which was usually their mother’s idea anyway.” —“plain jane” ex–child star Jane Withers
“One scandal Elizabeth didn’t engage in was having a child out of wedlock. Maybe she remembered how doing so cost Ingrid Bergman her Hollywood career—she had to go to Europe to find work. . . . It’s not surprising both her daughters avoided the acting profession. How could they hope to compete with Elizabeth Taylor?”
—Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond)
“Elizabeth doesn’t necessarily approve of it but she doesn’t judge actresses who’ve had a love child, like Vanessa Redgrave. If she judges Redgrave, it’s for her anti-Israel stance and hypocrisy. . . . Elizabeth would only have a child in wedlock, thinking of her child’s comfort and its future. So-called illegitimacy was a most significant stigma in the past.”
—producer Renée Valente
“The public almost never sees Elizabeth Taylor’s children. That is by design.”
—photographer Kenn Duncan
“When one of her sons had a daughter out of wedlock, Elizabeth was not pleased. But it was the 1970s, things had changed and judgments softened. She adjusted to the situation. She’s never been exactly a prig.”—actress Constance Ford (A Summer Place)
“Few people outside Hollywood are aware that Liz Taylor is a shrewd businesswoman and a tough negotiator. It’s not new to her, like with Lucille Ball when she took over RKO studios. When a girl becomes her family’s main and then sole financial support, as with Liz or Shirley Temple, she soon becomes aware of her fiscal responsibilities and opportunities. Regardless of her public image.” —film historian Doug McClelland
“I’ve been compared more often with Marilyn [Monroe], I guess because of being blonde. In reality I identify more with Liz Taylor. She’s a strong personality whose personal and professional choices got her a lot of flak. But she’s outlasted all that, hasn’t she?”
—Madonna
“There’s almost nothing an actress can do today to ruin her career, and few things for an actor. During Elizabeth Taylor’s long career there were many things . . . many times her career could have just stopped. . . . She quit acting only when she decided to, when her health got worse.” —Neil Patrick Harris
“If she’d been that concerned about her career, Elizabeth Taylor wouldn’t have taken so many chances. Each scandal threatened her ability to find work. She wasn’t some careful career strategist.”
—Hugh Grant
“I don’t think she gives or gave a flying fig what the masses think. It’s refreshing that Miss Taylor did her own thing back when people and especially stars were so very careful about what everyone else thought.” —costar Hermione Gingold (A Little Night Music)
“Liz Taylor didn’t back down. Didn’t apologize. Many people admired that. . . . Look at when Jane Fonda apologized for being photographed in Hanoi. The same people hating her for it still hated her after the apology. To my knowledge, Liz never apologized for anything. Not publicly.” —Walter Matthau
“Elizabeth did apologize to me and we became friends. We had a lot in common—we couldn’t stand Eddie Fisher! . . . Eventually we even worked together [in the telefilm These Old Broads, cowritten by daughter Carrie Fisher]. . . . I was one of the last people Elizabeth telephoned before she died.” —Debbie Reynolds
“Taylor stood next to Sybil Burton Christopher [at a memorial for Roddy McDowall] and to my surprise embraced her. The tabloids had written at length about the two women’s enmity, which began when Richard left Sybil for Elizabeth. Their reconciliation was apparently not salacious enough to report.” —ET biographer M. G. Lord
“She touched on the topic of her career ending. It didn’t much concern her. She’d been in the movies since childhood and could walk away from it. Inasfar as money, there were savings in the bank and Elizabeth knew there would always be rich men willing to gift her with diamonds and funds so long as her looks lasted, and beyond that, so long as her fame lasted.” —producer Renée Valente
“In a good mood, Elizabeth told a fan who was staring at her from about ten feet away, ‘I look younger if you squint.’”
—ET’s secretary Roger Wall
“There was a stage project I tried several times to launch. It did not eventuate. Much later, in conversation with Elizabeth Taylor I told her about it. She insisted that to get what you want all you have to do is scream and yell and keep yelling until you get it. At first I thought she was joking. I doubt it would have worked for me.”
—actress Lilli Palmer, a former wife of Rex Harrison
“Sometimes she’s very inconsistent. She’s ruled by caprices . . . she’s so volatile, her moods change quickly. If she contradicts herself, she has no qualms about it, that’s just her nature. Elizabeth isn’t one to excuse herself.”
—Milton Katselas, who directed ET in the play Private Lives
“Elizabeth doted on Dr. Arnold Klein, who she said literally saved her life. He became Michael Jackson’s dermatologist. After Jackson died and Klein publicly admitted Michael was gay, Elizabeth turned on him, though she herself urged [costume designer] Nolan Miller several times to come out of the closet.”
—novelist and Hollywood insider Jackie Collins
“Her sympathies are liberal but her inclination is without question pretty materialistic.”
—costar Peter Ustinov (The Comedians)
“Making her happy was what made me happy. I couldn’t buy enough for her. I guess that was the Mike [Todd] in me. I gave her jewels and clothes and furs. How many jewels were enough for the woman I loved? Just a few more than she had. For her twenty-seventh birthday I had a handbag made studded with twenty-seven diamonds spelling out LIZ. I never called her Liz, but even I couldn’t afford ELIZABETH.”
—fourth husband Eddie Fisher
“After Cleopatra Richard Burton’s salary zoomed. He still didn’t earn as much as she, but he looked to be spending more than her. When diamonds were purchased, he did the purchasing, she did the receiving. Whether in return she contributed more to their living expenses, only their accountant knows for sure.”
—costar Julie Harris (Reflections in a Golden Eye)
“In effect, Burton was buying her all those jewels with money she enabled him to earn. She could easily have afforded to buy her own. I guess it made him feel more macho. He was the big spender who made sure everybody knew it. One of those outsized diamonds he bought Liz, he posed with it hanging on his forehead. Burton made several movies in Hollywood but he didn’t become a Hollywood star until Liz.”
—talk show host Skip E. Lowe
“Aaron Frosch once said that between us we created as much business as a small African state.”
—from Richard Burton’s diary entry for October 24, 1968 (regarding his lawyer’s comment on the Taylor-Burton earnings)
“Even if it was more or less an illusion, Elizabeth Taylor enjoyed the idea and gesture of a man giving her expensive jewelry. To her, it was a proof of love. Not that one magnificent piece of jewelry was enough proof.”
—former MGM star Esther Williams
“The Peregrina Pearl only cost $37,000 but its provenance gave Burton international publicity. Philip, king of Spain, gave it to Mary Tudor—elder daughter of Henry VIII and half sister of Elizabeth I—in 1554. As a Catholic monarch she was nicknamed Bloody Mary by English Protestants. Richard loved the history and romance of La Peregrina [meaning The Pilgrim] and wanted to write a book about it. But it cost him approximately $100,000 more to buy Elizabeth a pearl-ruby-and-diamond necklace to hang it from.”
—diamond merchant S. A. Rabinowitz
“When Richard Burton bought Elizabeth the Krupp diamond [33.19 carats, $305,000] I thought it was grandstanding. But Elizabeth lightened the mood. The previous owner was the widow of Baron Krupp, a convicted Nazi arms manufacturer. So Elizabeth told the press, ‘It’s fitting that a nice little Jewish girl like me has ended up with the baron’s rock.’ Don’t you love it?” —Lauren Bacall
“My great-grandfather was a Polish Jew named Jan Ysar, and that was the family name until they changed it to Jenkins. It’s true, I’m one-eighth Jewish. Elizabeth hasn’t a drop of Jewish blood. I’ve told her so. It makes her furious.” —Richard Burton
“Is that the famous diamond? It’s so large. How very vulgar. . . . Would you mind if I tried it on?”
—Princess Margaret to ET about the Krupp diamond
“Sometime in the late ’60s Richard was in a very foul mood. They were in a restaurant in Italy and Elizabeth reached across the table to him. What he said really cost him: ‘I do not wish to touch your hands. They are large and ugly and red and masculine.’ Elizabeth was stunned. But she found a way for him to make up. There was a certain diamond ring she fancied. She told Richard, ‘It will make my ugly, big hands look smaller and less ugly. . . .’” —Sam Kashner, coauthor of the ET-RB biography Furious Love
“Lloyds’ insurance guidelines were strict. The diamond had to be stored in a vault, armed security men had to accompany Elizabeth Taylor whenever she wore it, and she could only wear it in public for thirty days out of the year. Small wonder she had a copy made for under $3,000 and sometimes wore it out instead.” —Sarah Petit, a Newsweek editor
“What became known as the Taylor-Burton diamond, one of the world’s largest at 69.42 carats, came up for auction in 1969. Richard Burton authorized his solicitor [lawyer] to telephone-bid up to $1 million. Cartier barely outbid him. Aristotle Onassis had wanted it for Jackie but not for over $700,000. The Taylors were despondent, so Richard’s man approached Cartier directly. He was willing to pay up to $2 million . . . he got it for about $1.1 million. But it was too large for a ring, so it became the pear-shaped centerpiece of an $80,000 diamond necklace, insured by Lloyds of London.” —jeweler Schuyler Dann
“Three men carrying identical briefcases, only one of which contained the Taylor-Burton diamond, left New York by plane for Nice, escorted by an armed security guard. From Nice they crossed the frontier of Monaco, where the Kalizma was berthed in Monte Carlo harbor. Once there, another armed guard, complete with submachine gun, was hired to protect the jewel.” —Nancy Schoenberger, coauthor of Furious Love
“Richard and Elizabeth named their yacht the Kalizma after their daughters . . . his daughter Kate, her daughter Liza, and their adopted daughter Maria. But it left out his daughter Jessica, who was mentally challenged and had to be institutionalized.”
—Ron Berkeley, Richard Burton’s hairdresser
“Not many people know that Elizabeth adopted a little German girl, then paid for over 20 operations to correct her hip deformity. She adopted Maria with Eddie Fisher. When they divorced Elizabeth asked for and received custody—he didn’t care. So she gave Maria her next husband’s name . . . Maria Burton. Her fourth child.”
—Fay Kanin, AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) president and screenwriter (ET’s Rhapsody)
“Ms. Taylor is a dedicated and generous godmother . . . to the adopted son of her friend [and interior designer] Waldo Fernandez and his life partner. Elizabeth Taylor has inveighed against those remaining states whose laws prohibit gay or lesbian couples from adopting. It’s a topic that, properly so, riles her.” —actress-activist Jane Lynch (Glee)
“Elizabeth placed her jewels in red leather boxes, eventually amassing an $8 million collection. Her total wealth at the time [circa 1968], according to Richard, was $20 million; his, $10 million. They could well afford to be generous to their staff of thirty.”
—The Most Beautiful Woman in the World author Ellis Amburn
“The people who worked for them worshipped them.”
—writer-producer Dominick Dunne
“She has a tendency to treat her male escorts, husbands too, like assistants or even servants. When they stand up to her she often stands right back up to them, like they’re being impertinent. But, after all, she is Hollywood royalty.”
—talk show host Mike Douglas
“Elizabeth Taylor grew up spoiled but her parents must have taught her manners. Unlike so many Americans, she often uses ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and she performs good table manners. . . . It has been remarked that she behaves better when alone. But she seldom is—there’s almost always a man at her side.” —British actress Coral Browne
“She liked me, which was unusual. Apparently she didn’t tolerate women well, preferring to hold court with men—gay, straight, both, didn’t matter as long as they had balls. The reason she was okay with me? I had balls too. One day we were in the kitchen and she said, ‘Linda, get me some orange juice.’ I said, ‘Get your own orange juice.’ She started laughing that great laugh of hers, just like in the movies.” —Linda Gray (Dallas)
“She has an impish, even perverse sense of humor. I remember one soiree where an attractive actress in her sixties was pretending that someday she’d probably be forced to have plastic surgery. Already had. . . . Her next topic was aging. During all this Elizabeth had been talking to some man who got up to refill her drink. So the first thing Liz hears is the actress saying, ‘I shudder to even think about turning sixty.’ For a second, no one says anything. Then Liz sweetly asks, ‘Really? What happened then?’” —agent Dick Clayton
“She loves gossip, and when she dishes it out she sounds just like a fan. Loves to hear it, but prefers true gossip, not just idle rumors. Most likely because there were and are so many rumors about her.”
—Sir John Gielgud
“At one dinner party, during dessert, an inebriated Lithuanian caught all ears when he asked Richard if the rumor was true that he’d slept with all his leading ladies except Julie Andrews? Burton said nothing, just grinned sheepishly. So Elizabeth put in, ‘It’s too true, and Miss Julie will never know what she missed. Although a few leading men do, don’t they, luv?’ Dick retained his grin and lowered his eyelids, symbolically dropping the curtain on the subject. They really were a fabulous pair.” —Leonard Bernstein
“I costarred with Richard [in Sea Wife] before Elizabeth did. He’s a great one for flirting and joking. However, his reputation for lechery is partly public relations. Everyone in this business occasionally exaggerates or prevaricates about whom they’ve had, but it’s all in the name of business . . . it sells books, it makes a star more interesting, gets you invited onto chat shows, and somehow it’s more important for a man.” —Joan Collins
“Miss Taylor loves to laugh. If a party has been full of laughs, she considers it a success and it was worth attending. Dull, serious affairs and people bore her to death.”
—ET’s publicist Chen Sam
“Elizabeth is immune to flattery because she’s heard it all. Since childhood. How beautiful she is and so on. The one compliment that may buy you a little time with her is about her acting. If she thinks you’re sincere. She has almost a radar for spotting phonies. But the quality of her acting, that interests her.” —designer and friend Halston
“Unlike the vast majority of her peers Elizabeth didn’t have to change her name for the movies. She loves finding out what celebrities’ real names are . . . if it’s an unusual or funny moniker, she’ll often call that person by their real name from then on.”
—actor Ray Stricklyn
“My birth name was Fluck. . . . When I met Elizabeth Taylor she was aware of that. We shook hands and she said, ‘Diana, what a lovely name.’ I’d recently been in a circus-themed picture with Joan Crawford, whom Elizabeth detested. She moved in closer and asked, ‘How the fluck did you manage to get on with old Joan?’” —British actress Diana Dors
“Of course it bloody hurts. What do you think, sh--head?!”
—Richard Burton, asked by a reporter whether it hurt that ET was dallying with businessman Peter Darmanin (while RB was dallying with Susan Hunt)
“Those two, always they were trying to make each other jealous. And always it worked.”
—French actress Capucine
“I don’t assume Miss Taylor is too happy about it. I personally am not unhappy about it and frankly don’t care.”
—Formula 1 racing champion James Hunt, on his ex-wife Susan wedding Richard Burton
“During her [John] Warner period Elizabeth Taylor announced she henceforth wanted to be called Elizabeth Warner. Said it was her ‘destiny as a woman.’ Not even just to add his name to hers, à la Farrah Fawcett-Majors, but to obliterate her name and identity. I asked myself what is she on? Is it even her idea? . . . Of course she was soon back to being Elizabeth Taylor.” —writer Dominick Dunne
“She’s a creature of whims. But stubborn. Elizabeth will stick to her whim, come hell or high water. Until the next whim comes along.”
—actor Farley Granger
“When she’s happy and has self-esteem, Elizabeth watches her weight so others can watch her and be happy. When she’s not happy, she overeats. . . . Hubby John Warner is a Virginian. He’s used to chicken and ham. . . . Miss Taylor has developed a passion for Southern fried chicken.” —columnist Joan Wilson
“Scarcely a year passes without a doctor’s emergency visit to Elizabeth Taylor. This year [1978] a medic was called to remove a chicken-wing bone that had lodged in her throat.”
—ET biographer C. David Heymann
“In time, Elizabeth realized how far apart she and Warner were. One of their biggest fights was about the military draft, which John felt should be limited to males. Elizabeth insisted women could fight too—and was her own best evidence.”
—film producer Daniel Melnick
“The 1980s see Miss Taylor returning to her old self, which invariably includes the movies. She’s dropped forty pounds and looks fantastic . . . said the gain had been due to her politicized life as Mrs. John Warner. ‘It was so boring. That’s why I put on so much weight.’”
—columnist Richard Gully
“No, Elizabeth, you can’t take the elephant home.”
—Mexican attorney and boyfriend Victor Gonzalez Luna during a trip to Asia, where ET pointed at an elephant and said she wanted it
“Hmm. One carat, I see. You are on a diet, aren’t you, luv?”
—Richard Burton when ET showed him Victor Luna’s engagement ring, actually a $300,000 16.5 carat sapphire-and-diamond ring from Cartier
“Elizabeth fainted and then she asked me to go and be with her . . . I knew she would be devastated, shattered. But I didn’t expect her to become completely hysterical. I could not get her to stop crying. She was completely out of control. I realized then how deeply she was tied to this man, how vital a role he had played in her life. And I realized I could never have that special place in her heart she keeps for Burton. For me, the romance was over, and I told Elizabeth that.”
—Victor Luna, upon the death of Richard Burton in 1984
“Ever after Richard, poor Elizabeth was remembering him. So many things reminded her. She realized that with him she’d experienced her peak, romantically and professionally. The men after him were just there, just necessary background, like a radio you leave on for distraction.” —MGM colleague Gene Kelly
“Having done it myself, I don’t think it’s so unusual to marry the same man twice. You don’t stop loving him after you break up. With time, you find you miss him and that despite the compromises it was and is worth it. So you remarry.”
—Natalie Wood on ET and RB
“When passion fades, eyesight improves and reality can set in . . . I think Richard and Elizabeth clung to each other closely when the world was against them for leaving their spouses. Once they made it legal and reached the top and were accepted as a couple and had all the things money could buy, they probably started in on each other.”
—costar John Goodman (The Flintstones)
“Their tempers and insecurities kept breaking them up. One thing that didn’t help was when they did Private Lives. It was for Elizabeth’s company, so she was the producer and technically the boss. Richard got offered a choice movie role by John Huston, who’d directed him in Night of the Iguana. But Elizabeth rightly held him to his contract, so he couldn’t do the movie [Albert Finney did]. Elizabeth explained she didn’t want to disappoint their fans—the idea was Liz and Dick in Private Lives, not Elizabeth and somebody else. She was committed to the play . . . he’d long ago lost interest in the stage, but she’d recently discovered it. Richard just wanted to remain a big fat movie star.”
—Maureen Stapleton, who costarred with ET in her prior play, The Little Foxes
“Richard Burton was horrified [during Private Lives] the few times that Liz Taylor was absent from the production. A stand-in would go on in her place, and in the middle of a scene people actually got up and walked out. Burton was mortified. People wanted to see her.” —critic Rex Reed
“I didn’t think their second marriage would last ten minutes. But I could also see that they seemed to need each other. When he was there, she seemed to hate him. When he was away, she couldn’t bear to be without him. They were often at each other’s throats and there was plenty of hard-core swearing on both sides.”
—the couple’s bodyguard Brian Haynes
“Elizabeth took it very hard when Richard married a younger woman. Almost as if to get back at her. She couldn’t very well do the same without looking foolish. Not yet. Later she did marry a younger man, and that fizzled rather quickly.” —Joan Collins
“Richard up and married Suzy Hunt. She was twenty-seven and unlike Elizabeth was tall and blonde. Soft-spoken . . . somebody Richard could probably dominate. How much more could he have done to irk Elizabeth than marrying her?”
—Peter Lawford
“Private Lives was a box-office hit but it estranged them. Burton’s sense of professionalism hated that Taylor was always late to the theatre while he was always on time. Since he was markedly cool towards her, Elizabeth flaunted her beau Victor Luna backstage. So then he flaunted Susan Hunt. Increasingly jealous of Luna and resentful of Elizabeth, Richard married Susan without warning Liz. She was genuinely shocked and extremely hurt that Richard had acted so rashly . . . she’d thought making him jealous would bring him back.” —hairdresser Kenneth
“After Suzy Hunt he married Sally Hay . . . and would have kept remarrying had he not died at 58. Richard’s ego or image required a woman by his side. He was not homophobic, except sometimes while drunk. But one reason he drank was embarrassment over his relationship with Philip Burton. Richard’s c.v. read that he was a mere boy when he lived with his teacher. The fact came out that he was a young man. Not till after 2000 or so did you find that fact in some books, while the popular media entirely evades the subject. Plus the merger with Liz Taylor totally overshadowed how or why Richard Jenkins became Richard Burton.” —Hollywood agent Dick Clayton
“Elizabeth helped Richard Burton feel less ashamed of having had gay sex. He told Time or some other magazine his theory that perhaps most actors are ‘latent homosexuals’ who drink to banish the feeling. Elizabeth was unable to make Richard less ashamed of being an actor. To draw attention away from it, he spent prodigiously. As though he were only acting to keep his wife in luxury.” —Scottish director Ronald Neame
“Elizabeth was convinced where there wasn’t any jealousy, there wasn’t any love. Not that Richard isn’t a jealous man himself. He’s more apt to simmer and stew, usually in alcohol. Elizabeth’s more apt to want to gouge her rival’s eyes out.”
—Burton’s brother Graham Jenkins
“A great irony that Philip Burton outlived [to age ninety] his most celebrated pupil. . . . He was of course remembered in Richard’s will.”
—Richard Burton biographer Alexander Walker
“It’s not always how the fans or followers imagine. Laurel and Hardy are buried in separate cemeteries, as are Juan and Eva Peron in Argentina. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor are in separate countries, and he’s not in Wales, he’s in Switzerland. . . . For years there was speculation that she would be buried in the Westwood cemetery in Los Angeles, where her father and mother were. I didn’t believe it for a second. Marilyn Monroe is the reigning star at Westwood. It houses a galaxy of stars, but Marilyn is tops there. . . . Instead, Elizabeth chose Forest Lawn, way over in Glendale.”
—actress Jayne Meadows
“If Richard and Elizabeth had just been more considerate toward each other, the way they were with most people. But they derived a sado-masochistic pleasure in goading each other, at first privately, but over the years increasingly publicly.”
—Mr. Blackwell, who designed clothes for ET until he put her on his Worst-Dressed list
“I recall that Elizabeth had a quick temper, but I am basically placid. When she started to pick a quarrel I used to infuriate her by refusing to be drawn into a ding-dong row. ‘You’re so goddamn British!’ she used to rage. ‘I’ll bet if I told you I’d taken a lover your only reaction would be to ask him round for afternoon tea!’”
—second husband Michael Wilding
“Elizabeth Taylor, solo or with Burton, could swamp fellow actors, publicity-wise. Without meaning to. It cost them some friendships and turned several of their peers against them. Jealousy. . . . Elizabeth couldn’t help being a juggernaut. Among stars she was a star. I do know of one occasion when she felt compelled to apologize.”
—British actress Coral Browne
“I learned that Rachel [Roberts, actress wife of Rex Harrison] and Rex were standing near their car after the [premiere of their film] being photographed when suddenly the photographers saw Elizabeth appearing and abandoned the two Harrisons. Rachel in a red Welsh fury screamed ‘I’m the star of this f---ing show not that f---ing Elizabeth Taylor etc.’ The photographers took no notice.”
—from Richard Burton’s diary entry for October 22, 1968
“I love what Liz Taylor said when she was asked about feuds and fellow actresses. She said the only people she feuded with were her husbands.”
—Farrah Fawcett
“She’s not the best interview subject, because some things she hardly talks about. Like she’s so protective of Montgomery Clift. Or much about her marriages. Our magazine [Andy Warhol’s Interview, later just Interview] had a list of prepared questions but mostly she talked about whatever she wanted. Most other interviewers aren’t good with her because mostly what they want is to meet Elizabeth Taylor and look at her.”
—Andy Warhol
“One of the saddest yet angriest moments of Elizabeth’s life was being barred from Richard Burton’s funeral by the, I’d say, rather vindictive and jealous widow [Sally] Hay. She’d been Richard’s assistant. He didn’t court Hay, he just married her. And like many or most wives she then became an unpaid assistant.” —theater producer Lore Noto
“Elizabeth Taylor agreed with Sally Hay that if she showed up at the funeral, the media would descend upon that grave and private occasion like locusts.”
—costar Michael Caine (X, Y and Zee)
“After Mike Todd died Elizabeth seriously considered giving up acting and moving to Hawaii where her brother Howard lived. . . . She was big into tanning. Her mother disapproved because it’s wrinkle-making and she preferred Elizabeth’s creamy white complexion.” —Truman Capote
“Another significant source of income for Miss Taylor is Todd-AO. As in American Optical. It was a filmmaking process Mike Todd invested in and she inherited. Whenever possible, her films were made using Todd-AO. . . . Like that song from Evita says, ‘and the money kept rolling in from every side.’” —columnist James Bacon
“Liz and Dick were amassing so much income at a time of very steep taxes that they had to set up personal corporations and multi-national tax shelters and establish Swiss residency. Elizabeth, who was British born, returned and took up British citizenship, but quietly, so as not to alienate American audiences.”
—Hollywood business manager Morgan Maree
“The lady wasn’t one for self-pity. When her career choices finally and inevitably narrowed she made the best of what was available and opened up two new avenues—championing a cure for AIDS and starting a perfume business. She kept busy and vital and did heroic work.”
—Julia Roberts
“Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson were friends and shared personal memories of making Giant and of Michael Wilding, etc. But Elizabeth was closer to [three-time costar] Montgomery Clift, and a big reason she became an AIDS activist was her conviction that had Monty lived he could easily have contracted HIV. Rock Hudson was the catalyst, but Elizabeth did it for Monty and in essence for all her gay friends.”
—ex-actor and Monty intimate Jack Larson
“While the Reagan administration did literally nothing to fight AIDS, Liz Taylor was trying to launch the anti-AIDS bandwagon. She actually received death threats . . . and some of her celebrity friends crawled into the woodwork or belittled her. Sinatra called it one of her ‘lame-dog causes.’ But then, he didn’t hide his affinity for gangsters and mafia, did he?” —ex-actor Kerwin Mathews (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad)
“When she planned the first gala fundraiser against AIDS Ms. Taylor asked Frank Sinatra to participate. He refused to have anything to do with it, thinking it was a ‘gay disease.’ Their friendship cooled after that, eventually into nothing. Most people in the business knew about it, but Elizabeth Taylor didn’t make Sinatra’s bigotry public. I think it should be known. And now it is.”
—Sir Elton John
“Taylor never disclosed Michael Wilding’s bisexuality. Maybe because of her two Wilding sons. She advocated that gay people come out and be free from hiding and pretense, but she respected if somebody chose to stay in the closet . . . like her supposed boyfriend Malcolm Forbes.” —publicist Andrea Jaffe
“Unfortunately there is some hypocrisy. Elizabeth Taylor has helped lessen the stigma of living with and dying from AIDS. But when it’s a famous friend like Malcolm Forbes she goes silent about his cause of death. . . . I’ve heard her official line is that Michael Wilding, her ex-husband, was ‘straight.’ I know he was more closeted in Hollywood than in England. . . . In other words, nothing wrong with being gay or bi, but if it’s somebody close to you, they weren’t.” —Screen Actors Guild president Patty Duke
“Rumors persisted that Forbes died of AIDS, and it was a strong possibility. He had the money and connections to cover it up. Elizabeth is no stranger to wealth, but when asked how he died she either doesn’t let on or says she doesn’t know, which is somewhat possible.” —writer-director Garry Marshall
“A friend of mine was at Elizabeth’s home on Nimes Road [in Bel Air] one night. Five or six people were watching A Place in the Sun. There came a scene—I think a court scene—which had Montgomery Clift, Raymond Burr, and Keefe Brasselle all in a row. Elizabeth cried out, ‘My God! All three were gay!’ She shook her head and muttered, ‘If the public only knew . . .’ And there are so many scenes and movies where that’s the case—nobody knew it then, hardly anyone knows it now.”
—agent turned nightclub owner Robert Hussong
“I find it funny, if not humorous, that pro-gay Elizabeth Taylor all but insured John Warner’s ascent to the Senate, where he remains and where he consistently votes against gay marriage and gay-rights bills.”
—Robert L. Spencer, who with longtime partner Mr. Blackwell designed clothes for ET
“Acting is a vocation. Stardom is an addictive way of life. The longer one is at it, the more difficult. The more desperate a star becomes. Several of Elizabeth’s choices, personal and professional, have been made from desperation. And frustration. I gave up the crazy competition years ago.”—Jean Simmons
“For a particular anniversary I accompanied Elizabeth to the cemetery where her parents are. . . . On its opposite side lies James Aubrey, who headed CBS and MGM. We walked over to his small marker, inscribed ‘A Man Among Men’—ironic, because he was bisexual. Aubrey was known in the business as The Smiling Cobra. He was widely disliked, which Elizabeth knew. She didn’t know that Keefe Brasselle, after he left acting, became Aubrey’s assistant and lover. Both men had wives, and I think they were bi, not gay. Elizabeth was fascinated, she asked if I knew anything more about them.”
—Roddy McDowall
“Sara Taylor was a pill. Old but feisty, and very proud of what she believed she’d made out of her daughter. Toward the end, she lived in a condo at the Sunrise Country Club complex in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs. A number of gay retired MGM actors lived there and served as her escorts when she went out. Sara’s entrée and carte blanche to everything was ‘I’m Elizabeth Taylor’s mother,’ which she wasn’t at all shy about saying . . . as often as she had to, for instance to get into a swanky restaurant where she hadn’t made a reservation.” —Brooks Hallman, former Sunrise resident
“Sara was very much of her era. I was present when a colleague remarked something about Elizabeth Taylor being Jewish and it soon being Hanukkah. Sara Taylor drew herself up and pronounced, ‘My daughter is not Jewish.’ She even repeated it. Nor was Mrs. Taylor lacking other bigotries, as well.”
—Fred Ebb of the composer-lyricist team Kander & Ebb
“This may be apocryphal. I heard it from a boyfriend of Malcolm Forbes, who liked guys who liked motorcycles. Liz Taylor’s mother was doing an interview with a foreign wire service. Toward its conclusion, the journalist brought up several of Elizabeth’s gay buddies. Finally he wondered aloud if Liz’s father himself had been gay. The old lady didn’t hear well, so the interviewer repeated it. There was a long silence. The man didn’t know if Sara Taylor had heard or was ignoring his question. Finally she said, ‘My late husband was not very sexually inclined.’ Perhaps the long pause was to devise an answer that didn’t say yes and didn’t say no.” —Charles Pierce, drag artiste
“What was Elizabeth Taylor thinking when she backed a Republican for the Senate who was anti women’s rights, etc.? She campaigned for him, raised funds for him, she was terribly effective. I think it was tunnel vision . . . there was a contest on, called an election, and Elizabeth was still in the limelight after Richard Burton and wanted desperately to win. Except of course he won. She didn’t.”
—Jane Fonda
“After her marriages to Richard, Elizabeth needed someone or something high-profile to stay a big celebrity. Film roles were scarce and she didn’t have the discipline for any more theater work. She needed a VIP consort or husband, or one she could help make into a VIP. Politicking was new to her, so for the time being it was fun and interesting. But soon she was just smiling in public while arguing in private, and enjoying overeating but miserable about its results.” —ghostwriter William F. Dufty
“She’s a warm, cuddly blanket that I love to snuggle up to and cover myself with. I can confide in her and trust her. In my business you can’t trust anyone. . . . Elizabeth is also like a mother—and more than that, she’s a friend.”
—Michael Jackson
“After Michael Jackson became big on his own he reached out to several older female stars . . . Kate Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Jane Fonda, Liz Taylor. When the molestation charges about the young boys surfaced and he started paying millions to quiet them, the ladies, even old friend Diana Ross, distanced themselves from him. The one who didn’t was Elizabeth Taylor. She was more than ready to not be one of the bunch and to have him ‘court’ her with flattery, publicity, and expensive gifts. Liz always liked to be considered hip and up-to-date. His gifts continued . . . and she stayed loyal.”
—costume designer Ray Aghayan
“I’m surprised and disappointed that Miss Taylor, as the mother of two sons, lends her public support to an adult male who is habitually enamored of boys—none of Michael Jackson’s accusers have been girls. His is an unhealthy personality, as is her willingness to excuse each and any of his eccentricities and aberrations.”
—novelist Muriel Spark (The Driver’s Seat)
“Jackson makes no secret of his maintaining a shrine to Elizabeth Taylor at his Neverland ranch. It is doubtful that the veteran actress considers it idolatry.”
—Morley Safer (60 Minutes)
“She must be off her nut . . . I can just imagine what Richard [Burton] would say about her describing Michael Jackson as ‘the most normal man I know.’” —Peter O’Toole
“Oscar-winning actor Red Buttons remains a topical funnyman. His most famous joke is ‘Only in America can a poor black boy like Michael Jackson grow up to become a rich white woman.’ Insiders confirm that the first time Elizabeth Taylor heard the joke she couldn’t help but laugh. Subsequently, she says it isn’t funny.”
—columnist James Bacon
“It has to be said: you could buy your way to Elizabeth. She was at heart a collector . . . of jewels, art, valuable things. Her pretend-romance with Malcolm Forbes began when he donated $1 million to her AIDS foundation. Later, he jokingly asked what it would take for her to visit his bedroom. She said, ‘A big thing in a little blue box—from Tiffany’s.’”
—ET biographer C. David Heymann
“The first million-dollar check to fight AIDS was given by a Japanese philanthropist. The second by American magazine publisher Malcolm Forbes, who recruited Elizabeth Taylor to cloak his true sexuality. It was two converted Jewish women—Ms. Taylor and Dr. Mathilde Krim, wife of United Artists chief Arthur Krim—who helped start AmFAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research. It went on to become the leading U.S. nonprofit dedicated to AIDS research and prevention.”
—Richard Wherrett, founding director of the Sydney Theatre Company (who died of AIDS)
“On an AIDS fund-raising junket to Japan in 1988, Elizabeth was invited aboard Malcolm Forbes’s yacht, where to her dismay she was greeted by the entire crew of Robin Leach’s television show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. She never appeared on television without pay, but the publicity-mad Malcolm had set a trap. She adroitly sidestepped it by refusing to let Leach’s cameramen near her until Forbes agreed to give Elizabeth an Erte painting.” —ET biographer Ellis Amburn
“Elizabeth Taylor organized the first APLA [AIDS Project Los Angeles] ‘Commitment to Life’ dinner in 1985. Rock Hudson had died that year, and not until then did Ronald Reagan, the president, utter the word ‘AIDS’—five years into the epidemic. That dinner raised $1.3 million, more money in one night than the government’s CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] had spent in its entire first year.”
—writer-producer Marvin Jones
“Even America’s fashion industry hesitated to acknowledge or to confront AIDS. Elizabeth Taylor was part of AmFAR’s ‘To Care Is to Cure’ fundraiser. They wanted designer Calvin Klein to lend his support but despite several requests he wouldn’t. Klein, who was then in the closet, agreed to show up only after Dr. Mathilde Krim said Elizabeth Taylor would be his date if he helped.” —European designer Karl Lagerfeld
“It wasn’t widely publicized that the granddaughter of billionaire J. Paul Getty, whose grandson was kidnapped and had his ear cut off, contracted AIDS. Or that the young lady was Elizabeth Taylor’s daughter-in-law. Elizabeth took Aileen Getty under her wing and helped to ease her final days.” —columnist Radie Harris
“I don’t think anyone else could have done it. Someone in a leadership position—a president or a first lady—could have told the country, ‘Do the right thing.’ But no one in power rose to the moral occasion. The cause needed a woman at the pinnacle. Because openly gay men are not given the respect that they are due. And if a straight man speaks up on a gay issue, his orientation becomes suspect. Elizabeth was perfect for the role. And I think she knew that.”
—Michael Gottlieb, M.D., immunologist, AIDS pioneer, and Rock Hudson’s doctor
“Elizabeth makes magnificent use of her celebrity in battling AIDS and fundraising for the cause. She told me, ‘If people want to come to an AIDS event to see whether I’m fat or thin, pretty or not, or really have violet eyes, then great, just come. My fame finally makes sense to me.’” —columnist Liz Smith
“France has honored Elizabeth Taylor with the prestigious ribbon of the Legion of Honor. It is deserved. She is the kind of American that French culture appreciates.”
—couturier Yves Saint Laurent
“When Queen Elizabeth II created her Dame Elizabeth, she was delighted. Elizabeth had dual citizenship and enjoyed being both English and American. . . . She joked that she’d always been a great dame. She didn’t mind the word if it was affectionate or in tribute.”
—Sir Ian McKellen
“Those weren’t good years [1997 and 1998] for Elizabeth. She let herself become housebound. Depression and physical ailments brought her down to where she developed agoraphobia. I helped get her out of the house. We dated, which took her out of herself. She’s great company and a good friend.” —Rod Steiger
“Elizabeth thought Beverly Hills of all places should certainly have and support an animal shelter. She was considering a fundraiser but then she had a [health] relapse and another operation. . . . In the late ’90s she fell in her bedroom and broke her back. For the second time. The pain was tremendous . . . the long healing period was made worse by the prescription of only moderate pain medication, to avoid becoming addicted again.”
—Evelyn Keyes, actress and ex-wife of John Huston
“Elizabeth had a Collie puppy, Nellie, descended from the legendary Lassie. She asked Larry [Fortensky] to care for it while she was out of town on AIDS business. He took Nellie into his bedroom but was negligent about taking her outside to relieve herself, and so she did so all over the room. He became angry and began cursing the dog. He locked her in her traveling container, which she had long ago outgrown, with no food or water. The dog whimpered for many hours until she was rescued by one of the household staff. When Elizabeth found out, she became extremely upset and a big argument resulted.”
—ET biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli
“Elizabeth Taylor’s most constant companion is her little white dog Sugar, who has accompanied her on dates with actor Rod Steiger and her Beverly Hills dentist Dr. Cary Schwartz. . . . Don’t count on Liz taking a ninth matrimonial plunge. She now feels the only people who should get married are gay people.” —columnist Janet Charlton
“Elizabeth Taylor was delighted when Michael Jackson introduced her to his widely photographed little chimpanzee, Bubbles. . . . A sad ending to that, for years later, when Bubbles was older and no longer photogenic, he was abandoned. Hardly anybody printed that at the time . . . I don’t know if Elizabeth was aware of it. If she was, she might have done something about it. I say might.”
—The Simpsons co-creator and animal advocate Sam Simon
“Like more stars than the public imagines, Elizabeth Taylor spent part of her final years in a wheelchair. But publicly. . . . She had two hip replacement surgeries. Then one had to be redone . . . she was left with one leg slightly shorter than the other. What she went through and endured boggles the mind.” —costume designer Arnold Scaasi
“Who could have predicted these two antagonists would ever share the screen? Yet in 2001 we have the historic pairing of Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds. Add to the mix Shirley MacLaine and Joan Collins. What a cast! Dismally, they’re wasted on the small screen in a dismal little project with the mocking title These Old Broads. How the mighty have fallen.”
—mystery writer Ruth Rendell
“Despite its star power These Old Broads was barely watchable. The script was banal, vulgar, and disjointed. In a supporting role, Elizabeth Taylor played a screechy New Yawk–accented super-agent based on Sue Mengers whose clients are the other three ladies. Poor health and limited mobility required many of Taylor’s scenes to be shot in bed. It was a colorful though not very ballyhooed end to a storied career—Elizabeth Taylor’s final acting gig.” —producer David Wolper
“Her reactions and speech became more peculiar. In interviews she’d always spoken calmly and in measured tones. But in later years she might whoop or bug her eyes and sometimes say irrational things or non sequiturs. This, as much as her health or puffy face or longer chin, put her out of the running for leading roles and most secondary ones.”
—casting director Monica Velasquez
“How sad that [Elizabeth Taylor] would outlive her career. . . . Elizabeth let it be known that she wished to continue acting, but . . . was also uninsurable. She did not become a recluse or bitter, she still did what she could, she was still social and active. Basically, she refused to give up.” —producer Ismail Merchant
“It may have been bravado, but Elizabeth Taylor said she intended to live to a hundred. Her mother had nearly made it. . . . Her father [four years younger than Sara] didn’t reach seventy-five, so when Elizabeth did, she celebrated a special birthday. In light of her beleaguered medical history and how she’d nearly died while young and in middle age, how nearly incredible and lucky for us that her heart kept going until it was seventy-nine.” —director Leslie H. Martinson (who lived to 101)
“Elizabeth Taylor died in 2011. Her earnings in 2012, including estate auctions, came to $210 million.” —celebrity maven Perez Hilton
“In 2015 five of Elizabeth Taylor’s grandchildren presented New York Democratic Congressman Jose Serrano, advocate of needle-exchange programs, with the Inaugural Elizabeth Taylor Legislative Leadership Award.”
—Los Angeles TV news anchor Robert Kovacik