Elizabeth Taylor believed that her first Oscar, for ‘Butterfield 8’ (1961), was awarded out of pity; she claimed that her eyes were not violet and openly acknowledged her obsession with Richard Burton. All of this is revealed in a documentary that premieres this Sunday on MAX, based on a long-lost interview from 1964.
With a sweet voice and without shying away from any question, the actress gave an interview to journalist Richard Meryman that unfolded over several days and lasted more than 40 hours, which have been condensed for this documentary directed by Nanette Burstein, who also uses many videos and photographs from the private life of the star of ‘Giant.’
Throughout the conversation, Taylor unpacks her life from her arrival in California from her native England and her discovery of the film world up to 1964 when she was 32 years old, had already won an Oscar, and was newly married to Richard Burton, her fifth husband.
Audio tapes that remained lost for decades and material that Meryman intended to use to write a book about the actress, which he never completed.
‘Elizabeth Taylor, The Lost Tapes’, which has J.J. Abrams among its producers, paints a portrait of Taylor that is very different from the public image she projected as a global star and from a personal life marked by husbands.
“Perhaps because of my personal life, I suggest an illicit image, but I am not illicit, nor am I immoral. I have made mistakes and have paid for them, although it is never enough. I know I will never be able to settle that debt,” the actress begins.
At that time, she was experiencing a moment of happiness alongside Burton, whom she met during the second filming of ‘Cleopatra’ (1963), which had been interrupted two years earlier due to her pneumonia and they even had to perform a tracheotomy to save her life and let her breathe.
Indeed, Taylor was convinced that her first Oscar was awarded due to the pity her health problems evoked in Hollywood, and the scar that since then adorned her neck. Because, in her own words, ‘Butterfield 8’ was a “horrible” film.
“They must have felt pity for me because I think the movie is shameful.”
The actress did not portray herself as particularly self-indulgent, as she recounted from her beginnings in films like ‘Lassie Come Home’ (1943), where she met one of her great friends, Roddy McDowall, when they were both teenagers.
McDowall and James Dean were the friends who helped her overcome her marital failures, and starting with ‘Giant’ (1956), Rock Hudson became another of her great supports.
With them, she forgot her fears of not being taken seriously as an actress -she especially points out the problems she had with George Stevens during the filming of ‘Giant’- and her personal instability, which was somewhat resolved with her third husband, Mike Todd, although her happiness lasted only a couple of years as the producer died in a plane crash.
She overcame his death with Eddie Fisher, who was the husband of one of her best friends, Debbie Reynolds, -“I never loved him,” the actress admits-, though her true passion was found with Burton, with whom she married twice, a relationship closely followed by the general public.
And beyond her husbands, the actress speaks about her feelings, her frustrations, her relationship with her children, or how undervalued she felt in Hollywood. They criticized her choices, like when everyone advised her not to participate in ‘Suddenly, Last Summer’ (1960) for dealing with homosexuality.
“If I had been more ambitious with my career, I would have done ‘Ben-Hur,'” she asserts.
Despite everything, she won a second Oscar for ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ (1966).
She also shares curiosities, such as the fact that her eyes were never violet -“it was a poetic license by a journalist”- but rather dark blue, and that she enjoyed sex even though she did not consider herself a sex symbol.
The documentary is completed with footage of the actress’s last years and how she devoted herself to raising money for AIDS research after the death of her friend Hudson.
APA
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