Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

nice men with the camera even take the peetch'a of me buying you the ice-acream." He started to take the boy's hand. Liz saw him. "You," she called out. "Don't you touch him. Get your hands off that child." The crowd became silent, suddenly. "I was going to ask the permission, Signora — " the man started to say. "You get your hands off him," Liz cried. "Off him!" The roly-poly Italian let go of Michael's hand and lowered his eyes. "I sorry . . . mi displace," he said, as he began to walk away. . . . "Why'd you do that?" Eddie asked, after they'd gotten into their car and had begun to drive away. "The guy was having some fun. He didn't mean any harm." "I don't know," Liz said. She breathed in deeply. "I just don't want anybody touching my children, maybe ... Is there anything wrong with that?" THEN, TWO THINGS HAPPENED the day they arrived in England and the mansion near London that helped put Liz' nerves on end. One was a story, in the newspapers, out of Australia. It concerned a twelve-year-old boy whose father, a poor man, had recently won a quarter-of-a-million dollars in a lottery there. The son had been kidnaped. They'd found him murdered, his body dumped in some woodlands. The other, and more important and distressing to Liz at the moment, was a letter, addressed by the same person who had written the first letter. It differed from the first only in that it asked: "Are the children worth 100,000 pounds to you?" Like the first, it ended with the words: "7 am a sinner!" "I'm sorry," Liz said to the Scotland Yard man who'd come to see them a little while after they'd reported the letter, " — I could tell by your tone of voice, on the phone, when I called, that you don't think this is at all serious. But," she said, "to me it is serious." "Mrs. Fisher," said the detective, "believe me. There's nothing to this at all. Some demented, some tortured person somewhere is having him or herself a time, that's all." "Have you found this demented and tortured person?" Liz asked. "No." "Have you been trying?" "Yes. Naturally." "Then," Liz said, "it can't be nothing: not if you're trying." "Mrs. Fisher," the detective said again, "first, understand this. We never let these things go completely, even if we're not terribly concerned. It's a policy of the Yard. We follow all these matters through . . . And second," he said, "understand this. Many such letters are received by prominent people in England every year. It's part of the irony of being a celebrity, I guess you might say. "Now, Mrs. Fisher, if it will make you feel any better, let me assure you of this. We have a man stationed at the gate here. And we have a man on the grounds here, twenty-four hours a day. When the boys are in school, we will have a man along with them. They won't see him, they won't know he is there. But he will be there. . . . "I'M SORRY about this whole thing, you know," the detective said. "It's not a jolly pleasant way for us to have to receive guests in our country, now is it?" Then he shook hands with Eddie, who had been standing by all this while, he looked over once more at Liz, and he left. . . . 68 That night, some two hundred people milled around the gate of the mansion, waiting to see Elizabeth Taylor, the beautiful movie star, and her husband, Eddie Fisher, leave for a special party that was being held someplace nearby in honor of their arrival. The crowd ooooooohed when they saw Liz at the door, as she headed for the gate and the car. Then, just before she got into the car. the cry went up for autographs. "Please, Miss Taylor," one young girl said. "I go to see all your flicks. Would you just sign your name to this book?" "Of course," Liz said. Liz signed about a dozen, quickly. There were at least a couple of dozen more to go, she knew. She looked up from the last book she'd signed. Suddenly she began to feel a little dizzy. The crowd, it seemed, was pushing closer and closer. They were getting out of hand; they were excited, and pushing. "Eddie . . ." Liz mumbled. He didn't seem to hear her. He was busy, a few yards away, signing some autographs of his own. "Eddie . . ." She closed her eyes for a moment. And then she opened them. And she looked again at the faces around her. The dizziness was getting worse; the awful feeling in her head, through her body, more intense. Suddenly — she didn't know why exactly — but suddenly she wanted to cry out to this mob. "Who are you people?" she wanted to cry. "And what do you want from me, from me?" She looked into the face of one woman who stood not more than three feet from her. The woman was big-boned and strong-looking and smiling. Liz looked at the pencil she was waving, at the sheet of paper she held. "Is it you?" Liz wanted to ask. suddenly. 'Are you the one?" Then she looked into another face, and another. "Is it you?" she wanted to cry. "Are you the one who wants to hurt mv babies?" She handed back a book she was holding. She reached for Eddie's hand. Her face had turned ashen pale. "Liz," Eddie asked, "what's wrong?" "Let's get back inside, away," she said. "I don't want to go to any party." "Liz — " Eddie started to say. He followed her inside. . . . There, she shut the door, and she clung to his hand. "Eddie," she said, "I want us to go upstairs and pack. Right now ... I don't want to live here. I want to go to London, tonight, and move into a hotel . . . It's safe there. Do you understand what I'm talking about, Eddie? . . . It's safer!" LIZ SEEMED BETTER, more calm, that weekend. They'd moved from the big place and they were in London now. They spent the Saturday sleeping late, then visiting Hampton Court, showing the children the palace where Henry the Eighth had slept, and banqueted. And, on Sunday, they walked through Hyde Park for a while, in the morning, listening to some of the fancy and long-winded speeches there, and then they took a ride up to Windsor, for a long and relaxing picnic lunch, and then they came back to London and Regent Park, to see the animals, feed them, and to laugh as Eddie made faces at the lion and as the lion, sleepily, growled back at him. . . On Monday, however, Liz' fears returned. It was a strange day for her. She began her picture that morning. The morning had gone fine. But then, that afternoon, things seemed to be different. She seemed anxious to work, but unable to concentrate. Since actual shooting on Cleopatra would not begin till Wednesday and today was only a rehearsal, Liz' director was not too concerned. Even the best of the pros got jittery sometimes at the beginning of a picture, he knew. At one point, when she had flubbed the same line a few times, the director suggested to Liz that she go to her dressing room and have a spot of tea arid unwind a little, for a while. Liz nodded, and went to the dressing room. When, a little while later, a girl came in with her tea tray, Liz hardly looked up. "Here's scones and muffins and lots of jam and butter," the girl said. "Will there be anything else?" "No . . . thank you," Liz said. Liz sat for a moment, then lifted her tea. And as she ^id she thought of the kidnaped Australian boy, of the letters, of other things she'd heard about kidnapings. Suddenly, the cup slipped from her hand. It went crashing to the floor. Liz didn't look down. She stared ahead, straight ahead. "Oh, my God," she began to moan, after a while. "Oh, my God. My God. . . ." She looked out the window of their bedroom that night, looking at the heavy fog, as she waited for Eddie. He'd been recording all that day. Obviously, he'd been held up. She turned, once, to glance at a clock. It was nearly nine. She reached for a cigarette that lay on the night-table, next to their bed. She lit it. And then she went back to looking at the fog. She didn't turn, at first, when she heard Eddie come in. "Can we take the children with us. to Egypt, next week?" she asked, still looking at the fog. "We can take Liza, sure," Eddie said. "But not the boys?" Liz asked. "No, I don't think so," he said. "Why not?" she asked. "Because it wouldn't be right. I don't think," he said, "dragging them out of school like that." "THEN I'M NOT GOING TO EGYPT." she said. "You're not." he said, shocked. "I didn't want to go in the first place," Liz said. "I didn't feel bad, not the least bit bad, when they made it clear that they didn't want a Jew invading their country, they said; not even a Hollywood Jew, they said. Well good, I said, I didn't want to go anyway . . . You remember. Eddie?" Eddie loosened his tie. "Do you know, Liz," he asked, "what they went through to get permission for you to get into that country. Strings were pulled. Big strings . . . "Do you know," Eddie asked, "how this is going to stifle their plans? Two weeks of location, all set up? A couple of million bucks riding on those two weeks alone? A couple of hundred people with jobs riding on this? "Liz," Eddie said. He sat beside her on the bed. "Is it because of the children . . . those letters? Is that why you don't want to leave all of a sudden?" She said nothing at first. "Liz?" he asked. Her voice was soft when she spoke again, soft and tired-sounding. "Of course it is, Eddie," she said. "I'm so afraid. I know everybody else is taking it as if it were nothing. But Eddie, I'm so afraid for them." "You shouldn't be," Eddie said. "They've got the best nvotection. You know that.