Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1963)

oblivious to her children and indifferent to the wreckage she has left behind her.’ But this, I believe, was not altogether true. Miss Taylor is loyal — when she has time. She would not knowingly hurt anybody— if she thought about it. But her own imperious needs come first, always. This is what she was taught, and this is how she acted. An incorrigible romantic, any old love to her was like a week-old toy, or yesterday’s dress or even last month’s Cadillac that must be discarded. Why not, when there had always been new clothes, new diamonds, new Cadillacs or even Rolls-Royces in pink-ribboned packages just around the corner?” From the time man was created, there have always been human beings with blind spots of one kind or another. The housebreaker who steals can see no wrong in what he does; the sin is in being caught. The drivingly-ambitious businessman who knifes friends on his way up feels himself justified; he had to battle his way up the career ladder somehow, didn’t he? And Liz — what of her? Wasn’t even the world’s most lavishly beautiful movie star entitled to a few shreds of happiness? “Mike’s dead, and I’m alive,” Liz cried once. And fourth husband, loyal, devoted, tailwagging Eddie Fisher who used to retire dutifully at nine o’clock in Rome because “that’s what Elizabeth did when she was working” — what of him? “Well,” murmured Liz. after the lusty, earthy Richard Burton had become her lover, “I do feel sorry for Eddie, really.” True, Welsh Mr. Burton, always finding fresh excitement in making love to his leading ladies on-stage or off, in new “flirtations,” has been known to say, “Never trust a Welshman; they gave the word ‘welsh’ to the world.” In his own way. Burton, too, has always lived his life seeking “more, more, MORE,” just as Elizabeth has. No one could ever push him from the limelight; he had to be the star. “Acting,” he once quipped, “becomes tedious only when some other performer has the center of the stage.” Or loving, for that matter — even an Elizabeth Taylor. Perhaps the fascinating Burton was the “new toy” Liz sought so hungrily, after the old and quickly-tattered love had been flung into a corner. There are, of course, some who hold that in Richard Burton, Liz Taylor has at last met her match. No other male love fortress had to be stormed so repeatedly or so long. But Elizabeth has always been the avid huntress in each of her romances — always believed that this new man is at last “the man I can really love and cherish.” Not long ago, in Paris, Elizabeth and Burton were lunching with a visitor. The lunch over. Liz rose to leave. She picked up her ermine-lined raincoat and gave Richard an affectionate kiss on the forehead. “Imagine loving a Welsh coal miner!” she sighed ecstatically. “Liz,” a friend remarked, “has always conned herself into believing that she is desperately, achingly in love. She has always been the pursuer in all of her affairs: from Nicky Hilton, to director Stanley Donen. to Monty Clift, Rock Hudson, Michael Wilding, Todd, Fisher and now Dick Burton. Does Liz wait for these men — and others — to make the initial approach? The record belies it. Somehow, Liz creates the gossamer fancy, then inflates it into ‘a grand passion’ by herself. I could be wrong, but I see her as a dedi cated self-deceiver. This may be the chief reason why she has never found lasting happiness. “Then again, Liz always wails that she is the one who is horribly hurt. But Liz, almost invariably, puts the hex on all her men. She is the huntress and always has been. This is her nature — the genes she can’t escape. Quite possibly it isn’t altogether her fault, no more than the fact that she has raven hair and purple eyes. But her fault or not, her life from the beginning has followed one pre-determined and inevitable pattern. Hers is a bold, eternal, love chase that can never end.” “Let’s face it, she’s dull” Now, four times married and mother of four children (one adopted and three of her own), Elizabeth may still be battling that vast and terrible emptiness she felt when she stood around at parties, unwanted and alone, “with egg on my face.” “Elizabeth is an awfully nice girl,” a young actor who dated her once said. “She doesn’t put on airs and she isn’t stuck up. She’s regular. But, let’s face it, she’s dull. She’s just a sweet girl who happens to be more beautiful than anybody else.” Dull? Elizabeth the Queen? Well, she’d show ’em. If “showing the world” meant “flouting conventions, jeopardizing her career, flinging herself headlong into folly” or being damned for “erotic vagrancy” . . . well, again, what was the point of being beautiful if it was only for one man? Said the late Jimmy Dean, when he was starring with Elizabeth in “Giant,” “When Taylor makes up her mind, she’s full of indecisions.” Dean, it was rumored, “despised Elizabeth, and had nothing but contempt for her.” Maybe he did; it was a long time ago. Perhaps Dean, too, found Elizabeth “dull.” But Liz. her second husband Mike Wilding once sighed, “needs only to snap her fingers, and she can have any man in the world.” Almost. “And yet,” said Dr. X, our psychiatrist, “the toys — or the men — Miss Taylor doesn’t care for or no longer wants, she wads up in her hand like a piece of waste paper and simply tosses away. Alexander the Great wept because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. Miss Taylor doesn’t weep — not for long. As you pointed out,” Dr. X went on. turning to this reporter, “ ‘All I want is MORE,’ Miss Taylor seems to say, ‘and I am going to find it.’ She has demonstrated that she can have almost any man in the world, even the staunchly-married Richard Burton. Almost. “But while that four-letter word still seems to rule Miss Taylor’s life, people can become as sick with a surfeit of ‘too much’ as inescapably as those who starve on nothing. And ‘more,’ always ‘more,’ can in time lead even an Elizabeth Taylor, beautiul and desirable as she is, to disenchantment and disaster. “For merely being ravenous can never be enough — not in a love chase that never knows the ending. The cynical observation is true in this case; that there are two great tragedies in life — one is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.” — Jeff Cronin Liz appears with Burton currently in 20th’s “Cleopatra.” and M-G-M’s “The V.I.Ps.” Vote Today— A Gift Is Waiting For You! We’ll put your name on one of 400 prizes — and all you have to do is fill out and mail this ballot. This month the prize — for the first 400 ballots we receive is “Born Free,” by Joy Adamson — the famous and fascinating story of how she and her husband raised a lion cub whose mother had been killed. Be sure to mail in your ballot today to win this book. Paste this ballot on a postcard and send it to Reader’s Poll, Box 1374, Grand Central Station, New York 17, New York. MY FAVORITES ARE: MALE STAR: 1. FEMALE STAR: 1. FAVORITE STORY IN THIS ISSUE: 1. THE NEWCOMER I'D LIKE MOST TO READ ABOUT: THE FAMOUS PERSON, NOT IN SHOW BUSINESS, I'D LIKE TO READ ABOUT: Name . Address Age 10-63 86