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ELIZABETH TAYLOR The last
star
The beginnings of stardom. Little Liz in National Velvet.
Elizabeth Taylor receives the highest salary any actor has ever attained. It is fitting, for since the age of eight Miss Taylor has had no identity but as an actress or, more accurately, as a public personality. For good or ill, her entire life has been devoted to living a dream peculiar to her time and place. She was even so unlucky as to have no adolescent awkward age which would have given her respite, however temporary, from life in public. In short, she was, is and will forever be a movie star. There is no other significant fact to record about her life — for that fact has informed nearly every waking moment of her every day.
George Stevens, the director for whom she gave two of her best performances (in A Place in the Sun and in Giant), has said that "She was kept in a cocoon by her mother, by her studio, by the fact that she was the adored child who had had everything she wanted since she was eight years old. What most people don't know is that there has been a smoldering spirit of revolt in Elizabeth for a long time."
Her mother had once had a modest acting career herself, but it had been cut short by her marriage to Francis Taylor, an art dealer. Eventually they settled in Los Angeles. "It was almost impossible to believe— finding myself in the film capital with my children," said Mrs. Taylor. She determinedly set about making them into stars. Elizabeth's brother, Howard, would have none of it. He went so far as to shave his head on the eve of one screen test.
Elizabeth, however, was not so strong — though she has frequently placed on public record her admiration for her brother's independence. She had one small part at Universal before her option was dropped. Then, in 1942, during a blackout, her air raid warden father fell into conversation with a fellow warden, producer Sam Marx, who was looking for a child to appear opposite Roddy MacDowell in Lassie Come Home. Elizabeth read for the part and got it. Two years later, at age twelve, she had the lead in the memorable National Velvet.
Two years after that she could have played a mature woman. Even as a child star she had a fascinating air of
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The princess awakens. Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, A Place in the Sun.