Talk:Elizabeth Taylor

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Is 8 times married correct? I remember hearing about 9? -- JeLuF

I checked her entry at IMDB and she had seven husbands and eight marriages (twice to Burton). -- Zoe

changed the "biography" header to "marriages and children" because the article begins with other biographical information. Vicki Rosenzweig

Contents

[edit] NPOV / encyclopedic?

Somebody seriously needs to trim down and clean up the section on her marriages. It's written like a weirdly judgemental gossip column, not an encylopedia article.

Totally agreed. I've taken the liberty of clearing it out and pasting the removed information here -- there are SOME relevant facts to be gleaned from all the garbage (with appropriate cites). Perhaps someone else can take on that task. For now, it needed to go. Removed information is below between the horizontal bars. Air.dance 04:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
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Taylor has been married eight times to seven husbands:
Hotel heir Conrad "Nicky" Hilton (May 6, 1950 - January 29, 1951) (divorced)
Taylor was guilty of poor judgment in picking a totally incompatible partner in her first marriage. The short-liason was violent and abusive with Hilton showing himself to be a debauched character capable of considerable mental cruelty.
Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952 - January 26, 1957) (divorced)
Though Taylor and Wilding remained friends, their marriage failed for several reasons. Wilding was considerably older than Taylor and beginning to be more inclined to the quiet life while she was a keen socialiser. His career was also on a downward trajectory, having never successfully made the transition from Britain to Hollywood, while hers was starting to skyrocket. Also, at 20 years older, it is reported that over time their relationship became almost father-daughter. Taylor was also starting to show a dangerous hunger for drama which, J. Randy Taraborrelli ascribes in his biography Elizabeth to years of being taught that she was special and that the world revolved around her. She openly flirted with then left Wilding for Mike Todd whom she married within a few days of her divorce from Wilding coming through.
Producer Michael Todd (February 2, 1957 - March 22, 1958) (widowed)
Todd treated Taylor to a whirlwind life of private planes, yachts and expensive cars. Every Saturday he bought her jewels to celebrate the weekly anniversary of their first meeting. However the attraction of a man described as 'a force of nature crafted from chutzpah if not pure, unadulterated hi-test testosterone' was more than monetary. His scathing sense of humour appealed to a woman more used to sycophants. At one dinner party he introduced her to people by the made-up name of Tondelayo Shwarzkopf, he also used to slap her on the rump and joke 'See that, I told you you were getting fat.' There was an occasion in Chicago when instead of escaping the paparazzi by car Todd suggested they make a run for it, Taylor squeeled with delight as, with her high heels in her hand, she ran barefoot through the city streets. This subversive sense of fun was something which had been absent in Taylor's life before and helped her deal with the pressure of fame.
This fun came to an abrupt end after just over a year of marriage when Todd was killed in a plane crash. At his funeral in Chicago, crowds of fans packed picnic lunches and laid their tablecloths out among the tombstones, Taylor remembered seeing crisp packets and Coca-Cola bottles littering the grounds. As she made her way back to the waiting cortege the crowd began ripping at her clothes and rocking the car back and forth until she began to scream inside.
Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 - March 6, 1964) (divorced)
After Todd's death, Taylor was comforted by his best friend Eddie Fisher who in happier times had formed a foursome with Taylor and Todd with his wife Debbie Reynolds. Reynolds even offered to look after Taylor's children in Los Angeles while Fisher accompanied Taylor to the funeral. That she callously stole her husband is something which is perhaps unsurprising in a lady used to getting what she wanted. As for the seemingly straightforward transfer of affections, that is something biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli explains by recourse to a story from childhood. At the lonely MGM film studio her only friend was a pet chipmunk called Nibbles. When he died she was distraught for a while but then got another chipmunk which she also named Nibbles, writing in her journal 'Not Nibbles the Second but just Nibbles, my favourite chipmunk.'
For a woman who once said 'I've never been alone my entire life yet I've always felt lonely,' there was also an attraction to taking up with a man she knew so well they could finish each others sentences. The resulting bad publicity harmed Fisher's career but actually increased the amount of money offered to Taylor for films. And she pointed out to the press that although Fisher and Reynolds had two young children, their marriage was in trouble and Reynolds had already sued him for divorce twice. Taylor justified the decision to herself by saying that she was doing Reynolds a favour by giving her a chance to meet a man who'd make her happier than Fisher had. However Fisher never really made Taylor happy - the paradox of her life was that she always wanted a strong man but also wanted to be able to control and dominate him. It took her only a few months to realise she had made a mistake with Fisher and to become abusive, trying to elicit an angry response that would, in her eyes, prove his manliness. However he was more likely to retire to bed and draw the sheets over his head at which she would shout 'Wimp' in an echo of her character in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Before shooting the movie, Cleopatra, Taylor received considerable criticism from the public. She stopped to attend a Chicago premiere of Scent of Mystery when people would start to yell, "homewrecker" and "husband-stealer" and "why did you steal Debbie's husband?" She did not show much emotion but later wrote, "Faced with crowds, I want to run pell-mell through all those people with their little cameras and the flashbulbs they shoot off two feet from your eyes. But you make yourself walk and you find a point to focus your eyes on and keep going toward it."
Early in the production of Cleopatra, Taylor confessed to Fisher that she was having an affair with Burton. This situation was not helped by Burton turning up drunk at a houseparty the couple were holding at their villa in Rome. Fisher shouted at Burton, who was at the time married to Sybil, 'Why don't you go home to your own wife?' to which Burton spat back 'Guess what? They're both my women.' He then turned to Taylor and demanded 'Are you my woman? Well if so then come over here and stick your tongue down my throat and prove it.' Taylor stood motionless for a moment then began to move towards him, holding a glass of champagne and with all eyes on them, they locked lips. By this time even the pianist had stopped playing and Fisher stepped past the kissing couple and walked outside the house. Finally releasing her Burton too walked out and passing Fisher said, almost politely, 'Keep her warm for me, won't you?'
During her marriage to Fisher, Taylor converted to Reform Judaism (having been born into the Christian Science religion.) She remains Jewish to this day, having referred to herself as such several times. In her book Elizabeth Takes Off, Taylor writes, "It [conversion to Judaism] had absolutely nothing to do with my past marriage to Mike [Todd] or my upcoming marriage to Eddie Fisher, both of whom were Jewish. It was something I had wanted to do for a long time." [2]
Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 - June 26, 1974) (divorced)
and
Richard Burton (2nd marriage) (October 10, 1975 - July 29, 1976) (divorced)
In a romantic entanglement that had tongues wagging on every continent, Taylor would trade in husband Eddie Fisher for Burton not long after Fisher had unceremoniously ditched wife Debbie Reynolds for Taylor. Years later, Burton would slyly refer to the whole mess as "la scandale." The episode cemented Taylor's reputation as a dark, hypnotic femme fatale (who was condemned by the Vatican), boosted Reynolds' career as a blonde, all-American sweetheart, and elevated Burton to the front ranks of film stars. Only Fisher did not really profit from the cascade of free publicity.
Though Burton had boasted to friends that he would bed Taylor within two days of filming commencing on Cleopatra he actually had to wait five days before turning up on set and announcing 'Last night I screwed Miss Elizabeth Taylor in the back seat of my Cadillac'. What had endeared him to her initially was his turning up on set so hungover she had to hold a cup of coffee up to his lips. 'He was so vulnerable and sweet and shaky and terribly giggly that with my heart I hugged him.' This was a vulnerability which Burton combined with a temparament every bit as fiery as Taylor's. However in self-destruction Taylor outdid her new husband. Early in the relationship, despite their open pursuit of it, Burton wavered telling Taylor the affair had to end. Having been told by her mother that failure was not an option, she crumbled and took an overdose, with scant regard for her two children. Even Burton was bemused as to the extent of her action, having known him for only six weeks. She repeated the overdose action a few months later when she felt unsure of his affections. However despite these incidents, they also revelled in each other's company. At a dinner part Taylor put her head on Burton's shoulder and said 'I wonder if this man will one day be my husband.' Burton replied 'If we don't kill each other first' to which Taylor responded 'But what a way to go, darling. What a way to go.'
Ultimately the marriage would see them both enter a physical and creative decline and the cause is much easier to divine - drink. In Burton Taylor found the alcholic she had known in her father as a child. During a visit to London in 1962 they spent the entire time in pubs, starting the morning with Bloody Marys, continuing with a few bottles of champage and then large brandies - and by that time it was only noon. The good-natured joking between them, Taylor referred to Burton as a 'shit-faced bastard', in time turned to arguments where things were said in a lot less good-natured vein. These festered and the physical side was eventually reciprocated when Burton began to hit Taylor back.
The couple divorced in 1974 but were remarried a year later, Taylor so attached to both Burton and the melodrama of their relationship that she was blinded to how unrealistic any chances of second-time around success were. And so it proved to be, Burton cheating on her within months with a 27 year old blonde divorcee from England named Suzy Hunt. She tried to make him jealous by having her own fling, with a 37 year old Maltese advertising executive named Peter Darmanin whom she picked up at a disco near her and Burton's chalet in Switzerland. Darmanin lived with Taylor for the next seven weeks, during which time he recalled her consantly crying to Burton on the phone. Finally Burton invited her to join him in New York, where he was starring in a Broadway revival of Equus. She jumped on a plane and never saw Darmanin again.
With the help of Hunt, Burton had begun to seriously curtail his drinking. Taylor meanwhile, who used to stand in the wings holding a glass of champagne for him to sip between scenes, wanted a return to their inebriated ways and was unimpressed with his new moderation screaming 'What the hell has happened to you? You are no fun anymore, Richard.' The next day, with Suzy Hunt present, Burton told Taylor he wanted another divorce and less than ten months later it was over for good.
To the press, Taylor put a brave-face on, saying 'I love Richard with every fibre of my soul. But we can't be together, we're too mutually self-destructive.'
Senator John Warner (December 4, 1976 - November 7, 1982) (divorced)
Just two months after finalising her divorce from Burton, she accepted a proposal from Warner, six years her senior and one of the most eligible bachelors in Washington. 'I am so happy to be John's wife she said. I finally feel that I have a home. My search for roots is finally over.' That home was in Virginia and what had at first seemed an idyllic antidote to the turbulent 14 years with Burton quickly became a 'domestic Siberia.' Coping with her chronic back pain - a legacy of a childhood riding accident when making National Velvet - she spent her days watching soap operas, drinking, taking painkillers and excessive eating. There is a story about Taylor accompanying Warner on a campaign trail and almost choking to death when she gobbled down a piece of chicken that turned out to contain a bone two-and-a-half inches long. As soon as she recovered she continued eating, the kaftans grew ever bigger and comedians started to joke about how fat she had become. With Warner away in Washington a lot they began to lead separate lives and divorced in 1982.
Teamster construction-equipment operator Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 - October 31, 1996) (divorced)
When Taylor checked into the Betty Ford Centre in 1991, it was not first time and came at a difficult time in her life. The past few years had seen her make personal and physical progress only to repeatedly relapse. She developed the crippling bone disease osteoporosis, which was worsened by the stress she suffered as a result of Richard Burton's death from a brain haemorrhage in 1984 and further strain was placed by her constant campaigning for AIDS research and endless personal appearences for a perfume to which she had lent her name. Eventually, she was left in a wheelchair for much of the time, becoming addicted to prescription drugs.
The story goes that when Fortensky, who was there trying to conquer his heavy drinking, met her at the Betty Ford Centre, he didn't know the woman he was talking to was Elizabeth Taylor. She had recently dated men such as Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi who had his own stable of Arabian stallions at his ten-bedroom home in Marbella and an opulent £13 million apartment in Manhattan, not to mention £16 million of artwork. Fortensky meanwhile, a labourer, had a two-bedroom flat and moderate means. The two fell for each other while Fortensky pushed her around the grounds of the centre in her wheelchair and they opened their hearts to each other. 'You get to know someone real fast when you are in group therapy in a recovery programme. All the bulls**t is stripped away. He knew I could see through him and I knew he could see through me.'
Her spells at the centre had finally convinced her that she could finally find the happiness which she felt the psychological impact of her childhood had denied her and in Fortensky she thought she had found a kindred spirit. They were married amidst a media circus at Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch where at one point an interloping parachutist almost landed on Gregory Peck. The couple presented Jackson with a 30-ton elephant to say thank-you for the day.
Initially, despite her worldwide celebrity, they would go out together to cheap hamburger joints with Taylor astounding fellow diners by arriving in biking leathers. Perhaps surprisingly, despite being ensconced in Taylor's palatial home with no financial imperative, Fortensky returned to working on the building site. Taylor would awaken at four each morning to have breakfast with him before he left for the day, sometimes she would even visit him at work bringing doughnuts and coffee and making a point of sitting with his colleagues and trying to get to know them.
Taylor however, a long-time connoisseur of expensive jewels, appeared to regard Fortensky as something of a diamond in the rough who could be polished to perfection. In this she aped the behaviour of her mother and father. However, unlike her placid father, Fortensky rebelled against these attempts at enlightening him to social etiquette. He would strike back in small acts of vengeance like smoking in the bedroom despite Taylor's recent severe pneumonia, eating in bed and leaving crumbs, which she hated, and watching tv all night though she was a light sleeper. However this escalated to rages so severe that though Taylor had seen worse in former husbands, she had to gather her staff and shut them in her bedroom for safety.
There was even an incident when Taylor had left her beloved collie Nellie, descended from the legendary Lassie with whom she had once starred, in the care of Fortensky while she was out of town on AIDS business. He forgot to walk her and when Nellie relieved herself all over his bedroom he locked her in an undersized travel container with no food or water. The dog whimpered for hours before one of the staff rescued her. Taylor found this very hard to forgive.
There was also the issue of Taylor's illnesses as she underwent a series of hip operations. Her rehabilitation seemed endless and Fortensky felt that she didn't really want to get better and thrived on her illnesses. The final straw was when Taylor underwent more surgery in 1995 and was, as she said at the time 'a cripple.' Fortensky initially demanded £2.6 million in a divorce settlement to keep him in the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed - one of servants and chauffered cars to work. However, with Taylor staring him down at the meeting, he crumbled and fled from the room, eventually settling for around £500,000. Still depressed about the death of her mother the year before and with this failure of what looks likely to be her last marriage, Taylor slumped into depression and became agoraphobic, barely leaving the house for a time.

[edit] Richard Burton's real name

Richard Burton's name was not Richard Jones - it was Richard Walter Jenkins, Jr.

I removed this:

She was knighted on 12/31/1999, though, as an American citizen, she is not called Dame Elizabeth; foreign titles cannot legally be borne by citizens of the United States.

It's wrong in so many ways. She is not simply an American citizen, she is also a British citizen, and carries a British passport. And it's not true that foreign titles can't be borne by US citizens: the only restriction on titles in the US is that holders of foreign titles can't hold a position in the Federal government without the permission of Congress. -- Someone else 01:01, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Gay Icon Project

In my effort to merge the now-deleted list from the article Gay icon to the Gay icons category, I have added this page to the category. I engaged in this effort as a "human script", adding everyone from the list to the category, bypassing the fact-checking stage. That is what I am relying on you to do. Please check the article Gay icon and make a judgment as to whether this person or group fits the category. By distributing this task from the regular editors of one article to the regular editors of several articles, I believe that the task of fact-checking this information can be expedited. Thank you very much. Philwelch 22:17, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Whut the hell are you talkin'about?Edison 05:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarity

I stumbled over the one-sentence-paragraph about her husbands and found it unreadable, thus proposed to organize it as follows using the same information:

She has been married eight times to seven husbands:

To me this is preferable, particularly in an encyclopedia. Ekem 21:56, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Her home address.

To whomever keeps adding her street address -- it has absolutely no informational value in this article and has been removed several times by several different authors. Take a hint -- respect her privacy and stop listing it here. Wikipedia is a source of knowledge and general information, not a tabloid.

Thanks.

[edit] Citizenship

I have to question the article's statement that Ms. Taylor is not a US citizen. In 2001, she was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Clinton. One of the requirements to receive that award is that the recipient must be a US citizen. She is also a British citizen, and holds the title of Dame of the British Empire. Steggall 01:27, 7 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Then this needs to be sorted out pronto. We also state: "After marrying Richard Burton, Taylor relinquished her American citizenship, and is now a "permanent resident" of the U.S. After marrying Republican Senator John Warner, of Virginia, she received a "green card" and keeps her British passport." If she received a green card, this means she could not have been a US citizen because US citizens don't need any approval to work in their own country. But if you're right and she had to be a US citizen to receive the Presidential Citizens Medal, then obviously something is wrong somewhere. JackofOz 01:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Do we have any further information about her citizenship yet? JackofOz 22:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, now we have a bit of a mess.

  • Brcreel says: "never had British citizenship, left London at an early age, and both parents American"
  • the lead paragraph says: "Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, DBE ... is an ... English-American actress."
  • a later para says: "Taylor was born with American citizenship. Her American parents were both originally from Arkansas City, Kansas."
  • a further para says: "After marrying Richard Burton, Taylor relinquished her American citizenship, and is now a "permanent resident" of the U.S. After marrying Republican Senator John Warner, of Virginia, she received a "green card" and keeps her British passport"

Clearly, these cannot all be correct. Nobody seems to doubt that she was born an American citizen, but the things about which there are conflicting statements are:

  • whether she ever relinquished her American citizenship, and
  • whether she was also born with British citizenship. She could only have become "Dame Taylor Elizabeth DBE" if she were a British citizen. Otherwise, the award would be honorary and she would be simply "Elizabeth Taylor, DBE". We now have a denial that she was ever British, but no change to her title as Dame.

We need some documentary evidence to back up or refute these statements. JackofOz 07:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

She definitely did receive British nationality when she was born. At that time, anyone born in the UK automatically received nationality. There may have been some confusion because since 1983, a person born in the UK only receives British nationality when at least one parent is either British or is "settled" in the UK. Settled means living there with no time limit on their stay. But the 1983 law only applies to person born in 1983 or later. So, the fact that her parents were American and/or the fact that she left Britain when she was young would have no bearing on whether she is British. She was born there, that would have made her British under British law at that time.

She was also born a US citizen, due to the fact that her parents were US citizens. In other words, she had dual citizenship.

It would appear that she still holds both citizenships today since she would not have been conferred the title "Dame" if she had solely been a US citizen, nor would she have been able to receive the "Presidential Citizens Medal" if she had not been a US citizen. If she did really relinquish her US citizenship earlier in her life then it would appear that it must have been reinstated. Steggall 12:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Steggall, I think that what you say is probably the closest thing we have to the truth. Unfortunately, everything we "know" about her citizenship is supposition or deduction. Some published evidence is what we really need. JackofOz 22:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
And now we have an editor who says she was born with American citizenship and only later acquired British. Everyone seems to have a different opinion about her history - yet nobody seems to have any proof. JackofOz 23:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Elizabeth Taylor is a British, not an American actress, having relinquished her U.S.A. citz., so please DESIST from referring to her as an American actress. Lynn Fontanne never took out U.S. citizenship but received a Kennedy Center Award. Taylor's damehood (DBE) is substantive, not honorary!. HOT L Baltimore 13:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Please. Regardless of the legal standards--which are apparently none too clear, as the above postings indicate--Elizabeth Taylor all through her life has been American. She has lived in the United States, she has made her films here, she has married here, and has identified and been identified as American. British? Please. She was born in Britain, but she has all her life been American, regardless of legal issues. 66.108.4.183 06:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is Elizabeth 'Liz' Taylor Retired?

I just want to know since it looks like she hadn't done any films(including TV movies)since 2001.So i like to knew if she had retired from acting or just taking a 'long' break.Thanks.

I don't really think Miss Taylor is so interested in acting any more, from what interviews I have heard.Gareth E Kegg 00:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Yet she is stunning beyond belief. Look at any of her films from the 1950's.Edison 05:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Elizabeth is Retired from Acting

Yes, Elizabeth Taylor is retired from acting. Although she still is very active in her fight against AIDS thru The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and AMFAR. As well as creator and designer for the House of Taylor - a fragrances and jewlery company a.k.a. The Elizabeth Taylor Cosmetics Company.

I believe because of her numerous health problems Elizabeth Taylor cannot be insured to work in films.

[edit] Is she going to die?

I have heard many people saying she looks extremly unhealthy, and I have read many articles against her claims on Larry King (four months ago) that she was perfectly healthy. On Larry King she looked like she was sick at that time. If you have seen recent pictures of her she is extremly pale and she looks almost like she is going to die. Anyone feel to rip at these claims? -24.92.46.16 02:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

We are ALL going to die, DUMBSHIT! All that matters is with how much class.Edison 05:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Little angry there, bub? Air.dance 07:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Her Mom lived to 99, she could be around a lot longer.

Everyone is going to die- the mortality rate of being born is 100% ;) Naysie 14:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Does anyone object to some picture changes? The National Velvet picture could easily be replaced by the cover of the movie, and one of the pictures really ought to be later. She was famous in the early 50s, but most of her fame was in the early 60s. I'd like to add a picture from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof or Cleopatra.67.169.111.72 01:56, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Could that lead image be anymore squashed? — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Could we please get a better infobox image? The current one from Cleopatra is not of a high quality of any kind and does nothing but distract the reader from the article with its "squished" appearance.

--71.119.29.143 21:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC) Carnyfoke

It's an free PD image though Jaranda wat's sup 02:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Please elaborate on what that means.

--Carnyfoke 16:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Money out of Hilton?

What did she get in the divorce? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.206.165.44 (talk) 05:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] general remarks

I'm disputing the neutrality: difficult considering she's an icon and one of the last living actresses of a golden age. I also tagged the Relationships With Parents section for lack of citation. I also wish to point out that the talk pages in wiki are about the article, not the subject. If you want to know what she got from a divorce then look it up somewhere else. Naysie 14:13, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

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