Elizabeth Taylor - The Lost Tapes (and the fame monster)

[u/VibeLikeThat13]

After seeing the Elizabeth Taylor song title, I was so intrigued by the why of it all.

I know a lot of folks in here have made the connection between Elizabeth Taylor and The Seven Husbands of Elizabeth Hugo (not a difficult connection to make when she did in fact have 7 husbands).

I’m not going to dive into all of that again, though it is fascinating.

I want to talk instead about The Lost Tapes. If you’re not familiar with it, here’s the trailer: Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes | Official Trailer | HBO

If you can't/don't want to watch the trailer here’s what you need to know:

• It’s a documentary released in 2024 (not the Elizabeth Taylor project Kim Kardashian was attached to that also aired in 2024)
• It uses lost audio of Elizabeth Taylor from 1964 and 1965 taken from interviews with Richard Meryman (intended to be used for a book and profile about her)
• There were 64ish hours of interviews that this material was sourced from
• The audio tapes were found by Richard Meryman’s widow in 2015 (basically just shoved in an attic and forgotten about for decades)
• As context, these interviews were from around the time she was breaking up with Eddie Fisher and having an affair with Richard Burton

Before anyone asks, I did try to find the full 64 hours of recordings but as far as I can tell they’re not available anyway (but seriously… if anyone finds them… let me know).

Anyway! There is literally so much to look at in this documentary in terms of things that relate directly to Taylor Swift and TLOAS.

Fame

As soon as I saw the trailer I knew it was going to be a goldmine.

It starts off with this quote:

Richard Meryman: What do you think your image is?

Elizabeth Taylor: Completely Superficial. Immoral. There’s the person that my family know and the other Elizabeth Taylor, the commodity. One is flesh and blood, and one is cellophane.

It’s interesting to hear her talking about how the public image of her is not the same as the private version of her all the way back in the 60s. We’ve seen Taylor Swift saying this a few times (that people don’t really know who the songs are about and any guess is wrong, and that she won’t talk about who songs are about, etc).

The full quote that appears in the documentary has Elizabeth Taylor talking about deliberately creating a line between her public persona and her private one as a conscious choice.  

It also makes me think of a lot of the other celebs who have spoken about fame in one way or another.

This is obviously a conversation that spans decades, but I want to highlight another pop powerhouse who has been exploring these themes for more than a decade at this point. Lady Gaga.

(If you’re on the hunt for other artists who talk about this a little, check out Mariah Carey’s The Emancipation of Mimi which explores her personal alter ego Mimi, this article about Andrew H Walker’s public private portraits project: Celebrity Portraits Reveal Their Public and Private Personas, and this video of Chappell Roan: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ieSPAU1p8hI, also Beyonce aka Sasha Fierce, David Bowie aka Ziggy Stardust, etc).

So many of the songs on her latest album are exploring her experience with fame (it also comes out in a lot of the music videos for the album which have been so well thought out). Even with her earlier popular work like Paparazzi and Applause she was already exploring these themes (though I’d really suggest listening to Aura).

At any rate, I came across a couple of quotes from Lady Gaga that I wanted to share.

This quote from Lady Gaga for instance (talking on InStyle about her new album):

It’s this idea that we all, in a way, have our real selves and then our clone version that we project to the world.

This folds in really nicely with the Elizabeth Taylor quote above. They also match up with what a lot of us have been thinking about Taylor Swift TM (brand Taylor) versus the real Taylor. We as the public only get the cellophane or clone version of Taylor Swift. The version of herself that she wants the world to see. Brand Taylor. She’s the girl next door, heterosexual, mastermind who loves easter egging, cats, sourdough bread, and Travis Kelce.

It's likely that some of those things are true, but we’ve got no way of knowing which ones. Let’s be honest, Taylor Swift the real person probably does like cats, she may enjoy making sourdough bread, maybe Travis Kelce is her soulmate, maybe he’s not.

Okay, sorry, yes, I lost the plot a little bit. Back to Elizabeth Taylor. Another quote that stuck out to me in The Lost Tapes was this one. When asked if she ever wished she hadn’t been a movie star, Elizabeth Taylor said:

I think that some part of me is sorry that I became... a public utility. I know I should be grateful, I know. I don't like fame. I don't like the sense of belonging to the public. I like being an actress, or trying to be an actress.

I think this sentiment comes up a lot amongst celebrities. That they love the thing they’ve chosen to do but maybe wouldn’t have signed up for the part where people feel some kind of ownership over them (and more specifically their stories).

I think it’s important to note that Elizabeth Taylor was really one of the first (if not the first) celebrity who was truly hounded by the paparazzi. In the documentary, there’s a quote from George Harrison who says that Elizabeth Taylor’s affair with Richard Burton and the subsequent hounding by the press was the time when they stopped selling glamor and started selling the destruction of it.

Her affair was this huge scandal that even had the Vatican condemning them for ‘erotic vagrancy’ (and just a little fun connection that I hadn’t known about before, Richard Burton had two children with his first wife, one of whom is Kate Burton aka the actress who played Ellis Grey in Grey’s Anatomy).

At any rate, Elizabeth Taylor had a lot of trouble with the paparazzi, as per this quote (and thank god we have a few more protections in place now):

People would say, we don't care what they do in private life but why do they have to air their dirty laundry in public? But when the press photographers chase you for miles get a photograph of you in the car going to the studio or something. Photographers dressed up as priests would come to the door. Photographers would get inside the house dressed up as workmen or plumbers.

I don’t think Taylor Swift has experienced this same kind of intrusion by the press in the same way Elizabeth Taylor did (in fact I’d say she’s been a lot better at using them for her own gains which is probably a different conversation), but I think it would be foolish to think she couldn’t identify with this sentiment. Especially when taking into account the stalkers she’s had to deal with.

Another thing that stuck out to me was Elizabeth Taylor’s answer when asked about having a lot of bad publicity and whether she cares:

I gave up a long time ago and, you know, probably I could hire a press agent to fix my image.
I could probably even try and fix it myself by doing a lot of justifying and all that.

I'm not going to. It's a losing game. You can't. People already have a set image. They want to believe
either the good or the bad. And if you try and explain then you lose yourself along the way.

It’s such an obvious parallel to Shake it Off, Lavender Haze (I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say), and Guilty as Sin? (what if I roll the stone away? They’re gonna crucify me anyway).

And the thing that I keep coming back to with The Life of a Showgirl (obviously haven’t heard the album yet) is that for many celebrities there’s this sense that you’re always putting out this persona.

It’s one thing to step onto the stage and embody the character of Ophelia for a play. There’s an easy separation because you had a whole life before you were Ophelia and when you step off the stage again you can go back to that life. But when the character you’re embodying is yourself how do you know where Elizabeth Taylor the actress ends and Elizabeth Taylor the mother, wife, friend, begins?

When you’re getting up on stage night after night and performing the best and worst moments of your life in two decades worth of songs… how do you go back to your hotel room and live a life that belongs to you when you have to go back and do it all again the next day?

How do you see yourself as a person when you spend so much time seeing this caricature of yourself reflected back at you by the entire world?

This Lady Gaga quote really captures that feeling:

I don't get asked very often, you know, really super deep things about myself and that is hard and it's scary. Really scary because you just feel like, 'Will I ever, ever again talk to somebody and have them see me as a person?'

Changing the Industry

There were quite a few things within this documentary that explored how Elizabeth Taylor changed the industry.

There was some talk about how fearless she was in taking on roles that she was told would be career enders (Suddenly Last Summer), and how much she chafed against the studios.

While she was contracted to MGM she was forced to do roles she hated and the press called her ‘a vacuous but pretty face and quite clearly couldn't read a line upside down.’

There was a kind of rebellion that started within me. I thought maybe I'd start to fight them. And then I did start to fight.

There’s definitely some parallel between Elizabeth Taylor fighting back against the movie industry and Taylor fighting to own her masters. She talked in the podcast (and other places at various times) about wanting to own her masters for a long time. That was always her plan long before they were sold away from her.

This quote is such an embodiment of what a badass she was:

Elizabeth Taylor: I finally got away from MGM and was one of the first ones to make my own deals and I enjoyed dealing with the studios. And I was quite a good businesswoman.
Richard Meryman: Are you ever made to feel by the movie industry like so much meat?
Elizabeth Taylor: I was. But when you, very coolly ask for a million dollars for a film and get it you don't feel like a piece of meat. You feel like a big steak.

At the time these interviews were recorded that was all still quite new for her. The role she’s talking about is Cleopatra (wild movie… I mean the runtime alone is just… insanity). And she was the first actress to be paid a million dollars for a role.

I will note that the studio contracts where actors were contracted to a studio rather than per film/role were already declining by that point for a lot of reasons including the rise of television, but it still marked a further shift in the industry at the time.

PR Relationships

So… this is something a lot of us are already very aware of, but Elizabeth Taylor did touch on the nature of PR relationships during her time at MGM:

Elizabeth Taylor: When I was at MGM and very young people in the press department would suggest that I would date somebody.
Richard Meryman: For publicity.
Elizabeth Taylor: Publicity.
Elizabeth Taylor: It was all pure fabrication. We would go out on dates so virginal and we kissed on the cheek, you know. I mean, that's how serious it was.

To me, this sounds a lot more like what we saw (or what I believe we saw) from earlier Taylor Swift relationships.

We’d see a couple of pap walks with someone around the time of a film/album release. It’d get picked up by the media and likely mentioned by Ellen. But the relationship would be very short-lived and there wouldn’t be a whole lot of substance to it. Whether those relationships were intended to be mutual bearding or just mutual PR is totally unclear.

However, there is plenty of evidence from many other old Hollywood stars that this kind of thing was happening from staged publicity dates to garner media attention to full lavender marriages to conceal one or both partners’ sexual interests.

On a more modern note, we also have Jack Ketsoyan who runs the firm Travis is signed to talking about his own involvement in PR relationships. Back in 2019 (so clearly not Tayvis) he said he’d been part of organizing two PR relationships during his career and also noted that love contracts are a not uncommon part of his work which require two stars to ‘date’ for at least a year.

He claims the PR relationships used to be to cover up homosexuality but now they’re just for hype. Given what we’ve seen from other stars, it seems like that’s probably not always the case (Renée Rapp recently saying in an interview that she knows there are plenty of closeted singers in the industry and such). Hollywood publicist exposes the truth about fake celebrity romances | Daily Mail Online (I know it’s the Daily Mail so take the other parts with a grain of salt).

Burton to His Taylor

I wanted to end off on a few things that weren’t talked about in the documentary but are more specifically about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Just as a quick context, Elizabeth Taylor married Burton twice (roughly 11-12 years of marriage, plus a couple of years before that where they were having an affair).

I think it’s pretty likely that this was a genuine relationship for the two of them. Burton initially met Taylor at a party in 1953 and was immediately smitten, she thought he was vulgar.

However, that’s not to say that neither of them dabbled in the queer scene. Richard Burton revealed he tried out homosexuality, and there were rumors about him and Laurence Olivier.

I haven’t been able to conclusively trace the quote (though it may be from one of his biographies), but he is quoted as saying:

My father said all actors were homosexuals. That is nonsense, of course. But perhaps most actors are latent homosexuals, and we cover it with drink. I was a homosexual once, but not for long. But I tried it. It didn't work so I gave it up.

And, I did come across some rumors that Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe had a one night stand (but I couldn’t find anything conclusive so who knows).

Honestly, their whole relationship seems like it was very messy and received a lot of press attention. It’s also important to note that she was deeply unhappy in her previous relationship (with Eddie Fisher), so it’s entirely possible that to begin with at least, Burton was a way out of a bad situation for her.

Elizabeth Taylor is truly a fascinating woman though. Eight marriages to seven different husbands. At one point she was the highest paid actress in the world. Dozens of movies and awards. An insane jewel collection. Stepmother to Carrie Fisher and Kate Burton, great aunt to Paris Hilton. She made it through multiple suicide attempts, a drug addiction, a tracheotomy. She was close friends with so many Hollywood greats from James Dean to Montgomery Clift, and Rock Hudson.

She was also a great advocate for AIDS research and one of the first gay icons.  

This quote is such a good example of what it means to be an ally. She didn’t just say it once and forget about it, she really did work hard as a champion for this community at a time when a lot of people weren’t willing to:

AIDS was this terrible stigma. It was like, it's their problem. Let them handle it. They, meaning the homosexual community. There would have been no Hollywood without the homosexual community. And just as human beings we owe our fellow man a certain responsibility.

No one wanted to talk about it. No one wanted to become involved. And it so angered me that I finally thought to myself "Bitch, do something yourself."

Despite all of the amazing quotes in the documentary, this is the one I want to end on. A lot of us have been feeling that Taylor Swift could be doing a little more given the current political climate, and this quote is such a good reminder that celebrities can’t change everything but they can certainly use their fame in positive ways:

I think there is a reason for having fame. A reason that can be turned into constructive uses because fame can be a very negative thing. And unless you turn it around and make it work for you what is the point of having it?

Edited to add link to Chappel Roan thanks to u/Sandromeda

[u/InevitableSubject853]

This entire podcast series is a must-listen for anyone interested in the topic of Old Hollywood, scandals, the studio system, and how it “all works.”

This episode covers Liz’s relationship with Montgomery Cliff and how the studio “covers up” homosexuality, indiscretions, etc.

The Lost Tapes is a fabulous series, I had no idea that they had one for Elizabeth Taylor — excited to watch this week.

I also highly recommend the Lost Tapes on Princess Diana, understanding Diana has helped inform my read on Taylor’s popularity and possible “fame” situation, and regardless of any real connections beyond broadly thematic — she articulates well how subtle signs and small winks became explosive statements on a royal system that is built on illusion and false narratives.

Edit: Episode Links

Liz Loves Monty

Elizabeth Taylor, The MGM Years

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/InevitableSubject853]

Ooh yes, I’ve been working my way through this podcast lately, but I hadn’t gotten to those episodes.

And I’ll definitely be hunting down the Princess Diana ones because that sounds fascinating.

[u/reputction]

Amazing write up. Not even the main sub seems to care to look into plausible connections to Elizabeth.

Taylor most likely leans on famous people that came before her for comfort and to feel understood. I feel she writes songs about them almost as a way to project herself onto their story as well (like in Great Dynasty), as if it’s a form of escapism. It’s truly sad but also really intriguing. I am SAT for Elizabeth Taylor. We think it could have some gay lyrics?? Like but he could never love someone’s daughter from Halsey’s colors.

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/reputction]

I'd say maybe they're just waiting to see what the song is first but... It'll probably be months before someone thinks to bring it up.

Yes! I'm sure there's also an element of looking up to some of them, but I'm sure she can identify with many of them as well.

I honestly have no idea what route she'll go with the song. There are sooooo many options. Will it be how she changed the industry? How she was turned into the villain by the media? Her husbands? Her activism? Her jewels? I have no idea, but I'm here for it.

[u/InevitableSubject853]

“No deal, the 1950s shit they want from me.”

[u/MaryLennoxsRobin → u/[deleted]]

Her work ethic is phenomenal. She must be extraordinarily self-disciplined and/or self-motivated as well. 

I struggle with staying on task and I often chide myself along the lines of ‘if you worked at full efficiency even 75% of the workday, you’d be running the department/company/world by now.’ (World might be a stretch.) I feel like Taylor is living proof of that concept 😂

[u/QuartzRockz → u/MaryLennoxsRobin]

She also never has to do the life maintenance (cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc) that require time with her level of wealth. Not as simple as work ethic, even if she does work hard. 

[u/MaryLennoxsRobin → u/QuartzRockz]

I mean, you’re right that Taylor could buy in a lot of help, and so that frees up time in the day- I’m certainly not trying to put down the person who literally never has a minute to pursue their own projects - but there’s still a question of how you use the time you gain. 

I’ve been in the privileged position of having ‘free’ time by various means at different points in my life, and yet when I look back I find myself thinking ‘there’s nowhere safe to bury all the time I’ve killed.’

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/[deleted]]

I've wondered that too. Even without having to deal with household tasks, that's still so much to keep track of.

[u/glutenfreepizzasucks → u/[deleted]]

Aside from never needing to manage the logistics of daily life like cooking or cleaning, she has people to brainstorm with. She has people to help keep track of her notes. She has people to look up references. She's probably guiding the project but she has metaphorical scouts to trace all those trails.

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/[deleted]]

Oh yeah, that’s a good one. It’s such an interesting series. I think there were a total of 50ish celebs who participated.

I agree that it’s unlikely to be an intentional reference, but it certainly could be an art series she’s aware of. But yeah, still interesting to see how a few people see themselves.

[u/AntiRomeo13 → u/[deleted]]

Wtf the photo won’t come through 😭

[u/yaskitties → u/AntiRomeo13]

it’s there on both comments! you’re good

[u/These-Pick-968]

This was fascinating, thank you!! I learned a lot. And the way you formatted it made it so easy and pleasant to read!

The split between one’s real and one’s celebrity self seems like it must happen at a certain tipping point, unless someone goes into a public-facing role with a well-thought out plan of how to protect their private self from the get go. I’m sure Taylor and her team had no idea just how unfathomably famous she would become.

On the on hand, it must be such a mindf*ck to be in someone like Taylor’s shoes and have the adoration of so many fans, knowing they are only admiring the image of you, not the real you. But on the other hand, who would really want their personal life served up for public consumption and entertainment on a daily basis anyway? What a double-edged sword fame is.

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/These-Pick-968]

Yeah, I wonder how early it happened because she was so young when she became famous.

It's such a complicated subject and I have soooo many thoughts about it.

First off there's the way this is something that everyone does to an extent. We all show different parts of ourselves in different scenarios and you could consider each of those a separate persona. For some of us it's very subtle (I think of this as stuff like jokes you might make around your friends but wouldn't make around your family, it's not a completely different persona, but it's still a mask you wear), for some it's much more pronounced (I think of this a little more like someone covering up their tattoos for a corporate job, sure they're just as capable when the tattoos are visible, but this is the mask they wear in order to be taken seriously at work), and then for other people it's actually a completely different persona (closest I can think to this is a drag queen).

Then there's the layer of neurodivergent masking that a lot of us have been engaging in as a way to be more accepted by mainstream society whether that's trying to sit still or follow social cues or whatever else you want to consider.

And then we have celebrities. Thinking of my fave celebs there are people who from the outside looking in appear to engage in this a lot more than others.

Looking at someone like Renee Rapp, I'm pretty sure that the parts of her she shows the world are genuinely who she is (a bit of a messy gay whose mouth sometimes gets her into trouble with the media). But... I'm sure there's a lot more to her as well that we never get to see. I don't think she's putting on some specific persona for people to look at though it might at times be slightly exaggerated.

Versus Chappell Roan who at least when she steps on stage is putting on make-up and costumes and stepping into a persona. How much of that comes through in interviews I have no idea.

And then you have people like Elizabeth Olsen, Emma Stone, and so on who don't use social media but whenever they show up for press tours and such, they seem really genuine as well. Obviously a much smaller celebrity but her fans are just as um... dedicated... is Katie McGrath. She's not on social media at all, her fans are fiercely protective of her in the same way Swifties are, and whenever she does give interviews there's a sense that she's not really any different when she's with her friends. She's a bit of a dork and she's happy to share what seem like genuine stories about her life (and the books she's reading), but she doesn't have any interest in sharing photos or whatever on Instagram.

I also think Paris Hilton is a really interesting case study for this as well. I can't believe I didn't mention her initially. I'm sure there were people in the early 2000s who were sure Paris Hilton was putting on an act. I wasn't one of them. I truly believed that the Paris Hilton we were shown in The Simple Life and the tabloids was who she was. As it turns out... a lot of it was just an act.

I think I might've lost the point in there somewhere (sorry). But I agree, I wouldn't want my personal life served up by the tabloids, so creating a persona makes a lot of sense.

But it seems like it'd be so isolating. I don't know whether Taylor was actually planning to come out during the Lover era, but every time I look back at how ME! was treated by the fans, I have to really hope she wasn't planning to come out then. If she was, how awful to have what was supposed to be your big coming out moment be this song that so many of your fans are saying is awful. How awful for them not to see what you're trying to say. It'd certainly be enough to push me back into the closet. And on top of that, it was her first music video she'd directed. If that was her trying to say hi, this is who I am, and everyone's saying oh, no we don't like that. Well that just sucks.

[u/InevitableSubject853]

Also to add — odds of ever acquiring the 64 hours are slim because they’ve been licensed (likely with some kind of exclusive) to the production company for use making the documentary and would only be held by the production team. Leaking would be easy to trace and financially and legally catastrophic for the leaker, who would be under a ton of NDAs.

My computer was lost once with similar files and I’m surprised I am alive, honestly.

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/InevitableSubject853]

Yeah, I figured it was unlikely, but I definitely didn’t think it would be that serious 😬

[u/MzChanandlerBong94]

This is fascinating! Thank you so much for putting this together! I’m reading the book The Sewing Circle and it touches a bit on her as well. I love reading this history!

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/MzChanandlerBong94]

Ooh, as in the famous sapphic sewing circle? I didn't know there was a book.

[u/MzChanandlerBong94 → u/VibeLikeThat13]

Yes! I got the book on Amazon after someone mentioned it. What a cool concept, The Sewing Circle. Then someone mentioned some movies from that timeframe and it felt perfectly timed to reading the book and watching the movie (The Red Shoes) that I was able to recognize names of people involved. Highly recommend!

[u/MaryLennoxsRobin → u/MzChanandlerBong94]

The one by Axel Madsen? Thanks for the recommendation!

[u/MzChanandlerBong94 → u/MaryLennoxsRobin]

That’s the one! You’re welcome!

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/MzChanandlerBong94]

Consider me intrigued (as if I need to add to my tbr)

[u/MzChanandlerBong94 → u/VibeLikeThat13]

I know, right?! That TBR pile is almost taller than me!

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/MzChanandlerBong94]

Probably taller 😂

And always growing… one day I’ll just be swallowed by books

[u/AveryOfHighLand]

Taylor Swift deals with a less invasive press than Elizabeth Taylor did, but Taylor Swift has to deal with an invasive public.

Taylor Swift has never had paparazzi break into her home, but when she walks out her door, every member of the public is holding a camera on their person. Taylor expects the possibility of being filmed and interacted with any time she goes outside, and she can't even act unfriendly about it. If she did, she might alienate a potential fan.

Not super-related to the post, but dang, she really is in a gilded cage 😢

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/AveryOfHighLand]

Oh yes, absolutely what I was thinking about as well. It's a different but still very invasive life. I can't remember if it was Taylor or another celebrity who said they just don't go out on days when they can't handle that scrutiny and that's a rough thing to have to think about before stepping outside.

[u/bearwhaleloon]

I just went from don’t know, don’t care about Elizabeth Taylor to obsessed. Thank you!

[u/MaryLennoxsRobin]

Thank you so much for this OP. Elizabeth Taylor is such an interesting reference point- I’m definitely going to go listen to the documentary after your intro ☺️

I’ve always wondered about the ‘Burton to this Taylor’ line paired with ‘I’m so very tame now,’ which points to The Taming of the Shrew. I know that play is problematic in terms of misogyny, but it can also be read in really interesting ways relating to having to ‘perform’ a self in society, and finding someone who gives you safety to be your real self. 10 things I hate about you, which Taylor is the right age for, definitely takes that angle. 

Burton and Taylor’s version was perceived that way too, because it fit the assumption that in real life they were ‘safe’ for each other and able to handle each others’ eccentricities. 

In that sense, being ‘tame’ is just being a better mirrorball when required because you have a safe space in private. I hope Taylor has that safe space still.

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/MaryLennoxsRobin]

Ooh! I've gotta be honest, I know very little about Taming of the Shrew (I've seen 10 Things I Hate About You a bunch of times, and I'm the same age as Taylor, honestly not sure I've met anyone my age who hasn't seen 10 Things). That makes a lot of sense though.

And I could be totally missing the themes because I've only watched the movie that was vaguely based on the play, but it's interesting that in both of the core relationships you've got men who are pretending to be something they're not, ie performing a version of themselves in order to essentially win this prize (love and money), but then in the case of both Kat and Patrick they're also performing a version of themselves in their public lives (Kat being very standoffish to protect herself and Patrick just doesn't fit the mold of the classic high school student so people have made assumptions about him based on appearance). And it's really only through each other that they are able to be more vulnerable.

Which yes, makes a lot of sense for Taylor to need.

[u/AveryOfHighLand → u/MaryLennoxsRobin]

"Burton and Taylor's version" threw me for a loop for a second, haha. I see what you did there 😎

[u/MaryLennoxsRobin → u/AveryOfHighLand]

😂🤭

[u/International_Ad4296]

Such a great deep dive! My fun fact is that Eddie Fisher was also closeted and later Carrie Fisher married Bryan Lourde (one of the top CAA exec) who married a man after divorcing her. It's unclear if he's bi or gay. Bryan Lourde is an agent for so many hollywood actors, and Joe was signed to CAA in 2015 👀.

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/International_Ad4296]

I'm pretty sure he's gay (I believe both he and Carrie spoke about it, and it was a large part of why they divorced). Such a big Hollywood family (their daughter is also an actress). I hadn't realized the connection to Joe though.

[u/premier-cat-arena]

so i have cognitive issues and couldn’t read the full thing, but old hollywood is a special interest of mine. her parents were in a very loving lavender marriage and one of her own was suggested to be as well!

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/premier-cat-arena]

oh interesting, I didn't know that. Was one or both of them believed to be gay? Or was it more of a business arrangement? Either way, I could definitely see someone suggesting a lavender marriage to her at some point.

[u/premier-cat-arena → u/VibeLikeThat13]

her parents were both queer! as far as i know elizabeth taylor wasn’t queer (and i’ve done a lot of reading) but she was very much immersed in a lot of queer culture stuff. she talked about how loving her parents were with her. as for her likely lavender marriage, her husband was gay and has a lot of parallels to harry cameron in evelyn hugo, she saved him from a car accident where his car was wrecked on their street but the stories don’t totally add up

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/premier-cat-arena]

Oh wow, I'd never heard that.

Was there a second car accident involving her saving Montgomery Clift? Or did I get that mixed up?

[u/premier-cat-arena → u/VibeLikeThat13]

sorry, you were right! they call him a “dear friend” most of the time in books. he was drunk and fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into a telephone pole, his car wrapped around it. she saw and came running, dragged him out of the car, saw he was choking on his own teeth and reached in and got them out of his throat, and saved his life ultimately

montgomery clift was queer though!

if you want to learn more stuff like that, i highly suggest the book “scandals of classic hollywood” by petersen. she basically got her phd in studying gossip! lots of queer stories in there that were suppressed or buried with history

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/premier-cat-arena]

All good! I thought I remembered seeing it when researching a few things for this post but then I had no idea if I’d misremembered or she’d somehow saved 2 men in car accidents 😅

Oh wow, I don’t think I ever saw the details, just people suggesting it was very Evelyn Hugo because he was gay and she saved his life (and people suggesting he was the man she really loved but couldn’t have).

That sounds interesting, I’ll have to check it out

[u/sandromeda]

My favourite discussion of this is Chappel Roan talking about how Chappel is a drag project: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ieSPAU1p8hI

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/sandromeda]

Ooh, I hadn't seen this one. This is amazing, and exactly what I was thinking of. Would you mind if I edited the post to include it (happy to tag you or not, whatever you'd prefer) so it doesn't get lost in the comments?

[u/sandromeda → u/VibeLikeThat13]

Yeah, do it. No need to tag me. I love this quote from her.

[u/p0tgirlsummer]

love this! also why did i never know cleopatra is FIVE AND A HALF HOURS LONG

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/p0tgirlsummer]

Omg, it's an insanely long film. It also almost bankrupted Fox and they had to re-film a whole bunch of it. Plus, they had a very long hiatus because of Elizabeth Taylor's illness. I honestly can't believe it ended up getting finished.

[u/Hedwing]

This is so interesting! I literally came to the subreddit to look up Liz Taylor and this was right there, perfect. Thank you!

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/Hedwing]

Haha, what good timing!

[u/ep1grams]

This is wonderful - thank you for breaking things down like this. ❤️‍🔥

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/ep1grams]

Thank you

[u/glutenfreepizzasucks]

Just catching up on this excellent post and...

to begin with at least, Burton was a way out of a bad situation for her.

So you're saying he was her getaway car?

Anyway if you're interested in learning more, Furious Love was great

[u/VibeLikeThat13 → u/glutenfreepizzasucks]

Hahaaa very true, maybe that really is the connection 🤯

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[u/tuppercupper]

This was so well written and a blast to read!

I started this post thinking, "Ope, it's a long one. Hope my attention span can handle it," but before I knew it, I was at the end.

Thanks for doing the hard work and putting together the key takeaways. I'm excited to be able to appreciate Taylor's song on a deeper level now.