Elizabeth Taylor – Keith's Theatre

What’s going on in the world this week? A lot of it I’d rather forget about…

Lots of people up in arms about who said this, who said that, but that’s what makes the world go round, don’t ’cha know…

Those struggling to hold onto power or the outsiders waiting patiently for just the right moment to pounce and strike their prey…

Here in the U.S., opposing political camps choose to go to opposite corners of the boxing ring after doing extreme battle, then take a quick break before the next round begins…

Kind of like that all over the world, don’t ’cha think?

Take a gander at France…where the leading political candidate with a huge following, Marine Le Pen, just happens to make a grave mistake no one with political aspirations would dare ever make, and then the proverbial you-know-what hits the fan. Hooey!

A jarring revelation just arrived from the United Kingdom (land of our British colonizers), where their Supreme Court decided what a woman is. Let me repeat that…they’ve issued a proclamation about what a woman is!

Oh, goody, goody! Thanks for the big update…as if I didn’t already know!

Of course, everyone (and their cousin Ethel) weighs in on the issue, so oodles of video footage follow their Supreme Court’s ground shaking verdict.

Seems we’ve all fallen into a somnambulist dreamworld where up is down and right is actually left, and men suffering from situational transsexuality are really women…

Have I just coined a new term for the psychobabble crowd? Situational transsexuality? Congratulations to Keith’s Theatre for a job well done!

Let’s change the channel, shall we? I feel like talking about something else now.

Blaire White’s channel is enormously funny, and she’s usually spot-on, but Blaire can make mistakes, and I think she’s dead wrong about Dylan Mulvaney. Dylan’s a work in progress, girl, not frozen in time and space. TikTok’s in its own little universe, don’t ’cha know, not at all like real life, so let’s give Dylan a break since she’s in a state of metamorphosis…

Somehow during all this madness, I found myself researching Hollywood’s most enduring marriages this week. These statistics were found on https://stacker.com/

Art & Lois Linkletter 74 years

Bob & Dolores Hope, 69 years (though no official record can be found of Hope’s 2^nd marriage)

Kirk Douglas & Anne Buydens, 64 years

Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormé, 55 years

Joanne Woodward & Paul Newman, 50 years

How’s that for longevity in marriage? Of course, with the good news goes the bad, and there was a plethora of multiple marriages I just had to rant about. Some of the culprits like Gloria Swanson and Zsa Zsa Gabor eventually stayed with their final spouse (or perhaps died before they could get to divorce court), but others struck out every time (Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner come to the forefront).

There’s something intrinsically exciting about zeroing in on the multiple alliances of Hollywood celebrities from the past – Gloria Swanson’s six husbands, Elizabeth Taylor’s eight marriages to seven different men (Richard Burton twice), or Zsa Zsa Gabor’s nine husbands. And perish the thought I mention Lana Turner’s seven husbands or her cadre of lovers, one of whom was gangster Johnny Stompanato, stabbed to death by teen daughter, Cheryl Crane. (Keith’s Theatre feature from December 2023).

“Did these glamourous ladies ever find that one true love we’re all searching for?” Sniffle sniff…

Perhaps the answer was yes for Gloria Swanson and Zsa Zsa Gabor. They both were, after all, still married at the time of their deaths. One can only speculate with Lana Turner and Liz, who both died husbandless and quite alone.

Elizabeth Taylor once said of Richard Burton, to whom she was married twice, “All the men after Richard were really just company.” Apparently, Liz had completely forgotten about third husband, producer Mike Todd, who was killed in a plane accident on March 22, 1958. According to a July, 1958 article from Canadian publication, Liberty, Liz was billing herself at the time as Mrs. Michael Todd and the schmaltzy article, as told to Joe Hyams, was titled, “I’m saying goodbye to the movies!”

Until next time…

**March, 1960 “Modern Screen” article by columnist, Earl Wilson**

In her 1962 memoir, “The Whole Truth and Nothing But,” Hollywood gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper, wrote of Liz Taylor’s “BUtterfield 8” Oscar in the following manner, “She won her Academy Award not for Butterfield 8 but for nearly dying. And her studio joined in by putting on a terrific public relations campaign against Debbie – with planted stories in fan magazines and loaded interviews for the newspapers – to clinch sympathy for Liz.”

The aging columnist, who loved judging all Hollywood, was of course referring to the love triangle concerning Elizabeth Taylor, actress Debbie Reynolds and Reynolds’ onetime husband, baritone Eddie Fisher. In 1958, Taylor began a love affair with Fisher, at the time married to actress Reynolds, during the filming of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Eddie Fisher later left Debbie Reynolds to wed Liz.

**Hedda Hopper, chief competition** for Hearst columnist, Louella Parsons

The public became either decidedly for or against Taylor – either content to accept that all’s fair in love and war, or the opposite view of Liz as predatory homewrecker.

Elizabeth Taylor had originally catapulted to stardom at the young age of 12 in the 1944 film, “National Velvet.” Taylor blossomed into a lovely, sensual young woman as the world watched and was often publicized as the most beautiful woman in the world. When her third husband, director Michael Todd, was suddenly killed in a plane crash on March 22, 1958, there was an outpouring of public sympathy for Liz.

Then came the Reynolds-Fisher-Taylor romance scandal, turning many sharply against her. All ill feelings were quickly forgotten though, after Liz’s near date with death from pneumonia two years later, just prior to the Academy Awards. Nominated for best actress in the 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film “BUtterfield 8,” Liz garnered the coveted award many felt was undeserved. It certainly hadn’t hurt Taylor (or M-G-M) that she’d languished for weeks in an intensive care unit close to death just before the Oscars that year.

Still frail from her recent illness, Elizabeth Taylor was helped to the stage by Eddie Fisher, who’d co-starred with her in “BUtterfield 8.” He’d recently divorced Debbie Reynolds to be at Liz’s side, making him Taylor’s fourth husband to date.

**As Helen of Troy in “Doctor Faustus”**

To decide for yourself if Elizabeth Taylor’s 1961 Oscar was really a “sympathy award,” check out her competition that year: Shirley MacLaine for “The Apartment” – a satirical look at office politics; Melina Mercouri for “Never on Sunday,” the story of a Greek prostitute; Greer Garson for “Sunrise at Campobello,” a dramatization of former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s battle with polio; and Deborah Kerr for “The Sundowners,” a film about life in the Australian outback.

The many husbands of Liz:

1. Conrad Hilton, Jr. (1950-1951)

2. Michael Wilding (1952-1957)

3. Mike Todd (1957-1958)

4. Eddie Fisher (1959-1964)

5. Richard Burton (1964-1974)

6. Richard Burton (1975-1976)

7. John Warner (1976-1982)_

8. Larry Fortensky (1991-1996)

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories