In 1964, Life magazine ran a 6, 000-word , story , on Elizabeth Taylor culled from roughly 40 days of music interviews with the writer and journalist Richard Meryman Jr. The title of the article was” Our Eyes Have Fingers,” a phrase Taylor adapted from to describe the emotional bond between her and her second husband Richard Burton, whom she had divorce and divorce before remarrying once more. That demonstrates the mutual explosive attraction. Or as Taylor put it:” When we look at each other, it’s like our gaze had fingers and they grab ahold”.
Often brilliant on display, that excellent also existed in her career and self-expression off display.
The Meryman conversations — much, winding conversations over coffee ( a “scotch and sodie”, as Taylor gently puts it )— have been discovered and they form the basis of the absorbing HBO film,” Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes”. Director Nanette Burstein layers the voice over videos from Taylor’s movies, media images, home movies and personal photos.
” National Velvet” made her a baby sun in 1945, but she was playing people in their 20s by the time she was a teenager. Yet so,” I was not prepared to be an adult”, she says. ” I had been protected and protected, and I had suffered enormous consequences.” In these 1964 interviews, she appears analytical and willing to raise the screen in order to succeed in Hollywood. The list does not include star image management.
” I’m really fascinated by the occurrence of Elizabeth Taylor”, Meryman says at the outset. Ummhmm, she replies. I laughed!
Finally he inquires,” What do you think your people image is?”
” My people image? Oooooh, I may think it was an unreliable lady, fully superficial, not very pretty”. Not to really? ” I mean, inside — not very pretty a photograph. Maybe because of my private career, I suggest anything illegal. But I am no illegal. And I am not evil. I’ve caused errors, and I’ve already paid for them. But still it does n’t make up. I am aware that I will never be able to pay the costs. However, you cannot include that in the narrative.
When asked about her kids, her answer is level-headed:” I definitely does not talk about them. I feel badly safe. They have a proper to privacy”. And she is intelligent about the crazy-making character of brand. ” I intentionally created a multiplying range,” I say. My home is aware of the real person. However, I do n’t really understand the depth or significance of the other Elizabeth Taylor, the famous one. It’s a product and it makes income. One is flesh-and-blood and one is mylar”. Even now, we often hear Hollywood’s most famous lose the work and spell it out in words as harsh as these.
She laments that” all I have accomplished is to be a movie legend that occasionally did an acting career very well.” I’m not happy with who I am. I’m never satisfied with what I’ve done. I want to improve”.
Presumably, Meryman’s interviews with Taylor took place over several years ( the film states they were conducted for a book project ) because she talks about” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”?, which came out in 1966. The film producer Burstein’s selections serve as examples of how Taylor managed to create the dreadful whirling dervish and heavy-drinking panic agent extraordinaire Martha in Edward Albee’s perform, which is the film’s centerpiece. A cigar rests between her teeth, like when she tells her husband to” shuddup” from the side of her lips.
” Martha is vulgar, clumsy, snarly, but there are times when, all of a sudden the wall will bite and you will see the hurt, the eternal kind of discomfort of this woman”, she says. ” Because it’s such a complete change from anything I’ve ever done, in a sense it’s one of the easiest things I’ve ever done”, she says. ” I have Martha to conceal behind, but I’ve lost Elizabeth Taylor. I feel many healthier, many more experimental”.
The drama in the interviews is covered by her varied roles, relationships, and other aspects of her life ( she admits to having a tendency to poke her men into pushing back, too frequently with violence ). As the conversation winds down, Meryman says:” I think I’ve finished my list of questions”. Taylor is material. ” Would you like a beverage, dear? If we “offer” the little system?
Drinking was a concern for Taylor as well, and it would escalate in the home. After spending time recovering at the Betty Ford Center, the video ends with a 1985 interview with columnist Dominick Dunne, who was later filmed in a different location. She is suddenly putting her eight relationships behind her. ” I do n’t think I’ve ever tried to be alone”, she says. We watch a picture that illustrates this while she is speaking at a floor and says,” No one wanted to talk about it, no one wanted to be engaged,” she says. ” And it so angered me that I suddenly thought to myself: ‘ Woman, do something yourself.'”
To Dunne, she explains her thought process more seriously.
” I believe there is a purpose for having notoriety,” which can be used for good purposes because it can be quite unfavorable. What purpose does it serve if you do n’t turn it around and get it to work for you?
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‘ ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE LOST TAPES ‘
3.5 stars ( out of 4 )
Rating: TV-MA
How to watch: 8 p. m. ET Saturday on HBO ( streaming on Max )
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