What a fascinating life this woman led. I really feel like it would be pretty hard to come away from this book not liking Elizabeth Taylor as a human being. She loved fiercely, struggled publicly, and left a huge legacy that has helped millions of people, and continues to do so.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s knowing who Elizabeth Taylor was, just like everyone else, because she was part of the zeitgeist, one of the most famous women ever to live. I specifically remember her commercials for White Diamonds, and from watching National Velvet over and over. This is still the only film of hers I’ve ever seen. It was a staple in my house as a child who was horse obsessed*. My mom taped it off the TV for me and I’m sure if I could get my hands on that copy I could recite all the commercials to you. (I learned from this book that Elizabeth kept her horse from the film, King Charles, who was a cousin of Seabiscuit. He was a gift to her from Louis B. Mayer on her 13th birthday.) According to her Wikipedia, I’ve most likely seen all her sitcom cameos as well, though I have no memory of them.
*I apparently went on an extended campaign to convince my parents we could drain our pool and keep the horse in there. They love telling this story.
Kate Andersen Brower is a very good biographer. She takes us through Elizabeth’s life in a way that makes the straightforward linear timeline of that actually interesting (linear timelines and trudging through uninteresting parts of a life are both reasons why I tend to stay away from biographies). She knows what to emphasize and what to gloss over. And because she had access not only to Elizabeth’s friends and family, but her papers as well, we get some pretty great insight into what she was actually thinking and feeling as we go along. It helps, of course, that her subject led a fascinating event-filled life. This woman did not have a uninteresting part of her life.
I was originally interested in this book because I happened to see a Vanity Fair article about her AIDS activism, and she just seemed like such a badass. That combined with my childhood nostalgia meant this was a must pick up for me. It was most definitely worth the audiobook credit. There’s really something in here for all kinds of biography lovers: Hollywood gossip, reproductive issues, abuse, child stardom, chronic pain, addiction, behind the scenes info from her many films, details about all her weddings and the nitty gritty of all her relationships (with Mike Todd and Richard Burton being the main focuses there), details about her glamorous lifestyle and her unquenchable passion for expensive jewelry, and her close friendships with many queer people that eventually led her to trailblaze in using her vast fame and fortune to further AIDS research and help care for the people suffering and dying from the disease. She regularly visited hospice wards and held and comforted those that were very ill and alone, in a time when most people didn’t even want to get near let alone touch or embrace someone with the disease. When she died in 2011, she told them to hold her funeral fifteen minutes late because she was famously late everywhere she went, and being late for her own funeral tickled her.
She was a ballsy, glamorous broad, and I’m glad I know more about her now.
