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When Elizabeth Taylor was once the most important film famous person on this planet, she was once additionally one in all maximum messed-up. Issues had been so dangerous that she lived in dust or even were given unwell from it, in keeping with a brand new e-book.
In 1958, Taylor was once solid in twentieth Century Fox’s “Cleopatra” — changing into the primary film famous person to be paid $1 million for a task.
Filming in England was once straight away beset through issues, together with Taylor’s apparently continuous well being problems.
In October 1960, issues were given so excessive that her husband, crooner Eddie Fisher, was once paid $150,000 through the studio to get Taylor to the set, watch her vitamin and stroll her retinue of canines.
Fisher has stated that Taylor was once “popping pills and drinking most of the day,” in keeping with the brand new e-book “Erotic Vagrancy” through Roger Lewis. In the meantime, Fisher himself was once reportedly hooked on methamphetamine.
When author Truman Capote visited, he discovered Taylor’s rooms “crowded with shedding cats and unhousebroken dogs and a general atmosphere of disorderly paraphernalia.”
The slovenly setting apparently affected Taylor’s well being, Lewis writes, because the actress was once taken to the London Health facility, positioned in an iron lung and identified with “Malta Fever” or “brucellosis, which is caused by the ingestion of animal secretions — unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat.”
Taylor perhaps reduced in size the bizarre ailment from “slobbering” over her “innumerable and terrible pets, which shared her bed,” Lewis writes.
The actress was once launched, best to go back to the sanatorium the following month with serious migraines. Filming was once halted — however Taylor’s well being woes best worsened.
In March 1961, she got here down with a serious case of pneumonia that left her comatose. Information retailers erroneously reported that the “National Velvet” actress had died.
Through the tip of the month, she was once launched and demolition of the “Cleopatra” units started. All of the present pictures was once chucked. Manufacturing was once moved to Rome and a brand new director, Joseph Mankiewicz, got here on board.
Seven million greenbacks have been wasted.
When “Cleopatra” filming resumed, Welsh actor Richard Burton joined the solid reverse Taylor.
The e-book describes a mink-clad Taylor arriving on set with Fisher, “two secretaries, two maids, make-up people and hairdressers.”
Burton later wrote in his diary that her “breasts [were] jutting out from that half-asleep languid lingering body.”
The 2 started a torrid affair at the back of the backs of Fisher and Burton’s spouse Sybil, who brushed it off: “He’s had these affairs before,” she informed Fisher of Burton, “and he always comes home to me.”
Because the fans/co-stars turned into extra flagrant, even the Vatican weighed in on their affair — labeling it “erotic vagrancy.”
However Taylor, Lewis writes, was once afraid that Burton would damage it off together with her that she as soon as tried suicide through “trying to break through a glass door and had to be restrained.”
When Burton did attempt to finish issues — announcing, “It was fun, while it lasted” — Taylor took an overdose of Seconal and needed to have her abdomen pumped.
The 2 ultimately left their spouses and married in 1964, however their fights had been mythical.
Amongst Burton’s put-downs for the actress: “Mss T-ts” and “that fat little tart.”
Taylor referred to as Burton “a boozed-up, burned-out Welshman!”
He continuously mocked Taylor over her loss of formal training and now not understanding Shakespeare.
Her answer was once cool: “I don’t know anything about the theatre, but I don’t need to. I’m a star.”
In the meantime, Taylor’s housework conduct it seems that didn’t trade throughout the wedding.
Lewis writes how, “in their wake was the pillage of an invading army — dog shit and dinner trays at the Plaza, New York, the usual mess of dog shit and empty bottles at the Grand Hotel, Rome. The clean up from the animal excrement from the carpets, curtains, mirrors and furniture at the Four Seasons Hotel, New York, took days.”
Burton and Taylor had been married for almost 10 years, divorcing in 1974, ahead of remarrying in 1975 and splitting up once more a yr later.