This same month of March in Year 2002 I last shared the same air as Elizabeth Taylor. It was 29th and Fifth’s Marble Collegiate Church. It was Liza Minnelli‘s weddinglet to David Gest, where the publicity lasted longer than the marriage.
We were ordered to be “prompt” for the 5 p.m. ceremony. We were told “sharp.” Triple-parked limos unloaded VIPs like Sir Anthony Hopkins, Michael Jackson, Donald Trump, Rosie O’Donnell, Alan Cumming, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Wagner on time. Fluffed-up sables, chinchillas, ermines to the eyeballs settled down in pews by 4:50 exactly.
4:55 Liza stood in virginal white Bob Mackie. Matron of honor Marisa Berenson held Liza’s train. Mia Farrow, Freda Payne, Janet Leigh and I, all brides-maids, were in place. Hairdresser John Barrett sprayed the bride’s multimarried head. Makeup people gave a final powdering. 5 p.m. Natalie Cole cranked up “Unforgettable.”
5:01. No bride. No groom. No pastor. No procession. No nothing. Dressed all in black including her hat, Elizabeth Taylor, who knew from weddings, was the ring bearer. And hadn’t shown yet. Big names, crammed to the stained glass ceiling, sat. The whole I Do, delayed.
Why? Because having exited her suite in slippers, Elizabeth reached the church and realized she’d forgotten her shoes. Only she knew which they were. Only she knew where they were. Helped into the car, back to the hotel she went. The pastor, choir, wedding party, musicians, photographers all waited.
No supporting player, even in this event she was The Star.
Take September 1989. Malcolm Forbes, the Forbes, had a 70th birthday. In those days’ dollars, it cost him $2.5 mil. Malcolm chartered a Concorde, a Boeing, a DC-8 plus private jets. The guest list: heads of state, tribal chiefs, movie stars, one-namers like Kissinger and Agnelli. He flew everyone from wherever on the planet they were to Palais Mendoub in Tangiers, Morocco.
Malcolm didn’t co-opt a restaurant and feed five friends. He took over a country and invited 800 of his nearest and closest.
I was there. I had a nice room. Elizabeth had half the hotel. Her own airplane. Her staff, equerries, ladies in attendance, hair person, makeup person, nurse, maid and dresser. He gifted her with a purple (her favorite color) motorbike. Plus another of her little favorites — jewels. Plus a wardrobe of custom-made brocaded caftans — one for lunch, for cocktails, for tea, for hors d’oeuvres. While waiting for dinner she changed into another one.
Entertainment was 600 drummers, 300 galloping Berber horsemen, an army of muskets firing. Despite the splash and worldwide celebrities acting as extras — the lone only single solitary solo one big star that copped all the attention and cameras was Elizabeth Taylor.
“Liz” was C. David Heymann‘s 1995 Citadel best-selling bio on her. This star of 20th Century Fox’s giant film “Cleopatra,” whose passion for Richard Burton nearly killed the studio, he calls “a sacred monster.”
Decades creep by. Once The Couple was Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Another time, Elizabeth and Richard. Now, Angelina and Brad, And who’s scheduled to play Cleopatra in a coming updated version of that story? Angelina Jolie.
Heymann spoke with whomever sniffed within 100 yards of Liz. The book wasn’t warts and all. It was warts. He not only undressed her, he actually saw her undressed. Bel Air’s Nimes Road had a place that overlooked her estate. A friend loaned Heymann the premises. Plus a telescope. Trained on her pool, there was Elizabeth Taylor, in her heavy avoirdupois days, spread naked. Little David spying on Lady Goliath.
Simon & Schuster’s new updated edition of that book comes out shortly. He gift-wraps her as: “The woman everyone wanted to look like and in the end they all did.”
I used to twit her. I christened her Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky. She did not like it.
In 1954’s “A Star Is Born” Judy Garland, playing a faded luminary, uttered a magic line that became cinematic history. Despite a glossy intro being heaped on Judy’s character in a certain scene, she stated only her married name. She said: “I am Mrs. Norman Maine.” Fade in, fade out. It’s decades later. I am introducing Elizabeth at some charity event. Slowly she walked to the microphone. The hush was deafening. Facing the audience she said only: “I am Mrs. Norman Maine.”
A movie filmed right in 86th and Fifth’s then-new apartment building and for which E.T. won an Oscar was “Butterfield 8.” Directly afterward and for 25 years I lived in that building.
A young press-agent type who knows from Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Kardashian & Kompany said to me: “Today who even knows who Taylor was? She was just old and bloated, and who cares?”
Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky. Grandest movie star ever. Biggest name ever. Most glamorous human ever. Largest headline grabber ever. With tragedies from Japan, Libya, storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, bus crashes, “Spider-Man” crashes, news of her leaving the stage plays second to nothing.
She was Elizabeth Taylor.