The movie Elizabeth Taylor wanted to delete from history: “I did it with a pistol at my head”
Movie stars don’t come much starrier than Elizabeth Taylor. From her earliest roles in the 1940s all the way to her death in 2011, she was constant tabloid fodder, with her eight marriages, many friendships, and taste for glamour making the perfect subject matter for gossip magazines. But she was also a serious actor, and although she was often defined by her beauty, her performances speak for themselves.
Her first major role came when she was just 12 in the 1944 horse drama National Velvet. Unlike many child stars, she transitioned into adult roles seamlessly, with her staggering beauty quickly becoming the quintessential look of a movie star. As soon as she started making dramatic films that required nuanced performances, she excelled. 1951’s A Place in the Sun and 1956’s Giant established her as a top-tier actor and a major box office draw, and she quickly became Hollywood’s biggest star.
In the late 1950s, Taylor was at the top of the business, earning three Oscar nominations in a row for Raintree County in 1958, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1959, and Suddenly, Last Summer in 1960. It all looked pretty enviable from the outside, but in truth, she was itching to get out of her contract with MGM, which she had been under since before National Velvet. She still had three years to go and was desperate to accept another offer. 20th Century Fox had promised her the record-breaking sum of $1million to star in Cleopatra, but she wouldn’t be able to do it unless MGM set her free.
So, she made a deal. The studio would let her go if she made one last film – BUtterfield 8, a drama about an upscale escort in New York who falls for one of her married clients. Taylor hated the film. She didn’t even bother hiding her disgust from reporters, telling them, “I hate the girl I play,” and informing the brass at MGM that it was “the most pornographic script” she’d ever read, let alone signed on to.
Still, she found a way to elevate the melodramatic screenplay, delivering a performance that turned out to be one of her best. The movie was a huge hit, and she ended up winning her first Oscar (after her fourth consecutive nomination). The acclaim didn’t sway her. In the 2024 documentary Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes, a recording provides her most passionate denunciation of the film.
“I hated it so much,” she fumed. “I thought, ‘fuck them!’—they made me do the film. I didn’t want to. I did it with a pistol at my head.” She detested the subject matter, the lines she had to speak, and the fact that she was being forced into a corner by the studio. “It was such a piece of shit,” she continued. “And it made me angry. And out of the anger, it kind of gave me an incentive. … It was done out of anger.”
She might not have felt that the film was worthy of an Oscar (for her or anyone else), but it did earn her what she was looking for: freedom to make Cleopatra. That turned into its own drama, which, for better or worse, started a new chapter in her life and career when she became acquainted with co-star Richard Burton.
