Elizabeth Taylor

With all the talk about Elizabeth Taylor lately, one thing might have been lost. And it's something we screenwriters appreciate even when we don't know why we do.

Look beyond her celebrity, which is something related to movie-making in only the most sideways fashion. She understood celebrity, and in later years used it to help the fight against AIDS for example. She came from a generation that married their boyfriends which led to far too many marriages and More celebrity. Also, her emotion-driven lifestyle related to her skills in making movies in a sideways manner.

Look at her performances: from National Velvet through The Mirror Crack'd. Both amazing for completely different reasons. In the first, she became a Movie Star in her first role as a child. In the last, she became a self-parody in the role of a "movie star." The first one has more to do with the art of acting and the last to do with the art of celebrity.

But I want you to look at a later movie where she was neither brilliant/amazing nor amazing/horrifying. I want you to look at a movie where she had a role that should have been boring in a script that was boring by filmmakers who depended on a great music score and pretty pictures of the beach to fill the screen.

As a professional director and actor before I was a writer and script analyst, I want you to look at her abilities as an actor. Audiences of actors first noticed from National Velvet on that here was an artist whose commitment to her character was so complete and intense that it seemed effortless. All the intensity was there but none of the "work" was showing. Critics said, "Well the character of Velvet Brown was just ever so close to the personality of young Elizabeth Taylor." Critics are famous for this mistake.

Now look at The Sandpiper, the movie with the beach scenes and the great music score. Elizabeth Taylor gives the same commitment to a character here. Playing the home-wrecker girlfriend to the married preacher Richard Burton (her husband at the time), Taylor keeps you involved in a story that suffered from a melodramatic premise and a potful of writers (including Dalton Trumbo)--always a dangerous sign. Director Vincente Minnelli knew enough to let Elizabeth do her thing.

Her one-to-one connection with character leaps off the screen. Always. Every role. There's a fascination in this that goes beyond the strength and weakness of the material. Every writer whose work she interpreted on film--including William Shakespeare--owes her a couple thank-yous. She made unforgettable yet totally honest choices for her character that make the script eminently involving. She made a big difference in The Comedians too.

Try watching someone else do Martha in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and you'll know why writers--including Edward Albee--should thank Elizabeth and actors knew they were doing well just to keep up with her.



This post was written by Howard Allen.
Edited 3/31/11