The girlish voice is flirty, confident, and couldn’t be mistaken for anyone other than Elizabeth Taylor. Decades after her death, she still has the star power to draw you closer.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE LOST TAPES is Taylor telling her own story in her own way. Taken from audio taped interviews she granted to a journalist starting in 1964, the tapes catch her at the height of what had been a whole life as a movie star in Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Using her voice and a treasure trove of archive footage, we start with her during her childhood as the star of a Lassie film, and continue all the way up to her Osar-winning turn in the 1966 adaptation of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
For those unfamiliar, it’s a Hollywood history lesson, back when stars were truly stars. For fans, it’s a good reminder of her career ups and downs and, more importantly for some, her illustrious personal life that famously included many marriages and a couple of scandals, too.
Taylor is matter-of-fact about her marital indiscretions and her affection for good sex.
Hers was a complex life and, in a way, cinematic in and of itself. We see how Taylor was always an iconic figure for the gay community, long before that phrased was in the common vocabulary. Rock Hudson and Roddy McDowell being two examples of her posse.
But the most enjoyable aspect is just listening to her dish. She’s a delicious gossip, even about herself. Heck, mostly about herself. As you see photos and clips of her perfect porcelain face and her famous violet eyes (which she insists are dark blue, contrary to popular opinion) you can feel her magnetism and you wonder if any actor alive today could even come close to that level of glamour.
Her later life was devoted to activism and advocacy for AIDS research and the LGBTQ+ community. For someone my age, a lady of a certain age with big hair and some extra pounds was what we knew. Her eccentricities became more pronounced, and her husbands got weirder (I’m talking to you, Larry Fortensky), but all of this is part of her journey and it’s fun to vicariously go along for her ride.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE LOST TAPES premieres Saturday, August 3rd on HBO and streaming on Max.
