All language subtitles for Hollywood.Icons.S01E02.Elizabeth.Taylor.A.Fierce.Love.1080p.MY5.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

Elizabeth Taylor, the unofficial
Queen of Hollywood,

two-times Oscar winner and star of
over 40 films,

including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...

I don't mind making a fool of myself
over you.

..and Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?

I'll show you who's sick.

I'll show you who's sick!

I'll show you!

She was the first actress to bag
$1 million for one movie.

Her high-octane love life
resulted in eight marriages...

She liked her men larger than life

and her jewels larger than
30 carats.

..marked by passion and excess...

The Pope denounced them
as sexual vagrants.

..and diamonds.

Princess Margaret looked at it
and said, "It's perfectly vulgar."

Her many addictions threatened to
destroy her.

She was using whiskey as a prop
for coffee on the set.

In this programme, we reveal
the toughness

that helped her survive
the Hollywood system,

kick her bad habits, become
a savvy businesswoman

and transform herself
into an AIDS activist.

She would sit on patients' beds,
treat them with respect and dignity,

and they were floored.

With incredible access,

we learn what she was really like
from her colleagues...

She would take things in
of what was happening.

It was like, "Oh, is that how
that works?"

..her director...

He called her things in front of us
which we were horrified by.

..her public relations director...

It was a sarcastic comment said out
of a bathtub that ended up

making her the highest-paid actor
in the world.

..and even her stepson.

She slaps him
and he slapped her back.

She slaps him back.

Jerry and I are like, "Whoa!"

We've never seen anything like this.

Beyond the booze, brawls
and baubles,

this is the story of the survival
and transformation

of one of cinema's greatest stars,
Elizabeth Taylor.

2011, Christie's, New York.

Under the hammer, a collection of
clothing and gems fit for a queen,

but no ordinary queen.

The legendary jewels from the many
collections of Elizabeth Taylor.

It definitely was an auction
of a lifetime, right?

It was super exciting.

You know, every serious collector
in New York City was there.

Liz Taylor's jewels say
absolutely everything

you need to know about her.

They're big, they're shiny,
they're expensive, they're strong.

They last forever.

I mean, that's Liz Taylor
in a nutshell.

60,000 now. 65,000...

It was estimated the auction
would raise $50 million,

but prices kept going up.

At $130,000.

This was not about the innate value
of the stones.

This was not about the rubies
in the Cartier necklace.

This was about the value of rubies
that Mike Todd had given

Elizabeth Taylor and she'd worn in
a swimming pool.

- Sold for you, sir. $7,800,000.
- APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

The jewellery alone raises
$137 million.

The auction encapsulated
Elizabeth Taylor's life -

the glitz, the media spotlight,
the extraordinary wealth,

and with a chunk of the proceeds
going to her AIDS charity,

the philanthropy of her later years.

But how did an ordinary London girl
end up reigning in Hollywood

and as rich as a royal?

Let's go back to the beginning.

She was born in London
on February 27, 1932,

to a life of privilege.

Elizabeth grew up in the kind of
house that had staff.

There were cooks and nurse maids
and nannies and beautiful clothes.

Her parents were Americans
who moved in high society -

her father, Francis, an art dealer
in exclusive Bond Street,

her mother, Sarah,
a frustrated stage actress

who enrolled Liz in singing and
dancing lessons at the age of two.

So, her mother, Sarah,
was extremely controlling,

some have said manipulative,

but incredibly charming,
charismatic and powerful,

I think, as a personality.

You know, she sort of
swept everyone before her.

One of Liz's earliest memories

was of dancing for
a very select audience.

She can recall, at the age of three,
appearing ballet dancing on stage

in front of the royal family
and basking in the applause

and the great reception she got.

While on the surface, her parents
marriage looked idyllic,

all was not as it seemed.

Francis Taylor may have been gay and
may have had affairs with other men.

There are rumours about Sarah
and her relationships

with certain men in their lives.

I think certainly Elizabeth had
this very odd notion of marriage

from her own parents' relationship.

This unorthodox set-up continued

when, with the onset of
the Second World War,

the Taylors returned to the States
and set up home in Los Angeles,

a stone's throw from
the film studios of Hollywood.

Elizabeth's mother
was a canny operator,

and when she got to
the United States,

she realised that
the growth industry was Hollywood.

- ARCHIVE:
- On the most powerful
medium of expression

the world has ever known,

an art form as great as any
in man's history.

Lucy's mother Sarah was convinced
her daughter's striking looks

would be enough to win over
studio bosses.

Now in her 90s, Margaret Kerry
worked with Elizabeth

as a child actor.

I was the live action model
for Tinker Bell.

She remembers the impact
of her looks.

The first thing that you saw were
these magnificent eyes.

And when she looked at you,
it was like she was looking at you.

There was no question about it.

And she was absolutely gorgeous.

If she's in the room,
she's the one that you looked at.

If you get up in the morning
and you look in the mirror

and you see Elizabeth Taylor's face
looking back at you -

confidence is built into the kind of
beauty that she had by nature.

Through connections from
Francis' gallery,

Sarah managed to get Liz seen by
the right people in Hollywood,

and she was soon signed
by Universal.

Nine-year-old Liz's debut came
in 1941 in the comedy

There's One Born Every Minute.

In the film, Elizabeth
gets the chance to sing

and show some kind of, sort of,
bratty behaviour,

by being a little Know-It-All.

She looks angelic...

Buy or sell, stupid!

..but even then you can see that
there's this quite confident,

cocky side to her.

..to the ladies of the
Pahasket County Hysterical Society.

Historical!

It had all been so easy
up to this point,

but Elizabeth was about to learn how
brutal the film business could be.

# Take some care with the men
you choose... #

While she had some energy
and some vigour,

it wasn't enough to make sure that
she survived ignominy

of a box office bomb.

Universal ditched her.

It looked like Elizabeth Taylor's
film career was over

before it had even begun.

Working hard to get back into
the movie business,

she would soon discover the harsh
reality of the studio system...

They would change your appearance,
try to control marriages.

They would try to stage manage every
single aspect of a star's life.

..and how fairy-tale marriages
don't always work out.

Hilton treated her like
absolute garbage.

He gambled.

He drank.

He beat her.

At the age of nine,

Elizabeth Taylor had experienced
the first setback of her career

when she was dropped by Universal
after just one film.

But even at that tender age,
she was resilient.

And when MGM needed a replacement
co-star for Lassie Come Home,

she seized her chance to get back
into the movies.

They wanted a child who could speak
in an English accent,

so she just chatted to the dog
and was chosen for the part.

Poor Lassie.

Poor Lassie.

Poor girl.

This performance impressed MGM
so much,

they signed Elizabeth up to a
seven-year contract at $100 a week,

the equivalent of £1,100
in today's money.

The prize would prove to be both
a blessing and a curse.

Once you signed a studio contract,

you would have to give the studio
control over, essentially,

every aspect of your life.

They would change your appearance.
And as their stars got older,

they would try to control
pregnancies, marriages.

They would try to stage manage every
single aspect of a star's life.

Margaret Kerry was
Elizabeth's body double at MGM

and remembers
the strict environment.

What they wanted for you to do
is do the part as a child

and then act as an adult

and never do anything wrong,
never run around.

We were so well-disciplined
that it was frightening.

Her education was not a priority.

She was still counting on
her fingers at the age of 17.

She always had that sense of
intellectual inferiority

that came with not having had the
chance to have a proper education

at a very young age.

But the reward of all that sacrifice
would be movie stardom.

MGM's Children's Matinee presents
National Velvet.

In her breakout role as Velvet Brown
in National Velvet,

she lit up the screen,

playing a feisty girl
overturning gender stereotypes.

Isn't it perfect?

Perfect for what?

This young horsewoman is excluded
from the Grand National.

And she challenges this exclusion
by posing as a boy.

Mike? Could The Pie
win the Grand National?

Velvet Brown, who do you think
you are?

I'm the owner of The Pie.

This was a role that Elizabeth
really wanted to play,

and Elizabeth and her mother
really pulled out all the stops.

The studio thought that
she was too fragile,

she was too small-looking.

In an early sign of
the determination

she'd show throughout her life,

for three months, she exercised
twice a day and stuffed herself

with hamburgers to bulk up.

When she went back, she said,
"There you are. You see?

"I've grown, I've developed. I'm
stronger, I'm tougher, I'm taller.

"I am right for this role."
And she won it.

Elizabeth was thrilled
at her success...

At that point, when I knew her, she
was certainly not the prima donna,

just the opposite.

She was busy learning.

You can watch.

She would take things in
of what was happening.

..and threw herself into the role.

Nothing to be frightened about,
just like the hedge at Eton Meadow!

To the extent that she actually had
a horse riding accident.

She fell off the horse.

And she must have been in pain,
but she got back on the horse,

carried on riding. She was
absolutely determined

to finish the shoot.

There's an indication,
even at that early age,

of this very strong willpower and
sense of strength of personality.

Traits she'd need to survive in the
unforgiving world of Hollywood...

..and traits shared by
her character, Velvet Brown,

who ends up winning
the Grand National.

National Velvet was
a box office smash.

It won them two Oscars
and was a great success.

It also transformed Elizabeth Taylor
into an MGM star.

But hitting her teens,

young Liz woke up to the reality of
being owned by the studio.

She was schooled by MGM,
she was styled by them.

They wanted to change
her eyebrow shape, her nose shape,

even as a young teenager.

Photo shoots were set up,
organised for her by the studio,

at home or with pets
or with other teenagers,

to try and make it look like
she was having

a relatively normal teenage life.

But she wasn't.

She didn't know about dating.

The only boys that you saw her with
in the magazines

were somebody who had a contract
at MGM,

and they wanted to build him up
and her up at the same time.

It was so unreal.

On occasion, Liz did rebel.

In a 1992 interview,
she describes a time

when the domineering head of
the studio, Louis B Mayer,

shouted at her mother.

And he was swearing at her
and being so abusive.

And I jumped up with tears
pouring down my face and said,

"You and your studio
can both go to hell."

For her to be able to intimidate
middle-aged male studio bosses

when she was 14 years old,

what do you think she was like
when she was 20 and 30 and 40?

She was a tough broad.

The knock-on from that
was that she realised

nothing terrible happened to her.

She didn't get the sack.

She wasn't sent away.

They still wanted to employ her.

By now, she was the family's
main breadwinner.

In a later interview, she explained
how that fact soured relations

with her father.

My father was abusive when he drank.

And...

..he seemed to kind of, like,
to bat me around a bit.

But I started thinking about
my father

and how it must've felt for him...

..to have his
nine-year-old daughter...

..making more money than he was.

Her father wouldn't be the last man
to be jealous of her success.

Desperate for freedom, at just 17,

she got engaged to the wayward son
of a hotel magnate.

Conrad Hilton seemed
very marriageable.

He was the heir to the Hilton
empire, stupendously affluent,

and she was a young starlet.

So, it seemed a marriage
made in heaven

as far as the studio was concerned.

And perfect timing for the studio's
PR machine,

as Elizabeth had just finished
filming Father of the Bride,

in which she plays a young woman
getting married.

- It's my wedding and my friends!
- SHOUTING

No-one had to do anything!

When the time comes, I'll do
everything. I mean everything!

Unlike the feisty independence
shown by this fictional bride,

ironically, every aspect of
her real-life marriage

would be stage managed
by the studio.

They used the real marriage
as a promo for this film

that they wanted to sell.

They organised the costumes,
the catering, the photographs.

Even the bridesmaids
were MGM extras.

- ARCHIVE:
- And so a storybook union
becomes a reality.

The 23-year-old bridegroom is heir
to one of America's richest men.

Elizabeth, at 18, is famous for
her loveliness and charm.

Elizabeth married
Conrad "Nicky" Hilton in 1950.

But unlike the movie,

their romance would have
a far from fairy-tale ending.

They went on a fabulous cruise
on the Queen Mary

to the south of France
as their honeymoon.

And Hilton treated her like
absolute garbage.

He gambled. He drank.

He beat her.

Elizabeth spoke about it
in a 1997 interview.

That's when the reality of the world
hit me.

Abusive.

Oh, God, yes. I was...

..a bit of a punching bag.

Elizabeth said that in her marriage
to Nicky,

he caused her to have a miscarriage
after beating her,

which was terrible.

The violence only made Liz
more resilient and determined.

And after just seven months,

she'd had enough and filed
for a divorce.

The first real striking out
on her own that Elizabeth did

was to end that first marriage.

Not all the relationships Liz would
make at this time would be toxic.

MGM loaned her to Paramount
for the 1951 film

A Place in the Sun.

A Place in the Sun is...
It's a sort of tragic romance

about a man caught between two women
and not knowing which way to turn.

Her dashing co-star,
seen here playing pool,

would become a lifelong source of
strength for Liz.

Hello.

Hello.

A Place in the Sun was
the first real adult role

Elizabeth Taylor ever had.

And her co-star was
Montgomery Clift.

Montgomery Clift
was famous, handsome,

desired by women and men
all over America.

You keep pretty much to yourself,
don't you?

Yeah, sometimes.

He was also gay, which,
had it been known publicly,

would have ended his career.

Liz gradually became aware of
his hidden sexuality.

So, that was freeing for her to be
able to develop a really intense

friendship with this man, who was
far more experienced at acting,

who could really be
not only a mentor to her,

but who also needed her.

She was able to comfort him
and support him.

And I used to think
I was complicated.

Many people felt very strongly
that if he had been straight,

they would have married.

She loved him that much
and he returned her love.

The film was a triumph.

A Place in the Sun really showed
that she had arrived

as an adult performer in Hollywood.

Now, Liz decided it was time
for an adult relationship,

forged not by the studio
or her parents, but by herself.

Still only 19,
she was filming in Britain

when she became involved
with Michael Wilding.

He was separated and 20 years
her senior, but he was her choice.

I think Michael Wilding,
in large part,

is almost a rebound from the horror
of a severely abusive marriage

to Nicky Hilton.

Wilding's divorce came through
at the end of the year.

So, they went out to dinner
to celebrate this

and he gave her a sort of
promise ring.

And Elizabeth took it and put it on
her left hand,

on her ring finger, and sort of
said, "Well, you know, I think...

"Let's not mess around. I think
that's where it belongs,

"Mr Shilly Shally."

In 1951, women just did not propose
to men.

It wasn't just unconventional.
It was unheard of.

It was one of the many, many rules

that she broke over the next
several decades.

Elizabeth's disregard of convention
would be a constant theme

of her life.

- ARCHIVE:
- Everyone was determined
to see,

as well as to film and photograph,
the bride and groom.

It was quite a struggle
for all concerned.

Two months later, the couple
were married in London.

Elizabeth was soon pregnant
with the first of two children

she'd have with Wilding.

And with bills to pay, she
reluctantly signed her life away

to MGM for another seven years...

..years in which she'd show
the grit and determination

of a Hollywood survivor...

She put her hand down
Montgomery Clift's throat

and pulled his teeth out,
which saved his life.

..and would develop
a scandalous reputation.

In the public's eyes, Liz Taylor
was the bad woman, the home wrecker.

Elizabeth Taylor had shown
her resilience,

surviving a childhood
in the studio system

and a violent and abusive
first marriage.

Now remarried with two children,
Michael and Christopher,

she was set to become one of
the world's biggest movie stars.

From the middle of the 1950s,

she started to make more
interesting films,

perhaps notably Giant.

Giant is a big film about America,
and in particular about Texas,

basically about a dynasty, a family.

She was loaned to Warner Bros
for the 1956 film.

It was a role
that pushed boundaries.

We're just talking business.

Just business.

Oh, well, please don't mind me.

Do go on.

I'll listen quiet
as a little old mouse.

In a world that is super macho,
she becomes a very strong woman

who does not give up her ideas
and who actually changes the culture

and helps things get better.

Leslie, we're talking
about politics.

You married me in Washington.
Remember, darling?

I lived next door to politics,
brought up with it.

Please do go on talking.
I'd love it.

Directors saw in her
an emblem of female strength.

She was a kind of
protofeminist totem.

And even in her life, the way that
she controlled her finances,

supported her parents,

she was formidable.

The film also tackled
race relations,

with her character's concern about
the conditions of Mexican workers.

The baby is sick.

My milk is not good.

During the making of Giant,
she became firm friends

with two more actors who were
hiding their sexuality,

Rock Hudson and James Dean.

Many of her most tender
and most intimate relationships

were not necessarily with her lovers
or her husbands,

but they were with her close
gay male friends.

And one traumatic incident
would demonstrate

what a gutsy friend Liz could be.

During filming of the Civil War
melodrama Raintree County,

for which Liz would get her first
Oscar nomination,

Montgomery Clift came over
for a dinner party at her home

in the hills of Benedict Canyon.

When he left, the hour was late,

the road down to the valley
steep and winding.

And Montgomery Clift pulls out of
the driveway

at 2.00 or 3.00 in the morning.

It was foggy and Clift had
been drinking.

And on his way home, he was in
a terrible, terrible car accident,

very close to the Wildings' house.

BRAKES SCREECH AND GLASS SHATTERS

Liz rushed to the scene.

In this interview,
she explains what happened next.

I pulled his head off the dashboard

and the...steering wheel,

and he opened his eyes.

And they were bright red.

And he tried to say something.

And I said, "What is it, my love?

"What is it, baby?"

SHE MUMBLES

Clift was choking.

She climbed inside the car,
got in there

and she put her hand down
Montgomery Clift's throat

and pulled his teeth out,
which saved his life.

And when the cameras
and the ambulances came,

she put herself between them and him

as he was being taken into
the ambulance.

And she said, "If you take a picture
of me and him...

"..you will never get another
picture of me again. Ever."

All those cameras went down.

Ever the survivor,
in the heat of the moment,

Liz used her star power to protect
herself and her injured friend.

Clift gave her a special present

to thank her for saving his life.

And the present was a necklace
made out of the teeth

that had been lodged in his throat.

You know, forget those diamonds,

that one is absolutely unique!

While Liz was forming strong
friendships during this period,

her second marriage
had hit the rocks.

Michael Wilding had been almost a
father figure to her for five years,

but now, she wanted excitement.

She creates some stability
after the hectic,

dysfunctional marriage
she had with Conrad Hilton,

but perhaps he was too stable
for her.

Which meant when a loud, brash
film producer called Mike Todd

decided she'd be his,
she put up little resistance.

Everybody I've ever spoken to
that knew him

said he was just mesmerising.

Like a real spellbinder.

I later learned how much Liz
was enamoured with him,

er...literally obsessed with him.

In an interview decades later,
Liz still sounded besotted.

He had more energy and knowledge
and excitement.

A sense of wonder about him.

And he made everything he touched
wondrous.

Liz had supported
Wilding financially,

now Todd showered her with gifts.

And that association between
Elizabeth Taylor and diamonds

really started with Mike Todd.

She liked her men larger than life

and her jewels larger than
30 carats.

Todd's forceful wooing worked.

In 1957, in another show of strength
rare for the times,

Elizabeth divorced Wilding.

Days later, dozens of guests
converged on Acapulco, Mexico,

to see her walk down the aisle
for the third time.

He gave her, I think, a 29.4-carat
diamond engagement ring,

which she called the Ice Rink
because it was so large and shiny.

It would be Mike Todd
who would shape

Liz Taylor's tastes
for the rest of her life.

Jet-set, extravagant, excessive
and dripping in jewels.

He used to bring her presents
every single week

to mark the weekly anniversaries
of their meeting.

On one spectacular occasion,
a diamond and ruby set

of earrings, necklace and bracelet

that he presented to her
while she was swimming in the pool.

Liz and Mike had a daughter, Liza.

It was one of the happiest times
of her life.

It was also one of the most
successful periods of her career.

She got even more assertive
and ballsy.

And she plays these roles
like in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

This is a really edgy play,
actually.

It deals with issues that,
most of the time,

would've been kept under the carpet.

- If you were thinking
the same thing I was...
- No, Maggie.

- Why not?!
- Would you please
keep your voice down?

No!

Elizabeth plays Maggie the Cat,

the sexy, feisty, determined heroine

at the heart of the film.

Paul Newman is the gay husband

not interested in his wife
or having sex.

But she's...she's pushing
to have children

so he can inherit the family money.

I don't mind making a fool
of myself over you.

Well, I mind.
I feel embarrassed for you.

Feel embarrassed!

But I can't live on this way!

You agreed to accept that condition!

I know I did, but I can't! I can't!

Liz was at the pinnacle of success,
both on screen and off.

But in 1958, disaster struck.

- NEWSCASTER:
- Twisted wreckage
in the Zuni Mountains of New Mexico

marks the site of the fatal crash.

Halfway through filming
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,

Elizabeth Taylor suffered
a terrible tragedy.

Her husband was killed
in a plane crash.

His private plane had been named
after Elizabeth.

Many years later, she was able to
reflect how it felt to be widowed

with a seven-month-old baby.

When I got the news that morning,
I just started screaming.

How did you survive?

I have no idea.

I really don't know.

Liz travelled to the funeral
in Chicago

with Mike's best friend,
Eddie Fisher.

While his wife,
the actress Debbie Reynolds,

looked after Liz's children.

When Liz got home,
she lost herself in drink and drugs.

She was always
a pretty heavy drinker

and she, you know, she always took
pills for one reason or another,

but was really not,
I don't think, an addict

until, er...the death of Mike Todd.

Crutches that she would rely on
more heavily as time went by.

It's absolutely impossible
to separate

Elizabeth Taylor's behaviour and her
life decisions from her addictions.

Because it's not overstating it
to say

that every decision
that she ever made

was informed by alcohol abuse
or drug addiction.

Searching for comfort,
she also turns to Eddie,

as his son and Carrie Fisher's
brother, recalls.

Liz was just beyond devastated.

And as Carrie likes to say,
my father, you know,

immediately ran to Liz's side,

gradually moving his way around
to the front.

At her wedding to Mike Todd,
Fisher had been best man

and Debbie Reynolds,
Elizabeth's matron of honour.

Now, Liz was spending more and more
time with Debbie's husband.

The media began to think there may
be something untoward about this.

Something that isn't altogether
wholesome.

And they were right, of course.

When the affair was discovered,
Fisher left Debbie Reynolds for Liz.

Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds
were like America's sweetheart.

There were a lovely couple,

they were seen as nice,
they were seen as stable.

And in the public's eyes,
Liz Taylor was the bad woman.
The home-wrecker.

I mean, this was a scandal
of scandals.

Worse still for conservative
America, she was brazen about it.

A revealing moment came from
notorious gossip columnist,
Hedda Hopper.

When Hedda Hopper interviewed her,

expecting Elizabeth to offer
some kind of explanation,

she said, "What else do you
expect me to do - sleep alone?"

Liz was behaving as freely as a man.

Although they married in 1959,

the affair would have a ruinous
effect on Fisher's career.

My father was under contract
to the Coca-Cola Bottling Company,

and, er...they dropped him
on a morals clause.

A lot of his live concerts
were cancelled.

People stopped buying his records.

But Elizabeth learned that,
unlike Eddie,

she was bigger than any scandal.

Taylor's role as Maggie the Cat
was yet another triumph for her.

She received her second Oscar
nomination

and the film itself
won six Oscar nominations.

She was furious that she didn't
actually manage to win,

but she was still well on the way
to becoming

the serious heavyweight actress
that she had longed to be for years.

It was the third-highest-grossing
film of 1958,

despite, or perhaps because,
of Liz's complicated personal life.

So, in fact, the scandal
didn't cause

any lasting damage to her career.

By this point, Elizabeth had been
contracted to MGM

for almost 16 years,
and she was sick of the studio.

She knew she was being
massively underpaid,

and she wanted to choose
her own roles.

But MGM insisted on one last film,

cashing in on her
scandalous reputation

by casting her as a woman of loose
morals in BUtterfield 8.

Now, look...you have a price.

She hated this film. She hated
the script, she hated the character.

But she was forced to do it

because she was still obliged,
under her contract to MGM.

In the film, Liz's character
chooses her sexual partners.

And to modernise, comes across
as fiercely independent.

Last night, you were great company.

I've spent a little time
around and about.

I didn't ask for your credits
last night, I don't need them now!

Not unlike Liz Taylor herself.

Gloria Wandrous, the central
character in BUtterfield 8,

is sympathetic and intelligent
and wins over the audience.

Just as they had always done,

MGM cynically used this movie
to mirror her life.

In this case, her controversial
union with Eddie Fisher.

It would have resonated with the
idea that she was a husband-stealer,

and that she was in love with a
married man both on and off screen.

This blurring of fact and fiction
worked to her advantage.

After being nominated
four years in a row,

Elizabeth finally won an Oscar
for best actress.

And on leaving MGM, Liz Taylor
would soon become the first actress

to be paid $1 million.

It was a sarcastic comment
set out of a bathtub

that ended up making her
the highest-paid actor in the world.

And she would begin
the most volatile

and destructive relationship
of her life.

They found every opportunity
to make love.

In boats, in studios,
wherever they could.

It was a very explosive,
intense love affair.

After nearly 16 years
in the rigid studio system,

Elizabeth Taylor began the 1960s

finally free from the clutches
of MGM.

She was absolutely at the top of
the A-list, she was in demand,

and Elizabeth really took advantage
of that in a way that
very few stars could.

She was being courted for
the title role in Cleopatra,

but she wasn't keen.

20th Century Fox
was an ailing film studio

and was really gambling
with Cleopatra.

So she bargained hard.

The producer, Walter Wanger,
was determined to secure her.

He rang her hotel.

In this interview, Elizabeth
explains what happened next.

I was in the bathtub and I yelled
through the door to my assistant...

They said, "Would you do Cleopatra,
Elizabeth?"

And I said, "Yeah, for a million
bucks and 10% of the gross".

And they came back and said, "OK".

And I just yelled... Let out a yell

and sort of went under the water
screaming.

It was a sarcastic comment
said out of a bathtub

that ended up making her
the highest-paid actor in the world.

She had learned a $1 million lesson
about negotiating her worth.

The fee was eight times what she'd
been paid for her last film for MGM,

and that was just the start.

She also demanded $3,000 a week
living expenses,

plus food and lodging,

first-class flights for herself,

three other adults
and her three children,

and extra payments
if filming overran.

I think by the end of
the production, she'd managed to get

about seven million out of them,
which isn't bad going at all.

This marked a change
in the relationship

between stars and the studios.

It set the benchmark for
any performer to say to a studio,

"No, no, no, I'm the star.

"You follow my terms.
I don't follow your terms."

The staggering costs meant Fox
was risking everything on the film.

Cleopatra tells the story of
the Egyptian queen

who seduced two famous
Roman generals.

It was to be a lavish spectacle.

BARRAGE OF QUESTIONS

But when Liz developed pneumonia
during filming,

it looked like all that money
would go to waste.

There was a point at which
she thought she might die.

She had to have
an emergency tracheotomy.

- NEWSCASTER:
- Liz Taylor,
chosen to play Cleopatra,

is seen here after her recovery
from pneumonia in London.

No stranger to illness,
a canny Liz knew the power of

a spell in hospital to win over the
public after a spate of bad press.

- Elizabeth Taylor.
- CHEERING

So, when collecting her Oscar
for BUtterfield 8,

she made sure her tracheotomy scar
was visible for all to see.

- BREATHLESS:
- I don't really know...

how to express my gratitude...

..for this and for everything.

I guess all I can do
is say thank you.

Thank you with all my heart.

Filming on Cleopatra resumed,

but her illness had caused
a massive delay.

Costs went through the roof.

The budget swelled from $5 million

to a staggering $44 million.

The movie that was supposed
to save 20th Century Fox

was in danger of sinking it.

It just kept getting bigger and
bigger and bigger and more scenes.

The sets were extraordinary.

When they built the Roman forum,

is was actually three times bigger
than the actual Roman forum in Rome.

She had 65 costume changes
throughout the film.

So just everything about this
production was entirely excessive.

There's the entry-into-Rome
sequence,

where she arrives on this huge
kind of edifice.

CHEERING

And she's being hauled in
slowly, slowly, slowly

by two double rows of men
sweating in rhythm.

Perfect synchronisation.

Thousands of extras all around her.

And she winks at Caesar,

which is a fantastic nod
to her sense of humour

and her awareness
of just how queenly

and majestic she was in Hollywood.

And the queen had found her king.

Playing Mark Antony,
the Welsh actor, Richard Burton.

When Elizabeth met Richard Burton,

he was just coming off
this incredibly-successful run

as King Arthur in Camelot
on Broadway,

and he was long married
to his Welsh wife, Sybil Burton.

Elizabeth was still married
to Eddie Fisher.

But never afraid of scandal,
that didn't prevent rule-breaker Liz

from acting on
an immediate attraction to Burton,

as she explained later.

We both tried very hard to resist,

but it happened on the first day
of our working together.

- Really?
- Yeah.

It was just like... Boomph!

- Did you feel it was inevitable?
- Yes.

In the film, Cleopatra has been
involved with Julius Caesar.

But then, with about
as much resistance,

instantly falls for his ally,
Mark Antony.

And yet again, it's another instance
of Elizabeth's on-screen life

and off-screen life
echoing each other

and following the same path.

Cleopatra falls in love
with Mark Antony

as Elizabeth falls in love
with Richard Burton.

For so long now,
you've filled my life.

During one scene, love scene,
they're kissing...

And I will never...

..be free of you.

..and Mankiewicz says, "Cut!"

And he looks at his actors
and they're still kissing.

And so, he says, "Cut",
one more time.

They're still kissing.

And that's when it dawned on him,
"This is becoming real".

It soon dawned on Eddie Fisher, too.

His failing career had driven him
to drink and gambling,

and Liz began to realise all
they had in common was Mike Todd.

One time, Liz and I were talking,
she was, like...

"You know, when I met
Richard Burton, it was eye-opening.

"And in the sense that I knew
I didn't belong with your father
at all

"and what a huge mistake that was."

This latest affair with Burton

would cause
an international sensation,

with the paparazzi following them
wherever they went.

They would go away for what
they would think would be

a quiet weekend hiding out,

and they'd open the window and
there'd be dozens of photographers

just waiting to take their picture.

They found every opportunity
to make love.

In boats, in studios,

you know, in dressing rooms,
wherever they could.

And it was a very explosive,
intense love affair.

Once again, Liz had gone after
what she wanted,

regardless of public opinion.

The Pope denounced them as,
"sexual vagrants",

which is just such
a fabulous compliment.

I wish the Pope would say that
about me.

She had an appetite for men,

for food, for alcohol,

for drugs, for whatever.

She's not going to follow
conventional morality,

she's going to live
on her own terms.

She's basically going to live
like men have lived all their lives.

The relationship was tempestuous
and destructive from the start.

In Richard, she had finally met
a man who could match her drinking.

When she thought he might go back
to his wife, Liz took an overdose.

But don't forget, you know,
these decisions were being made

within the haze of drug
and alcohol abuse.

So to say that she really wanted
to die,

I guess maybe, you know, you have
to put that in the context

of while she was high and she was
on drugs and alcohol,

she wanted to die.

The alleged suicide attempt
was covered up,

but the affair was impossible
to hide.

The producers of Cleopatra
were very upset

when news of this affair got out.

They were terrified that this
huge investment in this movie

would just come to nothing.

And despite the lavish spending,

the epic was a critical
and commercial flop,

taking years to earn back
its enormous cost.

Though Liz's Cleopatra
became an icon.

It's invigorating to see
her performances in this movie

because she's totally in charge.

And the men are kind of weak
next to her.

Taylor and Burton
were soon controversial

queen and king of Hollywood.

They married in 1964,

as soon as her divorce from Eddie
came through.

She was a star,
he was a well-known actor,

but together, they were
an altogether different entity.

Something that would absolutely
command the attention

of everybody in the world.

She was photographed,
jewels from head to foot,

attending fabulous parties

with the titled heads of Europe.

Then she's ordering meals to be
brought on planes to her

from Los Angeles,
from her favourite restaurants.

Like those before him, Richard
Burton lavished gems on her, too,

including the giant Krupp Diamond

and the Cartier, renamed
the Taylor-Burton diamond.

It was enough to leave actual
royals in the shade.

There are many stories about
Elizabeth and her jewellery,

but probably my favourite one,

that she retold
and cackled with laughter,

is shortly after receiving
the Taylor-Burton diamond,
she was at a dinner

and there were a lot of people
there, including Princess Margaret.

And everyone was passing around
this giant ice cube of a diamond

and trying it on and looking at it
and oohing and aahing over it.

And Princess Margaret looked at it
and said, "It's perfectly vulgar".

And Elizabeth said,
"You know, you're right.

"Would you like to try it on?"

And so, she slid it on to
the princess' finger

and Princess Margaret
began to look at her hand

and look at the ring on her hand
and Elizabeth leaned over

and whispered into her ear,
"It's not so vulgar now, is it?"

Away from the glitz and glamour,

the world's most-famous romance
had a dark, violent side.

They had a very tempestuous
relationship.

We know that there were
furious arguments

that sometimes spilled out
quite openly.

Her stepson, Todd Fisher,
saw that for himself

at a party when just a child.

She slaps him and he slaps her back.

Carrie and I are, like, "Whoa! We've
never seen anything like this."

And my mother quickly
goes over there

and ushers them upstairs,
into her bedroom.

20 minutes later, they come out,

they're, like,
redressing themselves, you know.

And at the time, we didn't
understand what that meant,

but clearly, there had been
some make-up sex

and, er...they went right down to
the party like nothing had happened.

The violence was fuelled by their
mutual dependence on alcohol.

She could drink just about
anyone under the table,

and she did.

He would start early in the day

and drink all the way through
to bedtime.

Alcohol and pills amplified real
tensions in the marriage.

Not least,
Burton's professional jealousy.

He wanted the kind of fame
that Elizabeth Taylor had.

He wanted to be a movie star.

The problems in their marriage
would soon be very public.

"You big fat so-and-so.

"You ate too much last night.

"You've put on too much weight."

And then, within minutes, she would
become the goddess on a pedestal.

And would fuel
their greatest performance,

in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

In fact, he was sort of a flop!

A great, big, fat...!

I said, stop it!

In the mid '60s, hard drinking
and even harder brawling,

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
were the ultimate celebrity couple.

They are here tonight,
Mr and Mrs Richard Burton

caught by our Hollywood
backstage camera.

But the quality of the 11 films
they'd make together

did not always measure up to
their high public profile.

At last, they found a script
that matched their joint star power.

In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

yet again, Liz played a role
that echoed her real life.

In fact, he was sort of a flop!

A great, big, fat flop!

I said, stop it!

I hope that was an empty bottle,
George.

You can't afford to waste
good liquor, not on your salary!

It's about this...

ageing couple, um...

George and Martha,

who have a very, very volatile
relationship.

BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAM

And they play games.
Very cruel and malicious games.

Did you really think I was
going to kill you, Martha?

You kill me? That's a laugh!

No, no, I might some day.

Audiences were thrilled to think
they were seeing

the couple's real home life
reflected on screen.

The film was a critical success,

with both of them nominated
for Oscars.

But when the Academy Awards came up,

Burton announced he wasn't going.

There was this sort of scuttlebutt
in town

the Oscar race was shaking up
that Elizabeth was going to win

and Richard Burton probably wasn't.

It was the fifth time
he'd been nominated,

and he couldn't face
losing in public again.

Elizabeth fully intended to go.

She already had her Dior gown
designed for it,

and she was getting to ready
to leave for Los Angeles.

But then, he started drinking
and he really, really got drunk

and he got...and he was really
acting out.

And she just felt
like she couldn't go.

Which meant Elizabeth was absent
for this...

And the winner is...

- ..her second Oscar win...
- Miss Elizabeth Taylor.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

I think,
with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Elizabeth Taylor
finally got respect.

She had everything else.
She had beauty, fame, money, power,

scandal, beautiful objects.

And with that one film,
they finally said,

"Oh, my God, she has real talent".

I think that was an added pressure
to their marriage,

that no matter how great an actor
he was,

she was the one
getting the accolades.

And I think he felt that
that Oscar was, by rights, his,

and it was just
another strain on the marriage.

Miss Taylor regrets very much
that she can't be here tonight.

In total, Richard Burton
would receive seven Oscar nods

during his career, but never win.

But there was one area where he
overshadowed his wife - education.

While Elizabeth was self-conscious
about her lack of it,

he'd studied briefly at Oxford

and built his reputation
as a Shakespearean actor.

When Liz agreed to appear
on the Oxford stage,

his stronghold, in Doctor Faustus,

her husband put her up
for a nonspeaking role.

The first time I've been on stage,

so it's a marvellous opportunity
for me.

I don't have to learn any lines.

Elizabeth played Helen of Troy,

In the play,
Dr Faustus sells his soul

in order to see her in the flesh
and kiss her.

As an undergraduate,
Maria Aitken acted in the play.

I have one abiding image
of Elizabeth Taylor,

and it was sitting on a trunk
at Oxford Station

with a whole bunch
of undergraduates.

And she was quite hungover and she
looked so incomparably beautiful,

with no make-up, extraordinary skin
and those legendary eyes.

Richard Burton, as Doctor Faustus.

Elizabeth Taylor,
as the beautiful Helen of Troy.

Response to the play was lukewarm,

but Burton funded a film version,
shot in Rome,

where Liz would suffer
another devastating loss.

After years of drug
and alcohol abuse,

her best friend suffered a fatal
heart attack at the age of 45.

When we used to gather in Richard's
dressing room in the evenings,

which he very often invited us
to do,

he said that she was absolutely
grief stricken by this event.

It was the end of one of the most
important relationships of her life.

And the end of another was in sight.

The last of the 11 films
Elizabeth made with Richard

was for television -
Divorce His, Divorce Hers.

You're not the man
I thought I'd married.

Well, I'm the man I am!

You seem to want to remember
some fantasy figure.

I'm the man I always have been
and I don't have to justify myself!

I do remember!

Isn't that what makes you angry?

Am I the only one that remembers?!

The on-screen rows
mirrored their own marriage.

Director Waris Hussein
saw first-hand

the problems
in the stars' relationship.

I was filming a week with Richard
and he had stopped drinking

and everything was going swimmingly
until the night she arrived

unannounced a week early.

She was surrounded by flashing
lights and paparazzi and cars.

And we were filming at night,

and suddenly, the whole place
was lit up by lights

and flashing cameras.

At the sight of the press circus,

Richard disappeared
in a jealous rage.

They found him,

I think it took about 45 minutes
since he'd disappeared,

totally drunk.

And by the time we were filming
and she was now on set,

he was almost unable
to sit up straight.

The couple were now in freefall,

with Elizabeth drinking
more heavily than ever.

So it was a breakfast scene where
she's supposed to be pouring coffee

and I noticed that the prop coffee
didn't have any steam in it.

And I said, "Why isn't there any hot
coffee for her to pour into this?"

And the prop man came to me
and said,

"It's not coffee, it's...it's...it's
whiskey".

Don't you children
have to go to school?

She was using whiskey as a prop
for coffee on the set.

As so often for Liz,
art was imitating life.

The film charted the end
of a roller-coaster relationship.

He called her things in front of us,
which we were horrified by.

"You big, fat, so-and-so.

"You ate too much last night.

"You've put on too much weight."

And then, it was in minutes,

she would become the goddess
on a pedestal.

- Do you have a second?
- Can we ask you a few questions?

- Just one second, sir.
- Just a few questions.

Is it true that you are separated
from Liz Taylor?

- Yes.
- Will you getting a divorce?

After ten years of marriage,
it was over.

Liz Taylor
and Richard Burton divorced in 1974.

But, ever hopeful,
remarried in 1975.

We are together.

And, er...it seems quite natural.

Only to divorce again
a few months later.

When she left that marriage,
she went through a very rough patch.

Her problems with alcohol
and eating too much

were having a devastating effect
on her.

At a low point now, Liz was about
to embark on a new chapter,

more remarkable than any before -
getting clean.

For a star of her magnitude to come
out, essentially, as an addict,

as someone who needed help,
was a major, major moment.

Miss Elizabeth Taylor.

And completely reinventing
herself as a philanthropist.

She would sit on patients' beds
and read to them.

She would treat them with respect
and dignity,

and they were floored.

By the mid '70s,
a now heavy-drinking Liz Taylor

had finally ended her tumultuous
relationship with Richard Burton

and divorced him, twice.

But now she was stuck in a rut.

She was suffering from that syndrome
of actresses after 40.

There weren't as many roles for her.

And she didn't like being alone
and single.

APPLAUSE

In 1976, she married John Warner,
a Republican politician.

It was not a good relationship,
even though it lasted six years.

She was stuck in this farm estate
in Virginia,

bored out of her mind,

And as her boredom increased,
her lifestyle worsened.

What she mostly did was eat.

She mostly had a lot of, you know,
bourbon and fried chicken.

John Warner used to call her,
"my little heifer",

which tells you something
about that marriage.

As does this interview
from the time,

where Liz is uncharacteristically
silent.

What's Elizabeth Taylor's
greatest virtue and greatest fault?

Her greatest virtue is that
she's made me terribly happy.

And fault?

She just burns up a lot of food now
and then.

LIZ LAUGHS

And it was not just overeating
that was the problem.

She was using pain pills all day,

she was then taking sleeping pills
to sleep at night.

She was, of course,
drinking heavily in between.

She became, you know, dependent
on chemical substances

to keep her going, to an extent
that really did threaten her life

and certainly her health
as time went on.

In 1982, she divorced Warner.

Liz was at her lowest ebb.

But throughout her life, tragedy

and setbacks had only made her
stronger,

and this would be no exception.

An intervention by her friends
and family

would give her the impetus
to fight back.

They tell you things you've done,
things they've seen,

some of your behaviour.

And they preface it by saying,

"I love you very much,
but I have to tell you..."

This, that, that, that, that.

"And the reason I'm telling you this
is because I don't want you to die

and at the rate you're going,
you will.

She checked into rehab,
at the Betty Ford clinic.

For a star of her magnitude to come
out, essentially, as an addict,

as someone who needed help,
was a major, major moment.

For the first time in her life,
she was treated not as a star,

but as an ordinary human being,
as she explains here.

My peers had to pretend
that it was just sort of Jane Schmo,

and they were very awkward at first,

and I didn't quite know what to do.

Er...but within a day or two days,

I realised we were all
in the same boat.

We were there for one reason,
to save our lives.

Her determination to get clean
brought Liz Taylor back from
the brink.

It allowed her to survive
the problems that consumed
contemporaries

like Marilyn Monroe
and Judy Garland,

and meant the rest of her life
was shaped by her character,

not her addictions.

Elizabeth was able to discard

the persona that had been invented
for her

and invent a new one.

Inspired by her lifelong friendships
with gay men

and with an instinctive empathy
for the underdog,

Liz would devote the rest of
her days to one cause.

I have committed my life to fight
for AIDS

for the rest of my life,
until a cure is found.

It was a disease that affected
her former daughter-in-law,

her personal assistant
and her close friend, Rock Hudson.

Liz was furious about government
inaction and public fear of AIDS.

Used to fighting for
what she wanted,

she would use her celebrity
to change those attitudes.

In speeches,
it was clear how strongly she felt.

What would you do
if you were fired...

..evicted, ridiculed?

Would you fight?

Would you have the strength?

Would you have the courage?

She did an enormous amount to remove
the stigma of AIDS

and to remove the stigma, even,
of helping people with AIDS.

This would help fund her AIDS work
with successful perfumes,

Passion and White Diamonds.

Using everything she'd learned
negotiating her film contracts

to make another fortune.

It's the '80s, it's the time of big
hair and big capitalism.

And Elizabeth Taylor took to that
very naturally.

When they came to her and suggested
that she launch a perfume,

she negotiated one of the first,

and still most-lucrative
celebrity tie-ins ever to happen.

I get the feeling people walked into
meetings with her thinking they

were going to find
some empty-headed, gorgeous
Hollywood star.

And instead, they found
a really tough lady.

While all this was going on,

Elizabeth still found time
to follow her heart,

just as she always had.

After falling off the wagon
in the late '80s,

she returned to rehab, where she met
builder, Larry Fortensky.

He was a much younger,
athletic man,

and that must have been a draw
for her.

The fact he was 20 years younger
probably helped, as well.

Liz still had appetites

and didn't care what people thought
of her toy boy.

I think she began to appreciate
being treated like a regular person.

Probably one of the appeals
of Larry Fortensky

was that he was a regular person.

Her eighth, and final marriage,
lasted only five years.

They parted on good terms.

By now, Elizabeth,
the ultimate survivor,

had set up her own charity.

By the time she died,
I think that she'd raised

nearly $300 million
for AIDS research.

True to her promise, she spent
the last 20 years of her life

committed to the AIDS cause.

Echoing Princess Diana's secret
visits away from the press,

Joseph Panetta helped arrange
unannounced visits to hospices.

She would sit on patients' beds
and read to them.

She would sign anything
they asked her to sign.

She would treat them with respect
and dignity,

and they were floored.

And we would get faxes in the office
from the management of the hospice

sharing with us that the patients
needed less pain medication

for days after Elizabeth's visit

because they were working off
the halo of her having been there.

A dignified finale
to a dramatic life.

In her later decades,
Liz had taken all she'd learned

about fighting for what she wanted

and blazing her own trail,
despite public opinion,

and used it to leave
a lasting legacy for others.

Some years earlier, she had
reflected on how she had made it

through such a tumultuous life.

I think perhaps it's because
I am a survivor.

I've had the lowest valleys,
the highest highs.

Um...I've had a lot of tragedy
in my life,

I've had addictions,
I've had weight problems.

- Yeah.
- I've almost died
a couple of times.

- Yeah.
- And I've been pronounced dead.
So, you know, it's like...

That's true. You were in London,
were you not?

I've read my own obituary.

- They were the best reviews
I ever had!
- Wow!

On March 23rd, 2011,

the queen of Hollywood died.

The world mourned the loss
of its most glittering,

controversial and trailblazing star,
Elizabeth Taylor.

I think Elizabeth Taylor
is pretty much the definition
of Hollywood royalty.

I mean, really rewrote the book
on what stardom looked like.

I think she'll be remembered
primarily

for her extraordinary performances,

especially in a movie like
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Elizabeth Taylor's great
professional achievement

is knowing her words
and demanding to be paid

as much as her male co-stars,
or more.

But the other thing that she left us
with is this incredible second act
of her life,

where she raised hundreds of
millions of dollars personally

for good causes.

Everyone can take away something
special from her.

Her beauty, her outrageousness.

And then, at the end of her life,
her conscientiousness

and her dedication.

She was an unbreakable, solid gold

A-list Hollywood movie star.

They don't make them like that
any more.

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