Liz Taylor biography never dull

By: Reviewed by Brenlee Carrington Posted: 1:00 AM CDT Saturday, Jun. 11, 2011

Elizabeth Taylor

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Elizabeth Taylor

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/06/2011 (5551 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Elizabeth Taylor

The Lady, The Lover, The Legend 1932-2011

By David Bret

Greystone, 307 pages, $19

The first posthumous biography of the late great American screen icon Elizabeth Taylor is a conflicted affair.

At times harshly critical and at others effusively laudatory, this unauthorized work is never dull.

Taylor is alternately depicted as the world’s most admired Hollywood star, as a narcissist lacking in talent and as a great humanitarian whose work for HIV/AIDS is her greatest legacy.

British author David Bret has written over 25 celebrity biographies of superstars ranging from Rock Hudson to Marlene Dietrich.

His depth of knowledge about Hollywood is evident throughout his latest effort, the subject of which, Taylor, died just two months ago at age 79.

Despite Taylor’s having won two Academy Awards, Bret insults her in his opening line “for making more turkeys than acclaimed films, for having an onscreen voice that more than frequently grates and for rarely maintaining the acting standards of her co-stars.”

But in his concluding line he writes: “It is an indisputable fact that Elizabeth Taylor was the very last of the Hollywood greats. Most of her contemporaries were compelled to walk in the shadow of her sun. Of today’s stars, not one may be deemed worthy of stepping even within a mile of that shadow.”

Many Hollywood cognoscenti would agree with both of Bret’s observations.

Bret notes that for her charitable efforts, Taylor was an “icon where she worked to ensure that everyone was treated with the respect and dignity we all deserve.”

Tribune Media MCT
los angeles times file photo
Taylor cradles an Oscar. — Tribune Media MCT los angeles times file photo Taylor cradles an Oscar.

Her goal of ensuring that everyone is treated respectfully is hard to reconcile with Bret’s claim that Taylor liked to be “knocked around by her men.”

Unlike the recent bio Furious Love, which focuses solely on Taylor’s two turbulent marriages to and divorces from Richard Burton, this book dissects her entire life — and that of her allegedly bisexual parents as well.

According to Bret, Taylor’s parents had an open marriage and they each slept with members of both sexes. He also alleges that Taylor’s mother assisted her daughter’s early show business career by sleeping with key Hollywood executives. The problem with these allegations is that the people involved can no longer speak for themselves.

Taylor herself did not authorize Bret’s publication of his version of her life but her spokesperson told Bret: “Elizabeth’s seen some of your books, and she approves of the honest approach you have. She says that David Bret is a sh-t, but a loveable sh-t.”

Ironically, that damning with faint praise is similar to the tone Bret takes in his juicy and complex look at Taylor’s life. With her numerous marriages and illnesses, Taylor, according to Bret, has a story that “makes for grim reading, but it is nevertheless a fascinating one, from which absolutely no punches have been pulled.”

The same can be said about Brett’s examination of one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses.

Brenlee Carrington, a Winnipeg lawyer and mediator, is the Law Society of Manitoba’s equity ombudswoman.