But of course Elizabeth Taylor had a career long before her stunning work in this classic adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. In fact, Elizabeth Taylor has many bookish credits to her name. So let’s explore the life of Elizabeth Taylor in all of its book-related glory. Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was a British American actress born in London on February 27, 1932. She started her acting career as a child actress in the 1940s. But Taylor had no trouble transitioning into adult roles in the 1950s. By the 1960s, at the height of her career, Elizabeth Taylor was the highest-paid actress in the world. Taylor’s first breakthrough role was in the 1944 film National Velvet. The movie, based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Enid Bagnold, starred Mickey Rooney, Angela Lansbury, and, of course, our girl Elizabeth. In the film, Elizabeth Taylor played a 12-year-old girl named Velvet Brown who rides her horse “Pie” to victory. Taylor recognized how significant the film was to her career, and later remarked, “Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.” There were plenty of other book adaptations for Elizabeth Taylor in the 1940s: The White Cliffs of Dover, based on The White Cliffs, in 1944; Courage of Lassie in 1946; Cynthia, based on the play The Rich, Full Life, in 1947; Life with Father, also in 1947; and Little Women, in which Taylor played Amy March, in 1949. Throughout the 1950s, Elizabeth Taylor continued starring in book-related roles: Quo Vadis (1951); Rhapsody (1954) based on Maurice Guest; Elephant Walk (1954); Beau Brummell (1954); The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), loosely based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story Babylon Revisited; Giant (1956); Raintree Country (1957). And these were just the bookish films in which Taylor starred in the 1950s! Believe it or not, there were even more roles beyond this. Elizabeth Taylor stayed busy. The actress also starred in not one, but two adaptations of Tennessee Williams plays. Of course, there was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1958. And then Taylor went on to star in Suddenly, Last Summer a year later in 1959. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and she won a Golden Globe for Suddenly, Last Summer. Elizabeth Taylor converted to Judaism in 1959, and had since been very outspoken about her Zionist support. When filming for Cleopatra started in 1962, the crew was unable to film any part of the movie in Egypt because Taylor was banned from entering the country. Nevertheless, the movie performed well at the box office and won multiple Academy Awards. And Egyptian officials ended up enjoying it so much that they actually lifted Taylor’s travel ban.
via GIPHY After Elizabeth Taylor won her first Oscar, she went on to star in one of the most famous (or infamous) roles of her career, the titular character in the epic historical drama film Cleopatra, based on the 1957 book The Life and Times of Cleopatra by Carlo Maria Franzero. The film was hugely successful, and Taylor was reportedly the first actress to ever get paid $1M for a role. But many people questioned the choice to cast Taylor in the role of the Egyptian queen. Around this time, Elizabeth Taylor also got the opportunity to show her love of literature outside of the world of film. In 1963, she appeared in a CBS television special, Elizabeth Taylor in London, in which she traveled to different landmarks in London and recited passages from the works of famous British authors. Taylor’s next big literary success story came in the form of the 1966 drama film Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? The film, based on the play by Edward Albee, won Taylor her second Oscar for playing the role of Martha. Her literary roles continued throughout her career. In 1967 alone, Taylor starred in The Taming of the Shrew, Doctor Faustus, and The Comedians. In the following years, there was Boom! (1968), Anne of A Thousand Days (1969), The Only Game in Town (1970), X, Y, and Zee (1972), Night Watch (1973), Winter Kills (1979), and The Mirror Crack’d (1980). Love learning about the bookish lives of celebrities? The check out the Bookish Life of LeVar Burton and the Bookish Life of Dolly Parton!
