Introduction to the New, Updated Edition
When a reporter covers the president of the United States, whose every move is news, he’s said to be on “body watch.” The same was true when you covered Elizabeth Taylor, whose every utterance—and every hospitalization—were front-page news, even in her seventh decade. I was on the Elizabeth Taylor body watch since my childhood as an inveterate moviegoer, and it continued when I was a reporter at The San Antonio Light and at Newsweek after I came to New York. As editorial director of G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the early 1980s, I commissioned Hollis Alpert to write a major biography of Elizabeth’s husband Richard Burton, and secured the cooperation of her publicist, and my friend, John Springer.
The result of all this Elizabeth-watching is the book you hold in your hands, which first came out in 2000. Since most books have a very short shelf life, I did not dare to suppose that The Most Beautiful Woman in the World would still be in demand over a decade later, with editions in many languages throughout the world. In response to its continuing popularity, my publisher asked me to prepare an updated version that would tell my readers exactly what Elizabeth was up to in Act III, the dramatic denouement of her amazing life, that of a Hollywood actress who held sway as the world’s No. 1 celebrity for well over sixty years—a unique and unprecedented feat.
The answer, as you’ll see, is by turns funny, sad, surprising, and finally gratifying as honors began to pour in from the White House and Buckingham Palace. Hollywood had long ago crowned her as its queen by bestowing two Best Actress Oscars. Now, in her golden years, the world’s most powerful governments, disregarding her scandalous past, certified her as one of the great heroines of our time.
On a more personal level, her friend Jack Larson, interviewed for this edition, reveals that even as she approached eighty, Elizabeth Taylor was never without handsome men in her life. Her beauty faded, but her many-faceted allure proved to be more than skin-deep. In the twenty-first century, her ardent admirer was Bulent Tugrul, a young Turk.
Equally fascinating in this updated edition are the confessions of legendary Hollywood cocksmen who wrote tell-all books following the original publication of The Most Beautiful Woman in the World . Robert Wagner, Vic Damone, and George Hamilton add zest, wit, and eye-popping surprises to the amorous saga of the screen’s most notorious siren.
In her seventies, as throughout her life, Elizabeth was rarely without drama, which was regularly supplied by accidents, medical catastrophes, and the deaths of close friends like Paul Newman and Michael Jackson. How she coped with her increasingly chaotic life, and continued to go before the public even when she was crippled and disoriented, is not only a lesson in pluck but may well have as profound an effect on society as she did when she changed our ideas about homosexuality in the 1980s and 1990s. If Elizabeth Taylor could grow old and flaunt it, so could we, and our ageist, youth-obsessed, Botox-crazed culture would be infinitely the better for it.
Also new to this edition are intriguing details that flesh out Elizabeth’s relationships with Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, President Ronald Reagan, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Truman Capote, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Carrie Fisher, Marlee Matlin, and Maureen O’Hara, who was stunned when Elizabeth stole her thunder at a tribute to their mutual friend Roddy McDowall. Included as well are new disclosures about Elizabeth from such stars as Tony Curtis, Robert Vaughn, and Ernest Borgnine, some hurling laurels, others darts.
Another entirely new chapter provides complete, exhaustively researched accounts of Elizabeth’s relationship with England’s Queen Mother and Elizabeth’s investiture in Buckingham Palace as a Dame Commander of the British Empire. There is an hour-by-hour diary of Elizabeth’s
When a reporter covers the president of the United States, whose every move is news, he’s said to be on “body watch.” The same was true when you covered Elizabeth Taylor, whose every utterance—and every hospitalization—were front-page news, even in her seventh decade. I was on the Elizabeth Taylor body watch since my childhood as an inveterate moviegoer, and it continued when I was a reporter at The San Antonio Light and at Newsweek after I came to New York. As editorial director of G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the early 1980s, I commissioned Hollis Alpert to write a major biography of Elizabeth’s husband Richard Burton, and secured the cooperation of her publicist, and my friend, John Springer.
The result of all this Elizabeth-watching is the book you hold in your hands, which first came out in 2000. Since most books have a very short shelf life, I did not dare to suppose that The Most Beautiful Woman in the World would still be in demand over a decade later, with editions in many languages throughout the world. In response to its continuing popularity, my publisher asked me to prepare an updated version that would tell my readers exactly what Elizabeth was up to in Act III, the dramatic denouement of her amazing life, that of a Hollywood actress who held sway as the world’s No. 1 celebrity for well over sixty years—a unique and unprecedented feat.
The answer, as you’ll see, is by turns funny, sad, surprising, and finally gratifying as honors began to pour in from the White House and Buckingham Palace. Hollywood had long ago crowned her as its queen by bestowing two Best Actress Oscars. Now, in her golden years, the world’s most powerful governments, disregarding her scandalous past, certified her as one of the great heroines of our time.
On a more personal level, her friend Jack Larson, interviewed for this edition, reveals that even as she approached eighty, Elizabeth Taylor was never without handsome men in her life. Her beauty faded, but her many-faceted allure proved to be more than skin-deep. In the twenty-first century, her ardent admirer was Bulent Tugrul, a young Turk.
Equally fascinating in this updated edition are the confessions of legendary Hollywood cocksmen who wrote tell-all books following the original publication of The Most Beautiful Woman in the World . Robert Wagner, Vic Damone, and George Hamilton add zest, wit, and eye-popping surprises to the amorous saga of the screen’s most notorious siren.
In her seventies, as throughout her life, Elizabeth was rarely without drama, which was regularly supplied by accidents, medical catastrophes, and the deaths of close friends like Paul Newman and Michael Jackson. How she coped with her increasingly chaotic life, and continued to go before the public even when she was crippled and disoriented, is not only a lesson in pluck but may well have as profound an effect on society as she did when she changed our ideas about homosexuality in the 1980s and 1990s. If Elizabeth Taylor could grow old and flaunt it, so could we, and our ageist, youth-obsessed, Botox-crazed culture would be infinitely the better for it.
Also new to this edition are intriguing details that flesh out Elizabeth’s relationships with Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, President Ronald Reagan, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Truman Capote, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Carrie Fisher, Marlee Matlin, and Maureen O’Hara, who was stunned when Elizabeth stole her thunder at a tribute to their mutual friend Roddy McDowall. Included as well are new disclosures about Elizabeth from such stars as Tony Curtis, Robert Vaughn, and Ernest Borgnine, some hurling laurels, others darts.
Another entirely new chapter provides complete, exhaustively researched accounts of Elizabeth’s relationship with England’s Queen Mother and Elizabeth’s investiture in Buckingham Palace as a Dame Commander of the British Empire. There is an hour-by-hour diary of Elizabeth’s
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