How to Be a Movie Star (22 page)

George Stevens fumed. He was falling behind schedule. "Miss Elizabeth Taylor's illness from August 1 to August 8, inclusive, caused the
Giant
company to shoot around her as much as possible," Tom Andre reported to the studio. The second unit was brought in to do work originally scheduled for later, but eventually the company was unable to proceed without its leading lady and was "forced to lay off." Clearly the situation could not continue. Metro was already hounding Stevens to get Elizabeth back to her home studio so that she could start work on
Raintree County,
another big epic picture slated to be shot on location. So Tom Andre was dispatched to find out what was really going on. Dr. Paul Mc-Masters, the physician treating the sciatica, wouldn't say whether she was well enough to work. It was up to his patient, he explained. "If she felt well enough to come in," McMasters said, it was "all right" with him.

The next day Elizabeth was given a call for 8
A.M.
makeup. She arrived only twenty minutes late, hobbling onto the set using crutches. Tom Andre asked if she'd prefer a wheelchair. She replied that she could manage better with the crutches. "Dr. McMasters recommended we keep Miss Taylor off her feet as much as possible," Andre reported to the studio chiefs, "which, naturally, we do."

Some people thought that she was playing for sympathy. At the end of the day, one member of the crew noticed her running after Rock yelling, "Hey, wait for me!" as if nothing were wrong. Although that's the nature of sciatica, it's also quite possible that she was having a better day because Stevens hadn't yelled at her quite so much. Certainly the director's view was that her illnesses were temperamental, or possibly just hangovers from too many chocolate martinis. On August 31, when she called in to say that she had a "very bad headache," Stevens bellowed that she'd better show up since "she was involved in everything [they] were doing." A studio memo suggested that she consider moving onto the lot until the picture was completed—a suggestion the star chose to ignore.

"You must understand that when Elizabeth got sick, she was in control," said one close friend, requesting anonymity. "It was her show, nobody else's. She always felt the pain, no question, but if she could drag it out a day or two longer, or insist she couldn't walk, she could live her days the way she wanted to, without any director or husband or publicist telling her when to sit, when to stand, when to smile, when to pose pretty for a picture." She could stay home, her friend said, like a kid playing hooky from school, watching tele vision, playing records, and eating chili with ice cream. It was her little rebellion against those who ran the machinery of her fame.

On September 26 she was sniffling and sneezing with a bad cold. The company was in the midst of shooting the important fight scene in Sarge's Diner, where Rock, defending a family of Mexicans, gets drawn into a fistfight with a bigot. They had to stop filming at noon because Elizabeth looked so weak; first aid was brought in, and her temperature was found to be 99.6.

With such a low-grade fever, somebody else might have soldiered on, but a call to Elizabeth's doctor resulted in an order to send her home immediately. Stevens insisted that she at least stick around to shoot three close-ups before departing, and then her stand-in was used to resume filming the fight. Still trying to keep things running smoothly, Tom Andre called Elizabeth's doctor, who said that if his patient could "remain in bed" the entire next day he'd guarantee she'd be able to work the following. But if she were forced back to work too soon, the doctor said, all bets were off. A weary Stevens surrendered and gave her the day off.

But then James Dean was killed on September 30 while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder near Cholame, California. On the lot the next day, Elizabeth reacted dramatically to the news, snapping at Stevens for not appearing emotional enough and then "losing her breakfast in the makeup department." Those present attributed her vomiting to distress over Dean's death, but her doctors said that she might actually be suffering from appendicitis or an ovarian cyst. There was also the possibility, they said, that she'd sustained some serious damage from her caesarean section back in February.

On the night of October 2, Elizabeth was admitted to UCLA hospital. Dr. Robert Buckley grimly told Stevens that she was "more ill than she had ever been" in the twelve years he had been treating her. The
Giant
company was forced to suspend shooting once again on October 3, with MGM agreeing to release Warners from further payments for the use of their star until Elizabeth was able to return to work.

The film was far behind schedule by now. Once again, it was Andre who tried to fix things. He spent hours trying to get Elizabeth's doctors on the phone. When at last he reached them, he urged that they delay any "exploratory operations" and simply focus on getting their patient well enough "to finish the picture." Surprisingly, the doctors agreed to his request. Any major treatments could be put off until the end of shooting, they said. Andre was delighted. Only two interior scenes, including the final sequence with Hudson, were left to do, along with some loops with Elizabeth that he estimated would take about three hours. Dr. John Davis thought Elizabeth could handle that, and "following completion of the picture [she would be readmitted] to the hospital [to] correct all conditions which now exist with her."

Yet it's clear from private medical reports filed with Warners' insurance company that Elizabeth's doctors knew very well by this point that she wouldn't need to return to the hospital. The various fears of appendicitis, ovarian cysts, peritonitis, or caesarean complications had all turned out to be groundless. Dr. Davis finally concluded that Elizabeth was suffering from "extreme nervous tension" brought on by both the news of Dean's death and "the extreme mental duress she was put under by the director at this time." Although the primary diagnosis was volvulus, a twisting of the intestine possibly due to stress, Davis also listed bronchitis, suggesting that Elizabeth's cold from the previous week had simply gotten worse. (Viral bronchitis can also sometimes produce gastrointestinal symptoms.) On October 5 Tom Andre got the welcome news that Elizabeth's fever had broken and that the "obstruction in her intestine" had been relieved. On Saturday, October 8, Davis told Andre that "he saw no reason—unless something new came up—why she would not be able to [resume] work on Tuesday."

Something new frequently
did
come up, but they all hoped for the best. Studio chief Jack Warner had been kept apprised of "the Taylor situation" in regular memos. So it was with great relief, felt from top to bottom, that Elizabeth returned to the set on October 11. She was a bit hoarse but otherwise no worse for the wear. That shouldn't imply that she hadn't suffered through her ordeal. Dr. Davis stressed to Andre that "she had been a very sick girl all week." Though it would appear much ado had been made over a bad case of bronchitis, the star had suffered no less for the histrionics. When a doctor once told her that he could find no physical cause for an ailment, she shouted back, "Then why do I feel this terrible pain?" Elizabeth Taylor never faked an illness. She suffered through them all, even if someone else—someone who hadn't grown up with a constant flutter of attendants and caregivers around her—might have required less attention and less treatment for the same ailment.

She also demonstrated once again that she wasn't exactly powerless against the authoritarian system that governed her life. Stevens rode everyone hard, but it was Elizabeth who ultimately determined when she showed up for work and which days she got off. After the director had offended Elizabeth by refusing to call a halt to filming after Dean's death, he had no choice but to suspend production three days later when she checked herself into the hospital.

Of course, Elizabeth's absences from the set also meant that the studio's profits were undercut. Losses directly attributable to her illnesses totaled $44,309.40. It's not likely that Elizabeth lost much sleep over that. She might have considered it payback for the long, difficult shoot that she'd had to endure. She might be their chattel, but she was no mindless sheep to be herded along by the rigid studio machine.

At a party for Benny Thau at Romanoff's a few weeks later—with Dore Schary and Louis B. Mayer seated discreetly at separate tables—Elizabeth gaily made the rounds, Hedda Hopper reported, "and she's forgotten all about illness." When she'd been assessed back in May by the studio's insurer, the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, Elizabeth had been rated as a "good" risk. No history of illness in the past six months had been reported, and when asked about any present complaints, she had replied, "None." She had told the insurer that in the past three years no accident or sickness had ever prevented her from working.
Giant,
however, changed all that. After what she went through on that film, Elizabeth learned one more lesson of stardom. To get what one wanted, every weapon in one's arsenal had to be used. All was fair in the game of fame.

But there was an additional reason for Elizabeth's distress over the past few months. Her marriage was disintegrating. And one scandal rag dared to suggest that her allure had paled against that of the burlesque queen who was rumored to be her rival.

Jennie Lee, whose forty-two-inch bust had made her the Ba-zoom Girl in the after-dark world of Los Angeles burlesque, peered out between the red velvet curtains. She knew right away that the gentlemen at the front table were upscale types. Jennie figured on doing her special trick for them: twirling the tassels attached to her breasts clockwise, then counterclockwise, and then in opposite directions at the same time in a stunning grand finale.

The twenty-six-year-old native of Kansas City, Missouri, headlined a show five nights a week at Strip City, a burlesque theater at Western Avenue and Pico Boulevard. Despite the clucking from some of the city's puritans, Strip City was no dive: Jazz lovers flocked from all over to hear the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, and comedians like Redd Foxx often performed between the striptease acts. Still, the place had a certain edge: Foxx's routines were laced with four-letter words, and anywhere whites and blacks mixed was considered outré in 1955. There were also drag queens and gay men. Anyone in search of something a little more dangerous than Mocambo was drawn to Strip City. One of those was Michael Wilding, who was sitting at the table up front with his pals.

Jennie Lee might not have known who he was right away, but she was a smart cookie. Since arriving in Los Angeles a few years earlier, she'd fought for the rights of "exotic dancers" (she disliked the term "stripper") by organizing her girls and affiliating with the American Guild of Variety Artists. She campaigned to raise the dancers' $85-a-week minimum wage, which she claimed was the lowest in the nation. With a shrewd eye for publicity, Jennie threatened a "cover-up" strike. The girls appeared at a press conference in topcoats and refused to take them off until they got a raise. Jennie eventually won $100-a-week salaries for her hardworking team.

That summer—while Elizabeth was in Texas—Jennie had organized an exotic dancers' softball team and invited photographers to watch them play in Griffith Park. The girls' picture graced the front page of the
Los Angeles Times.
Michael Wilding—and the rest of the city—couldn't have missed it. Among the players showing off their gams and softball gloves was one Verena Dale, a voluptuous blonde like Jennie herself. It was Verena who recognized the upscale patrons at the front table. Among them were Michael Wilding, the husband of Elizabeth Taylor, and a well-known Hollywood writer.

After the show Jennie and Verena and two other girls stopped by Wilding's table. They often flirted with celebrities; Rock Hudson had been there on occasion, as had Dean Martin. Alcohol flowed fast and easy, and at the end of the night Wilding drove Verena to her home on North Hobart Boulevard, less than ten minutes away. According to one of Jennie's protégés, Elizabeth's husband and his friends returned frequently to Strip City over the next few weeks, and an unlikely friendship developed between these Hollywood uptowners and the freewheeling burlesquers. Wilding became especially fond of the high-spirited Verena Dale. Both had, at the very least, a love of liquor in common. The Associated Press reporter James Bacon, who was Wilding's good friend, recalled that the sophisticated actor was "fond of his Scotch—the drink, not the nationality."

After the last curtain fell on the night of Wednesday, June 22, Wilding and his writer friend decided to keep the party going a little longer and invited Verena, Jennie, and a male employee of Strip City back to the house in Beverly Hills. The fivesome piled into Wilding's white Cadillac along with the ladies' lacy costumes that they would need to shoot a "strip movie" the next day. Up they drove to Elizabeth's "Snow White" house where, presumably, the two Wilding sons were either fast asleep or away for the evening. There the girls swam in Elizabeth's pool and the men kept the liquid refreshment flowing. At one point Verena jumped up on a cocktail table in a red negligee and did a version of her striptease, minus the usual pasties.

Jennie left soon afterward, leaving Verena and the male employee at the Wilding house. But she had a whopper of a story to sell. The fact that the escapade ended up being splashed across the cover of
Confidential,
the most notorious scandal magazine of the era, meant that someone had squealed, and the most likely culprit—the only one with any motive—was Jennie. James Bacon, long rumored to be the friend who accompanied Wilding to Strip City, has never acknowledged whether he was there that night, but he did admit to knowing about the "encore party" at Wilding's house, and he was certain that
Confidential
had been tipped off by one of the strippers. The media-savvy Jennie had cultivated contacts well beyond the fellows at the
Los Angeles Times.
For a dancer struggling to make a living wage, the payola offered by the scandal magazines for dirt on the stars was extremely lucrative. Even as she slid into the backseat of Wilding's Cadillac, Jennie was probably already counting the cash she could make by letting
Confidential
know about the impromptu party at Elizabeth Taylor's house.