How to Be a Movie Star (31 page)

The crowd was beginning to revolt. As the French comedian Fernandel performed his comic "glimpse of the future" onstage, fistfights were breaking out in the aisles. People were upset that many big prizes had been "openly and boldly hijacked Chicagostyle." Candy vendors, angered by the unruly crowd, began pelting guests with bonbons; hot dog vendors did the same, staining expensive gowns with relish and mustard. People were slipping on melted ice cream while outraged women gathered their mink stoles and huffily stalked out of the Garden.

Elizabeth was horrified. "My God, the sight of chic, lacquered women fighting with little kids to get a hamburger," she said. At last she was escorted from her box and up the red-carpeted stairs to the giant cake to slice off the first piece. She scooped up a hand ful of icing and brought it to her mouth. Her husband stood behind her, anxious to get out of there.

"All hell's breaking loose," recalled Lenny Gaines, an assistant to Eddie Fisher who'd been roped into helping organize the Garden party, "and [Mike] turns and throws some keys up to me and says, 'Here, kid, lock up.' I am standing there with these keys, watching him disappear into the crowd, and I shout, 'Lock
what
up?'" By now the fighting had reached the very edge of the stage, where Duke Ellington and his orchestra had started to play, ostensibly so people could dance. Gaines told him to just play "The Star Spangled Banner" and be done with it. "It looked like all these guys wearing tuxedos were gonna rip the Garden apart," Gaines said. "They almost did."

The next day Todd hoped that a chartered boat ride around Manhattan for members of the press and a complimentary bottle of champagne would insure positive reports of the party. This time, however, his storied luck with the fourth estate ran out. "[Mike Todd] gave the public bread crumbs and a circus," lamented the
New York Daily News.
The
Herald Tribune
fretted that propagandists in the Soviet Union would use images of the party to denigrate America—"New York fiddling while the country burns." While many people would insist that they'd enjoyed themselves at the Garden, the fact that Todd's "little party" had been a massive debacle soon became the conventional wisdom—in part because thirty-five million people had watched it live. The slugfests and skirmishes had been kept off the television broadcast, of course, but the sense of distasteful ostentation was still readily apparent. "It looked on the whole like a bad circus parade," said television critic John Crosby, "combining both vulgarity and dullness to a stupefying degree."

Early on there had been some thought given to throwing another bash in Los Angeles for all those who'd been unable to make it to New York. Following the fiasco at the Garden, however, Mike decided to send a "do-it-yourself party kit" to his friends on the West Coast. "It was just to poke a little fun at himself," said his son, "and it was a clever way of keeping the thing going." Or putting the best spin on it. In fact, the best thing the Todds could do at that point was to get out of the country for a while, which they did. Before Elizabeth started on
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,
there would be one more fabulous trip around the world. Surely better headlines would come of that.

In Moscow Elizabeth was stuffing herself with chicken Kiev and black caviar, making a mess of her pearl-ornamented white gloves. All eyes at the banquet were on her. The occasion on January 27, 1958, was the Indian embassy's celebration of their republic's ten-year anniversary, but the reason for the party was immaterial to Elizabeth; she was just glad to be having fun and eating decent food. Laughing and sipping Russian vodka, she charmed everyone—even Nikita Khrushchev, who glanced her way several times, though he didn't address her directly. But his wife was certainly curious about the woman with the dazzling eyes in the black cocktail dress, trimmed in fur and sparkling with sequins. "Who is the pretty young lady?" Mrs. Khrushchev inquired.

Well might she ask, for Elizabeth's fame extended only as far as the western edge of the Iron Curtain. Maybe that's why Mike was so fond of Russia—"the only place in the world," reporters quipped, "where Mike Todd is not Mr. Elizabeth Taylor." In Red Square a girl approached Elizabeth and asked for an autograph, thanking "Miss Monroe" for her time. "People were staring at me," Elizabeth said, "but it was because of my mink coat and my knee-high, fur-lined red leather boots. When people came over to our interpreter, they asked if I was a ballerina—the height of Russian glamour. They stared at my hairdo, and my jewels, but otherwise I was ignored."

But this night Elizabeth's identity was well-known to the ambassadors of Britain, France, Italy, Canada, and Norway, all of whom were in attendance with their staffs. A wry
New York Times
reporter observed, "For some persons, the film star was an object of more curiosity than were the Kremlin leaders." Elizabeth just laughed and called for a second helping of chicken Kiev.

They almost hadn't made it to Moscow. First there had been the premiere of
Raintree County,
which critics, as expected, largely panned, even if the pairing of Clift and Taylor still provided excellent box office. Then it was off to Hawaii before heading to Sydney, where the distractions really set in. Criticized by the
Sunday Telegraph
for kissing his wife while seated next to the premier of New South Wales, Joseph Cahill, Todd instructed Bill Doll to blanket U.S. press outlets with his furious response: "I would be a phony if, when the urge came, I did not kiss my wife." It was a salvo fired less at the Australians than at the gossipmongers back in America who, in the wake of the Madison Square Garden fiasco, had hinted once again of troubles in the Todd marriage.

From Sydney it was on to Hong Kong and then to Tokyo, where Elizabeth suffered an attack of appendicitis. Todd announced that they were "canceling the rest of their world tour," and arranged for them to fly home in late November so that Elizabeth could have surgery in Los Angeles. Met by the usual crush of newshounds at the airport, they indulged in some more theatrics, just in case any doubts still lingered about how happy they were. When reporters banged on the windows of their black Cadillac limousine, Mike said cheerfully, "Come on, Liz, get out. The boys want some pictures."

Sliding out of the car in a tight black silk Chinese dress slit halfway up the thigh, Elizabeth trilled, "Hi there!"—not her usual response when besieged.

Cameras flashed. "Look at that dress!" Mike exclaimed. "She's gonna start a whole new epidemic! It's liable to bring sex back."

"Give her a kiss, Mike," a reporter urged.

Todd put up his hands. "In Sydney I gave her a little peck and you would have thought the whole economy was gonna collapse. Kissing's trouble."

"That's trouble?" Elizabeth asked, crawling back into the car.

"See, that's the way she talks. She says, 'Come on, flannel-mouth, get in here.'"

A reporter leaned in to see her diamond ring—"as big as a railroad conductor's timepiece"—so Elizabeth hopped out of the car again to show it off. Meanwhile Mike was being asked if he planned to throw any more parties. "No more parties with more than eight people," he quipped.

"Party!" Elizabeth said. "That's a dirty word." And she slipped back into the car.

"Come on, honey," Mike said. "They want some pictures."

Out came Elizabeth for a third time, revealing a "great expanse of satiny leg." She smirked. "I'm getting old just getting in and out of this car."

Mike was griping about being charged for excess baggage on their flight. "It was Mr. Todd's coats," Elizabeth teased as she posed next to him.

"It was nothing of the kind," her husband said, giving her a mock stern look. Then they turned and smiled widely into the cameras. Photos were taken all around.

At least one reporter—Jack Smith of the
Los Angeles Times
—was wise to their little show. "Mike Todd and Elizabeth Taylor, well-known man-and-wife comedy team, put on a dizzy domestic farce in one act for the press," he wrote. And it worked, too. Smith's story was featured prominently in the
Times
with a big photo of the smiling couple. In fact, the airport give-and-take, though clearly staged, offers as clear a window on the private relationship between Mike and Elizabeth as one can find—madcap, showy, querulous, calculated, but always deeply affectionate.

When Elizabeth underwent her appendectomy a few weeks later, Mike was at her side to comfort her and to tell reporters, "This will be her last time to the hospital." Good thing he was no longer a gambling man.

He also said that he hoped to resume their world tour once Elizabeth was better, stressing it would be "purely a vacation—no business." He was obfuscating again. In fact, what no one but his closest intimates (and the U.S. State Department) knew was that Mike Todd was determined to get to Russia. Nearly two years earlier, he'd harbored grand plans of making a film in collaboration with Russian filmmakers, and not just any film either. He'd wanted to make a gargantuan version of
War and Peace
—no matter that Paramount recently had beaten him to it with an adaptation of Tolstoy's classic starring Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn. That picture, Todd said, was boring and flat, and, besides, was shot in Italy. His would be colossal. And it would be filmed nowhere but in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Mike Todd Jr. would insist that his father's desire to film in Russia was altruistic, growing out of a belief that a cooperative cinematic effort between East and West could help "bring the people of the world together." But for this flamboyant venture capitalist and son of a poor Polish-born rabbi, there was more to it than that. The Soviet Union represented a vast frontier of untapped opportunity and challenge. If he could make it in Communist Russia, there would be no stopping Mike Todd.

At the height of the Cold War, however, doing business with the Soviets was regarded warily by the United States government. When Todd had first contacted the State Department about traveling to Russia back in April 1956—around the time that he was becoming friendly with Elizabeth—J. Edgar Hoover sent a personal memo to State Department agents in Los Angeles warning them against granting permission for the trip. His files, Hoover insisted, indicated "association by Michael Todd with pro-communist individuals and gamblers." Furthermore, there were Todd's "questionable business operations during his 1951 bankruptcy investigation." Yet nothing in Todd's FBI file backs up Hoover's charges. In fact, the Bureau had failed to prove any illegality on Todd's part during his bankruptcy, and one memo directly contradicts the chief's allegation of association with "pro-communist individuals" by reporting "no subversive info" whatsoever was found in Todd's files.

But Todd was a Democrat, and any Democrat who courted the Soviet Union was immediately considered suspect. Surely Mike knew this, and he was shrewd as always: He "expressed great admiration for Director Hoover and confidence in all Bureau operations." That message was relayed to Hoover in code via teletype. After that, there was no further opposition from the FBI chief to Todd's Russian sojourn.

To get what he wanted, Mike knew that he'd need to charm and manipulate the government in the same way he did the press and the public. Sponsoring a pair of Russian filmmakers on a visit to the United States, Todd kept the State Department apprised of their movements, offering to show the department the films the Russians had brought with them. Warned that the Soviets would try to use him for propaganda if they agreed to coproduce a film, Todd made assurances that he wouldn't tolerate any outside "artistic control." When asked to keep in touch with the State Department at all times, Todd replied that he "wouldn't operate any other way."

He was equally as charming to the Russians. His informal, jovial humor struck a responsive chord among the Soviets, and they came close to signing a deal with him. When they finally turned him down, Todd headed into Yugoslavia to try to secure a deal there. Once again he was unsuccessful. Although plans for
War and Peace
were eventually dropped, Todd did not give up his dream of a Russian production and hankered for the next two years to get back to the Soviet Union.

And so it was that in February 1958, Mike and Elizabeth celebrated their first anniversary clinking champagne glasses in Moscow. To both his wife and son, Todd hinted that he was on a "secret mission" for the U.S. State Department; his FBI records, however, reveal nothing of the sort. He was in Russia to sell Mike Todd, not democracy; he wanted distribution for
Around the World
and to jump-start talks for a U.S.-Soviet film production. Once again he got on famously with the Soviets, likening Khrushchev to a Hollywood movie magnate and admitting to being "fascinated" by him. Lest he be charged as being too friendly to the Communists, Todd made sure to tell reporters that he'd brought along America's "best secret weapon"—his wife. Let Elizabeth Taylor loose in Russia, Mike said, and it could "undermine their whole structure." Not quite—but the glamorous impression Elizabeth made touring Red Square wasn't lost on Soviet officials. Khrushchev decided to capitalize on the publicity of the Todds' visit by publicly renewing his call for a summit meeting between East and West.

Back in California in the middle part of that February, Elizabeth had little time to unwind because rehearsals for
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
began on February 24. Since the birth of Liza, life had been a whirlwind, with the Madison Square Garden party, the jaunt to Asia, the appendectomy in Los Angeles. For New Year's, the Todds, with Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds along for the ride, had planned to see Judy Garland and Harry Belafonte perform in Las Vegas. Elizabeth was still not all that keen on Debbie, but she'd come around to liking Eddie okay; he made her laugh, and there was something about the way his eyes lit up every time he saw her that she just couldn't help but find amusing. As they hustled on board the
Liz
with the champagne already flowing, no one thought to tell the pilot their destination, so it was taken for granted that they were headed to their home in Palm Springs. Not until they'd touched down and recognized the San Jacinto Mountains did the group let out a collective shout of surprise, and soon the plane was zooming back up into the air. The foursome welcomed midnight with a burst of bubbly somewhere over the Nevada desert.