She hasn't starred in a feature film for nearly two decades, but at 67, Taylor remains the platinum grande dame of celebrities. She was—and is—an epic-in-progress. She has had seven husbands and countless heartbreaks. She has perfumes and charities to buoy her bottom line and her spirit, but throughout her life she has suffered enough medical problems to keep ER in episodes for a couple of seasons. "Elizabeth is bigger than life," says songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, a good friend. "She's probably the closest thing we have in America to royalty."
Aglow in a lavender velour muumuu in her Bel Air living room and holding her constant companion Sugar, a Maltese, her highness has only recently emerged from five years on the dark side. She had hip replacements in '94 and '95 and a benign brain tumor removed in '97. In 1996, Taylor's longtime friend and publicist Chen Sam died of cancer; in '98, actor Roddy McDowall, whom she calls "my best male friend ever," also succumbed to the disease; and her most recent husband, Larry Fortensky (a fellow Betty Ford alum whom she divorced in '96), suffered massive head injuries in a fall at his home in January. For a while, says Taylor, "I became agoraphobic. I have a beautiful bedroom, and I just sank deeper and deeper into my Porthault sheets."
Riding to the rescue was her actor pal Rod Steiger, who revived her with humor and empathy. "I had eight years of clinical depression," says Steiger, 73. "It was fairly obvious that she was in one of the first stages—and that is isolation." The pair, who wear matching gold pendants in the shape of the Little Prince from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's fable, now slip out to sample new restaurants and visit friends. "Very few people have been more courageous in the face of adversity than she has," says Steiger. "But you just have to keep her moving."
She is fairly flying with renewed energy for her business, her charities and her family. She helps market her perfumes (Passion and White Diamonds), which together earn an estimated $200 million annually. "It's not the selling or the money—though, believe me, I like what I can do with it," she says. "It's the fun of being involved."
One of the first celebrities to take on the AIDS crisis, Taylor has helped bring in some $50 million to fight the disease. "Back when people were afraid to touch those with AIDS," says her hairdresser and friend José Eber, "she would go to hospitals and shake AIDS patients' hands and give them a kiss. It just came so naturally. I think she was brought into this life to be a humanitarian."
Taylor has stayed close to her family. The best time of her life, she says, "was when Richard [Burton] and I were married, and the kids were babies, and we lived like a pack of gypsies." Now on summer afternoons she hosts backyard picnics for her four grown children, nine grandchildren and great-grandson. "There will be maybe 40 people here," she says. "The swimming pool is filled with little tousled heads." Although she swears she will never marry again, she's not out of the relationship tango. "Oh, no," she says.
With age, Taylor has grown more reflective and accepting. "The best part," she says, "is gathering more knowledge as you go." She is still, however, Elizabeth Taylor. "Elizabeth basically does what pleases her," says Eber. "There's nobody who knows who she is more than her." So although she has put her renowned jewels in a safe-deposit box—these are the staid '90s after all—she visits them from time to time. And every so often she'll bring home a bauble to wear around the house. "I have been known," she says with a giggle, "to swim in my emeralds."
J.D. Reed
Meg Grant in Los Angeles
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- Meg Grant.
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