Rising from her bath one morning in 1982, the wife of Virginia Senator John Warner paused to stare into a full-length mirror. It was an act that required some courage, for what she saw was a reflection she had resolutely shunned for years, and for good reason. The image was that of a dissolute, 180-lb. Elizabeth Taylor, her once enviable figure now a shambles, her famous violet eyes nearly lost in flab. This was the woman who for nearly four decades had enraptured millions of people with her fiery acting, her flamboyant life (seven marriages, a carload of diamonds) and a beauty that could inspire soaring sonnets. Now she was inspiring cruel jokes about her burgeoning weight, and in response she was only guzzling more booze, gobbling more pills, gorging more calories. It was on that morning in 1982, as she examined her unpleasant self in the mirror, that Elizabeth Taylor decided to halt the mindless dissipation of past years and once again to take control of her life. Encouraged by family and friends, she checked into the Betty Ford Center and embarked on a rigorous diet and exercise program. Today, at 55, having shed nearly 60 lbs., she is once again a startling figure, the envy of women of any age. With the help of a New York author, Jane Scovell, she has written a book, Elizabeth Takes Off, recounting the story of her decline and triumphant recovery. In the first of two excerpts from the book, Taylor speaks out for the first time about the bleak, empty days when a sensational screen beauty transformed herself into a bored, fat housewife.
When I fell in love with John Warner, I was fully aware that he had political ambitions. Just before our marriage in 1976, Senator William Scott of Virginia announced his retirement, and I knew John was determined to run for his seat. When John received the Republican nomination, skeptics had a field day. How could a glamorous movie star adapt to the campaign trail, albeit in a supporting role? Theories abounded as to why I dropped out of the entertainment world and into politics. As I recall, the most flattering conjecture suggested I was ''washed up'' in Hollywood. The real reason had to do with my personal convictions rather than my career. John Warner was my husband, I believed in him (I still do), and I wanted to help him attain his goals. I have an old-fashioned sense of a wife's obligations and always have been the malleable one in marital situations. I adapt myself 100 percent to my husband's life, willingly and happily. I can be pushed, I can be shoved, and it's okay: I'm resilient as all hell. Though I admit that if I'm pushed too far, even by a husband, something snaps inside me and the relationship is over. Certain aspects of my philosophy have a distinct prefeminist ring, but that's the way I was raised and the way I feel. Outside the workplace, where anything less than equal pay is unacceptable, I believe in a difference between men and women. In fact, I embrace the difference. It's probably because of some of my ''quaint'' attitudes that I've married so many times. Basically I'm square. My sense of right and wrong makes it very difficult for me to have an affair. I have to be really in love to sleep with a man, and when I'm really in love I want to be married. When I set off with John, I had incredibly naive notions about campaigning. Even after I realized it was a 24-hour-a-day job, I ignored the dangers of constant fatigue and no privacy. I didn't consider the consequences of late and unhealthy meals and tended to snack to ''keep up my strength.'' John was busy every minute preparing for the next appearance, speech or ceremony, an endless succession of necessary and taxing events. As his wife, I was right by his side. Like many other political spouses I knew, I was gaining weight and didn't really care. The only thing that counted was winning the election, and since I wasn't working as an actress, I felt there was no reason for me to look any particular way or weigh any particular amount. Still, if I consider my eating patterns during those months, it's a wonder I didn't explode. There's no exaggeration in saying that the road to political office has broken as many individuals as have been ''destroyed'' by Hollywood. All my energies, all my interests were channeled toward the election. There was no time for or access to the luxuries usually surrounding my life, and I confess I love being surrounded by beautiful things and I love being looked after. In fact, many of my friends were convinced I wouldn't be able to stay the course. ''You realize, Elizabeth, you have to touch every corner of the state of Virginia, and some can only be reached by Greyhound buses.'' ''You know, Elizabeth, you won't be able to bring along a staff.'' ''You understand, Elizabeth, you won't be able to have a hairdresser.'' Even John was concerned. He discussed seriously the demands of campaigning, particularly the timetable. Appointments were made way in advance and could , not be broken or delayed, because even a few minutes lost could bollix up an entire day. Was I really capable of dressing myself, doing my own hair or riding in anything other than a limousine? Most of all, would I really be on time? Well, I showed them. I got up at dawn, rode those buses and did anything that was asked of me. I showed the sturdy pioneer stock that helped my great- grandparents cross this country in a covered wagon and, like them, I kept up my spirits with hearty old-fashioned, high-caloric food. Eating, it seemed, even if it was only burgers and fries, was the only luxury left. Some of the demands placed on me made sense, but some seemed just plain silly. One day a delegation from the Republican Party came to tell me I could no longer wear purple. ''What do you mean?'' I asked. ''Purple's been my favorite color since I was born. I must have had purple diapers. Will you please tell me why I can't wear it anymore?'' ''Well, Mrs. Warner, ah . . . you see, purple denotes passion.'' ''What the hell is the matter with that?'' I answered. After some hemming and hawing someone else said, ''Ah, and don't forget, Mrs. Warner, most people associate purple with royalty.'' ''Soooo?'' I said innocently. ''Ah, well, we don't want to have any inferences drawn from your wearing the purple.'' If they hadn't been so serious, I really would have laughed. The Republican Party couldn't make up its mind whether I'd be mistaken for a trollop or for the Queen of England. But, silly as the request was, I stopped wearing purple. I did it because I didn't want to make waves or cause my husband any distress. I put aside my wonderful Halston outfits and ordered sedate little Republican ensembles. No one ever asked me if I felt like changing my image, and even I didn't realize I was losing my own sense of self. There's a sweet finish to this saga. Toward the end of my Washington adventure, after I'd done a lot of serious fund-raising for the GOP, the Republican ladies gave a luncheon in my honor. Just to show that the old E.T. was still alive and kicking, I wore a purple Halston pantsuit and told the audience the story of my wardrobe editing. ''Ladies,'' I concluded, ''I'm wearing this outfit today in your honor.'' Other things asked of me weren't resolved quite so neatly. While John and I were on the road, I shook as many as two thousand hands in a day and still have a swollen vein on the index finger of my right hand to prove it. The bone was broken and the bleeding caused the vein to swell. In the latter part of the campaign, my finger got so bad I had to wear a hand guard. My middle finger was braced in an upright position, and I had a lot of fun waving that hand around at opportune moments. I kept the guard on most of the time and removed it for the big dinners, praying that I wouldn't have to greet an inordinate number of supporters. Most people were understanding, but later I heard an occasional complaint about my keeping my arms behind my back and refusing to shake hands. Even when the skin on the balls of my feet split from so much standing, I kept on going, just adding an extra order of fries and a little more ice cream to keep the smile on my face. If I had been in the army, I'd have received a Purple Heart. Wearing bloodstained shoes, I handed out diplomas, awarded prizes for the best livestock and even stood behind a drop cloth and had pies thrown at my face! And all the time I had to contend with photographers who followed me everywhere, including into public lavatories. In truth, the hardest part of the campaign, a trial not even hot fudge could assuage, was the total lack of privacy. As the physical strain mounted, I kept on eating. Junk food. When you're on the road before dawn, you grab anything you can and it's usually dripping with grease and slapped in a bun. At the end of the day we'd wind up at some hotel where the food, if not haute cuisine, at least had some nutritional value. However, by that time I was usually too tired to eat sensibly.
When John was sworn into office by Vice-President Walter Mondale, on January 15, 1979, the ceremony marked one of the happiest moments of my life. I had no idea that it also marked the beginning of the end of my marriage. I suppose, like a lot of people, my idea of life in the capital was based on a lot of movies like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I guess I expected a kind of federal Never-Never Land where I would help my husband in his appointed tasks and continue to work for the good, not just of Virginia, but of the entire U.S. I didn't have a clue as to what actually would happen once John Warner became a working senator. Being a senator's wife is thoroughly debilitating. I'm full of admiration for the ones who do stick it out -- and full of sympathy for those who can't cope. I couldn't, and I don't consider myself a weak sister. After sharing everything with my husband during the campaign, I found myself in a kind of ( domestic Siberia once he was elected. John turned to his senatorial tasks with passionate devotion and, as was not the case before the election, his intense involvement could not be shared. I had no function anymore, not even as an ornament. Not only is a senator's wife not heard, she's pretty much not seen. A smattering of congressional wives don't even come to Washington; they remain in their home states. Young women busy raising families at least have their children to occupy their days, but my children, Michael and Christopher Wilding, Liza Todd and Maria Burton, were all grown and quite capable of taking care of themselves and their respective families. Such a life is hard even on established marriages, but we were barely past our honeymoon. I don't think I've ever been so alone in my life as when I was Mrs. Senator, and I don't blame my ex-husband. He never pretended to be anything but a man devoted to public service, and once that service began in earnest, I had to take a backseat to his constituency. After the intense high of campaigning, it nearly destroyed me. John was up and out early in the morning. He ate breakfast on the run, jamming most of it into a brown paper bag and sticking it in his briefcase. I'd say goodbye, and then go back to sleep. There was no reason for me to get up. I had nowhere to go. Later in the day I'd rise, get dressed and then maybe read or watch television, or look at the walls, or do nothing. I had nothing to fall back on, and though I involved myself in as many volunteer activities as possible, I had no daily chores. My chief activities were the regular meetings of the Senate wives and visits to hospitals, particularly the children's and mental health wards. I loved spending time with the mentally retarded kids. They had no idea who I was and couldn't have cared less. They just loved me because I loved them. After a while I also went around and gave seminars on acting. I'm sure my students must have been appalled at the way I looked, but they were really into acting and appeared to judge me by what I said, not how I appeared. I did maybe 45 seminars in five years for drama students at colleges and universities in Virginia, not an awful lot of activity, not for someone used to a very busy schedule. If the days were bad, the evenings were even more lonely. John would get home around 7:30 or 8 with piles and piles of paperwork. I couldn't plan dinner because I was never quite sure when he'd arrive. This is true of most congressional households. There's a very limited social life in Washington. You go to cocktail parties. The Democrats have their cocktail parties and the Republicans have theirs. Intimate get-togethers are rare. It's similar to the old days in Los Angeles when there was only one industry and nothing was discussed except films and filming. Mike Todd ((Taylor's third husband)) referred to all the Hollywood party talk as ''mental incest.'' The same could be said of the Washington social scene. John and I never had people in and we hardly ever went out. Most evenings, he'd say, ''Why don't you go upstairs and watch TV, Pooters'' -- his nickname for me -- ''I've got so much to do, I just don't know when I'll finish.''
This was the rhythm of my life, and a more discordant tune couldn't be imagined. I just couldn't bear the intense loneliness, the lack of sharing with the person with whom I most wanted to share. If I overate unhealthy fried food during the campaign, it was nothing to the way I overate when I had nothing to do at all. Eating became one of the most pleasant activities I could find to fill the lonely hours, and I ate and drank with abandon. The large amounts of food I ate were a substitute for everything I felt I was lacking in my life. But what was really starving was my self-esteem, and all the food in the world couldn't bolster it. In fact, my expanding waistline just provided another reason to be hard on myself. I would then try to soothe my hurt feelings with another edible treat and drinkable drink. After a while, they became my only consuming interest. The first thing I thought when I got up in the morning was, ''What am I going to eat?'' After breakfast I began the countdown to lunch, and when that was over, my timer was set to dinner. In between I sustained myself with continual nibbles, so that in time I gave new meaning to the word snack. The dictionary defines the word as ''light food eaten between meals.'' In my lexicon it became an additional feast of banquet proportions. As for other excuses as to why I ballooned up in Washington, I can't even point a finger at my celebrity status. No, even at the time, I admitted that the reasons behind my extraordinary weight gain were the all-too-common middle-age afflictions of loneliness and inactivity. Of course, in my case they were aided and abetted by too much booze and too many pills. At peak weight -- 180 lbs. -- my routine was very simple. First, I ^ positively enveloped myself in clothing, usually caftans that could have sheltered an entire Bedouin tribe. Then I'd streak past the mirror, catching sight of myself out of the corner of my eye. I thought I looked okay, because those fleeting glimpses were self-deluding. Don't kid yourself. All the caftans, muumuus and tent dresses in the world can't disguise what's underneath. As I gained weight, I just bought more clothes, and dear Halston kept me in nonpurple pantsuits all the way up that ladder of fat. After all, the way I looked didn't matter to me. I was just another senator's wife. I dressed like a politician's spouse, and who cared what body those clothes were encasing? I was just one of the girls. The notion of blending in fascinated me. I'd tried it as a young girl and failed miserably. Now, as a middle-aged woman, I was once again attempting to be one of the crowd. It did not happen. I was not welcomed into the bosom of the political family, and my heavy figure attracted increasing media attention. I was a mess and I still didn't know it. My husband and I were always good friends (we're even better friends now), but we'd reached a point of no communication. Though we lived under the same roof, John went his way and I went mine. He headed for the Senate; I zeroed into self-destruction. For a long time, I closed my eyes and saw what I wanted to see. I fooled myself by looking at my body with what I called ''obese'' eyes. I truly think that some fat people perceive themselves with the same distorted image as anorexics. No matter how skeletal, the latter see themselves as fat. I admit I could never totally deceive myself. Photographs showed me getting bigger and bigger, and somewhere in my brain those images registered. In the back of my mind a little voice would comment, ''Oh God, that stomach and, God, those thighs need covering.'' But it was all on a very superficial level. When anyone tried to help me, I'd say, ''Look, I know what I'm doing. I'm going through a phase. I can't diet until I'm ready, and if you push me, the minute you finish your lecture I will go in and have some hot fudge.'' I was sticking my tongue out at the world. And because I became the butt of so many jokes, I tried to make jokes about myself before anyone else could. Fat people often laugh a lot so others will think they don't care, but they do. ''Laughing on the Outside -- Crying on the Inside'' was written for fatties. And I wasn't just crying, I was dying. But I never said anything, ! because I didn't want anyone to know.
Unfortunately, many people took my silence as a license to be cruel. Comedians used my appearance for routines and one-liners. They went after me when I was totally vulnerable. There's nothing the public likes more than to tear down what it has built up. I was built up as a movie star, and when I became fat the public was alternately thrilled and saddened. If Elizabeth Taylor could look the way I did, anyone could, and that seemed a comfort to a lot of people. I could understand the fascination. What I still cannot understand is the deliberate cruelty. The jokes were often vicious and served no purpose other than to incite laughter over my misfortune. Not so long ago I was at a benefit with Joan Rivers, who had been foremost among the entertainers who made my weight the butt of their jokes. When I was ready to leave, she grabbed my hand, saying, ''Elizabeth, you look wonderful! I just want you to think about why I said those things about you when you were heavy.'' ''Okay, I'll certainly do that,'' I answered, and tried to get away. She held on to my hand and repeated, ''No, no, I mean it. I want you to really think why I did it.'' ''Okay, Joan, I'll think about it,'' I answered as I extricated my hand and walked away. I didn't have to think about it, I knew what she was implying. She was taking credit for my losing weight. But I don't think you can justify cruelty and turn it around into a benediction. Jokes were made about my weight because they got laughs, period. In the end, I lost weight because I forced myself to face the truth. And even now I'm not sure how I found the courage. The full-length mirrors in our Georgetown home were in the dressing room behind doors that were generally closed. I had planned it that way. I used small hand mirrors to make up my face and I scrupulously avoided looking at my torso. But on that day when I got out of the tub and saw myself, my entire self, I could not believe it. I could not tear myself away from this awful vision, and at the same time I could not help but superimpose on it the young woman I had been; the eager teenager in National Velvet, the seductive wife in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the noble temptress in Cleopatra. But the longer I stared, the longer I was confronted with the dreadful truth. I've never thought of myself as beautiful. I've always regarded my physical assets as a gift -- a genetic gift. Now I was face to face with someone I didn't recognize, someone, in fact, I really didn't want to know . . . and that someone was myself. What I learned by looking in that mirror was what all the comedians with all their jokes and all the headlines in all the newspapers could not make me face: I had actually tossed away my self-respect. I had literally thrown my gift away. I was no longer the commodity that had paid off so well, I was no longer one of the ''most beautiful women in the world,'' and much worse, I was no longer even Elizabeth Taylor, the person I knew. How in God's name had I come to this? And, God help me, how was I going to get out of it?
BOX: Tailored to Fit How Liz Slimmed Down and Firmed Up
Determined at last to shed her excess poundage, Elizabeth Taylor consulted physicians and Liz Thorburn, her chef, and fashioned a high-protein, low-fat diet of about 1,000 calories a day. Here's the diet -- and her advice:
Breakfast: Cup of fresh fruit (strawberries, peaches, melon), slice of dry whole wheat toast and a calcium supplement. Lunch: Salads made with vegetables, fruit, chicken, seafood or other protein (about six ounces), flavored with a specially concocted low-calorie mayonnaise or dressing. Mid-afternoon snack: As many slices of raw green, yellow or red vegetables as desired, with a low-cal dip. Dinner: Six to eight ounces of fish, shellfish or skinless chicken, or an occasional serving of grilled red meat (Taylor admits to being a lover of steak and hamburger); also, a small serving of starch -- perhaps half a cup of rice or a few new potatoes.
Taylor's doctor prescribed a series of daily toning and stretching exercises designed to avoid straining her chronically ailing back. Exercising and dieting away 60 lbs., Taylor now stays on a maintenance regime of about 1,500 calories a day, occasionally allowing herself to pig out on fried chicken and mashed potatoes. She also tries to keep up her daily exercises. Mostly, she maintains a ''thin'' state of mind. Among her diet tips and guidelines: -- Set reasonable goals. Just because you weighed 115 lbs. at 18 doesn't mean you should weigh the same at 35. -- Write down everything you eat to understand your special needs and cravings. When the food you are consuming is spelled out in front of you in black and white, it can shock you into taking action. -- Avoid temptation. If you're going to a baseball game or shopping mall or other place where hot dogs, ice cream or pizza are all around you, go with a full stomach. If a craving still overtakes you, try the Alcoholics Anonymous techniques of waiting it out or finding other distractions. -- Present your food attractively; if you can't indulge your appetite, you can feed your other senses. -- Put a picture of yourself on the refrigerator door. ''That sight was an excellent deterrent to bingeing,'' says Taylor. ''If you think a picture of me as Miss Lard will inspire you, go ahead and put it on your refrigerator, I have no objection.'' -- If you have to gorge, do it on the same day each week. ''I used to do it on Saturday night or Sunday lunch.'' -- Give away all your fat clothes. ''One trick I learned when I got thinner was to either take in or to give away the old sacks, pup tents and tarpaulins I used to conceal my bulk. I know I'll never again buy clothes with elastic waistbands. They're dangerous because they allow you to put on pounds and feel comfortable.'' -- Understand why you gained the weight in the first place. Coping physically with dieting is often not enough. You need at least to consider the emotional pressures and pulls that contribute to overeating. In an effort to regain her self-image, says Taylor, it was necessary ''to review those episodes that had brought me to this moment.''
NEXT WEEK: Taylor takes an emotional journey back to her Hollywood childhood. She discusses her brief marriage to an abusive Nicky Hilton, the tragic death of her third husband, Mike Todd, her fling with Eddie Fisher and her storied romance with Richard Burton. It was in the rootless years after Burton that she began to consume yet greater quantities of calories, alcohol and pills. ''I began to crack,'' she writes. ''My worst habits surfaced.''
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