Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes

"Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes" is without a doubt a compelling, provocative, and revealing doc that any film buff or movie history fan should see. Elizabeth from an early age shined by getting her start at age 10 in 1943's "Lassie Come Home". Soon Taylor electrified as she became the stuff of legend. On the "HBO" doc it's mostly her voice that we hear which was pulled from over 40 hours of discovered audio recordings with Richard Meryman.

Taylor admits she made mistakes and was not perfect as her love life and many marriages would prove, and like any doc we the viewers are treated to photos, film clips, footage, and headlines, always when she wed and divorced it was front page news.

Highlighted was Elizabeth growing up in front of the camera from her young teen roles to winning an Oscar for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?". She owed much of her success to her parents for helping her get involved in movies learning to act at acting and film school.

Taylor's life was a roller coaster from being swept off her feet by director Mike Todd and dealing with his tragic death in a plane crash. Then Liz romanced Eddie Fisher after he left Debbie Reynolds, only Elizabeth changed again leaving Eddie for Richard Burton whom she meet on the set of "Cleopatra".

Touching was highlighting Taylor's friendships with closeted gay actors such as Roddy McDowall and Rock Hudson, which later lead to her activism for AIDS research. Good look at a legendary actress who's work public and private will never be forgotten.

Elizabeth Taylor was the real deal, a bonafide movie star, a consummate rule breaker, and a striking beauty who made both classic films and unadulterated bombs and led a notorious personal life that was endless fodder for the gossip columnists until her death in 2011. This 2024 documentary offers a new glimpse into her storied life through archival audio from 1964 interview sessions with biographer Richard Meryman never before released. Providing a wealth of film clips and newsreel footage to complement the tapes, documentary filmmaker Nanette Burstein wisely lets the treasure trove of material speak for itself as she tracks the subject's life from preternatural child star to leading AIDS research activist. The mythos and facts about Taylor are well familiar to anyone who has seen her best work and read the tabloids over the years. Burstein reminds us how vibrant she was in her prime.

The quality that shines through this show biz, bio doc most brightly for me is not the subject's vaunted sexuality, star power or penchant for tabloid scandal but, rather, her likability. Consider the following: Ms. Taylor was married seven times and broke up at least two seemingly happy marriages, including one with the wife being one of her best friends, and yet, far from hating or even disliking her, I found her most engaging. Maybe that is because the three traits that emerge most strongly from the conversations she has with a journalist appropriately named Meryman are honesty (along with a healthy dose of self deprecation), humor, and perceptiveness. She labors under no delusions that she was a brilliant actress, although I do feel she is under rated in that area, even with two Oscars in hand. Big star/good actor is her professional assessment (very good is mine). And I love her anecdotes, insights and one liners that both skilfully analyze and amusingly skewer all her husbands, or at least the five gone into here. And while she can occasionally get catty, especially in her comments about Debby Reynolds, more often she is critical of herself, as in her comment that one must do pennance for one's wrongs in this life, not the one after.

So, taken all in all, a fairly admirable person, especially when you include, as I'm happy to say this film does, her advocacy for the Hollywood gay community during the AIDS scourge when most straight folks were looking or running away. Give it a B plus.

Liz's top five films:

5) Cat

4) Father Of The Bride

3) Place In The Sun

2) Giant

1) Va. Woolf

And yes, "Butterfield 8" sucks!

Greetings again from the darkness. Not many people are famous for their entire life. Elizabeth Taylor came about as close as one can. Director Nanette Burstein uses 40 hours of recordings that resulted from journalist Richard Meryman's 1964 interviews with 32-year-old Ms. Taylor. This was at the height of her fame and popularity.

Liz claims her infamous "violet" eyes are actually "dark blue". She is quite forthcoming during the recordings, and we can't even imagine a top-tier celebrity today offering this much personal insight ... outside of the obvious blabbering we are subjected to on social media and talk shows. Liz became famous at 10 years old when she starred in LASSIE COME HOME (1943) and was a cinema sex-symbol at age 16 when she played the beautiful wife of Robert Taylor (12 years her senior) in CONSPIRATOR (1949). We hear Liz recall her idyllic childhood, yet also describing herself as a "terrified little girl" during those early Hollywood years.

In addition to the recordings which give the documentary a certain structure, director Burstein also includes a treasure trove of personal photos, home movies, archival interviews, and archival footage. A slew of photos of her famous dates stream by - even including football star Glenn "Mr. Outside" Davis. Liz was only 18 years old when she married Conrad "Nick" Hilton Jr, heir to the hotel magnate. She explains how she locked herself in the bathroom on her wedding night, and was so nervous, it took 3 days to consummate the marriage. Of course, Elizabeth Taylor is as famous for her marriages as she is her acting. She wed 8 times to seven different men. The most interesting of those are detailed here, including the plane crash death of true love Mike Todd, which led to Liz wooing singer Eddie Fisher from her friend Debbie Reynolds. What a scandal!

Despite the marriages, she also had close friends - some of whom were closeted homosexuals in order to protect their career and image. Roddy McDowell, Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean were all close to Liz. She details the shock at Dean's car crash death and notes she had been cruising with him in his Porsche earlier that same day.

During the interviews, Liz makes the point a few times that it was so important for her to be accepted as an actress, not just a movie star. She expresses a humble pride in being the first actor to be paid one million dollars for a role, but then things went sideways for CLEOPATRA, when Liz was hospitalized with pneumonia so serious it required a tracheotomy. Production on the film was delayed more than two years, and it was during her recovery that she won the first of her two Oscars. However, it's surreal hearing her bash BUTTERFIELD 8 as an inferior film. When production on CLEOPATRA re-started, she met her real life Marc Antony in actor Richard Burton, thus kicking off their years-long on-again/off-again intense relationship (including two marriages).

Director Burstein flashes clip after clip to convince those who don't already know that Elizabeth Taylor was an actor, a movie star, and a cultural icon. The film is quite a tribute, though it kind of blows through the later years of a couple of marriages, rehab, and weight gain. She does commit time to Liz's relentless work as an AIDS activist, including her support of long-time friend Rock Hudson. So many of Liz's memorable performances came in 1967 and earlier (some of those not mentioned above are NATIONAL VELVET (1944), FATHER OF THE BRIDE (1950), A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951), GIANT (1956), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958), and of course, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF (1966, her second Oscar). Despite her career peaking in that era, Elizabeth Taylor remained a star until her death in 2011 at age 79. Nanette Burstein has delivered a worthy tribute.

Premieres August 3, 2024 on HBO and MAX.

That's how she was once referred to in Hollywood and probably strived to be taken seriously for her acting skills.

The documentary mostly consists of conversations with her (with other folks like Burton thrown in the mix) with archival footage shown on screen. Sadly, it's less a reappraisal of her cinematic legacy and more of her marriage drama. There is hardly any insight into her cinematic career beyond the usual fluff (save for Cleopatra) though archival footage for her marriage isn't spared.

This documentary treats her like a spoiled mogul rather than a serious actor.