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Even for someone with as many accolades as Elizabeth Taylor, success could often feel like a prison.
The notion that ‘all press is good press’ might be decent advice for those who are starting their careers, but it’s not helpful for artists who are trying to craft a legacy. The consequence of being so acclaimed and analysed by an audience, critics, and the media is that stars may have to deal with being associated with qualities that they personally find to be regressive.
There are only a few stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood who are more iconic than Elizabeth Taylor, who won two Academy Awards for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Butterfield 8, and became one of the most bankable stars in cinematic history. However, fame was all that Taylor desired, as she detested being known only for being a celebrity and being regarded only as a “sex symbol”.
“Some part of me is sorry that I became a public utility,” Taylor said, “I know I should be grateful. I don’t like fame. I don’t like the sense of belonging to the public. I like trying to be an actress”.
Taylor has certainly been outspoken in discussing her perception of her own legacy, famously trashing her part in BUtterfield 8, as she felt that playing a call girl was beneath her, but beyond feeling that the script was demeaning in its depiction of women, she felt that she had not been awarded for something she was proud of, and wanted to continue getting better as a performer.
This wasn’t something that could be confirmed by critics, but it was something Taylor felt that she needed to prove to herself, saying, “I see myself as a movie star that once or twice has managed to do a fairly capable job of acting. I am not satisfied with what I am. I’m not satisfied with what I’ve done. I want to improve.”
Taylor’s comments are interesting because of how radically the culture surrounding celebrity obsession has changed over the years since she was at the peak of their powers. In today’s entertainment climate, social media has given fans more access to their favourite celebrities than ever before, which leads them to develop a feeling of ownership, a dangerous cycle that can form unhealthy relationships, and Taylor was ahead of her time in setting the right boundaries.
“I think what I have done is deliberately made the dividing line the person my family knows is real,” she said, “The other Elizabeth Taylor, the famous one, really has no depth or meaning to me. It makes money. One is flesh and blood. One is cellophane.”
Taylor’s filmography had its high and lows, and pundits at the time had a field day criticising her massive paycheck for Cleopatra, which underperformed and caused a massive change in the way Hollywood managed its budgets, but what isn’t reported as often is all the work that Taylor did after her career on the big screen had died down. She was involved in the inception of many charitable organisations, and co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985 to develop more research into the disease that had become so deadly; although she leaves behind many classic films, they only represent a portion of her legacy.