No one commanded a room like Elizabeth Taylor.
When Queen Elizabeth II travelled to Washington DC on her 1976 tour of America, she decided to host a 1,500-person reception at the British Embassy. All night long, a fleet of television crews shadowed Her Majesty as she moved around the embassy’s velvet-soft green lawn, shaking hands with her many guests – until, suddenly, the cameramen up and disappeared in a frenzy.
No one, but no one, commanded a room like Elizabeth Taylor – a Hollywood legend celebrated as much for her diva-like behaviour as her Oscar-winning performances. This is someone who built her outfits around her megawatt Van Cleef & Arpels diamonds, and who once flounced out of a 1965 Beverly Hills dinner before Princess Margaret, the guest of honour, had even arrived, after taking objection to the seating plan.
Naturally, the fashion world loved her, for all her mad antics. Perhaps her most memorable incarnation incame courtesy of Burton, who wrote a personal essay about life with Taylor for a ’70s issue, titled “Travelling With Elizabeth, By Her Husband Who Loves Her In Spite Of It”. “I love Elizabeth to the point of idolatry but – let’s repeat that ‘but’ – she will unquestionably be, as David Jones once wrote of a man from Bethesda, late for the last bloody judgment,” he began.
The magazine photographed her on a number of occasions, too, of course – with Norman Parkinson taking her 40th-birthday portraits, at Burton’s request. Cecil Beaton, meanwhile, captured theDozens of equally brilliant images fill the pages of , a compilation of eight leading photographers’ work with Taylor through the years. There are Milton H Greene’s portraits of the star reclining on Peter the Great’s throne while shooting’s wildly scandalous release – not to mention Terry O’Neill’s captures of the exact moment she first met David Bowie at an LA party. In honour of what would have been Taylor’s 85th birthday on 27 February, enjoy nine of our favourite shots from the volume, below.
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