Sunday blog: Elizabeth Taylor in “Suddenly, Last Summer”

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Elizabeth Taylor passed away this week at the age of 79. Brian Williams, on the NBC Nightly News, called her “the last queen of Hollywood.”

 

 

Kim Novak will be having a fit right about now.

 

 

Here’s a remembrance of the very beautiful and fragile Elizabeth at her height: “Suddenly, Last Summer,” 1959, with Montgomery Clift and Katherine Hepburn. (I looked for a better clip, but couldn’t find one. This is the theatrical trailer. Do yourself a favor and watch the whole movie.)

 

 

One Hollywood story, true or false (but it’s according to Garson Kanin):

 

 

This movie was filmed not long after the car accident in which Montgomery Clift was seriously injured (you can see, even in the trailer, that his face is strangely immobile). The director Joe Mankiewicz and the producer Sam Spiegel both had little patience for Monty, whom they considered a basket case, and they both treated him badly on the set. Taylor and Hepburn did everything they could to help Monty through the filming.

 

 

On the last day, Hepburn asked Mankiewicz: “Are we done? No more filming?”

 

 

“No more filming,” Mankiewicz said. “All done.”

 

 

“Good,” Hepburn said.

 

 

And she spat in his face.

 

 

 

 

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