Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes could have been called Elizabeth Taylor: A Lost Era. The tapes were found recently in the archive of the late journalist Richard Meryman. They include 40 hours of audio interviews Meryman did with Taylor as part of his research for a book. They start in 1964 when she was 32 and at the peak of her fame. Her voice is breathy and seductive until she needs to make a point, but it is always expressive and captivating – even without the accompaniment of her extraordinarily beautiful face.
Nanette Burstein’s film layers the Taylor-Meryman audio with archive film and television footage: we see 1940s and 50s Beverly Hills and Hollywood, Taylor at publicity events, her films, family snapshots, and newspaper and magazine clippings showing the post-juvenile lead with various beaux. Then there’s on-set footage recorded by close friends such as Roddy McDowall, showing them frolicking on the beaches with the likes of Montgomery Clift, or horsing around with James Dean on film sets. There is an inescapable innocence to it all, even now we know that the boyfriends were chosen and the dates arranged by her studio, MGM, and that most of her close friends were gay men, closeted by the social mores of the time. While Taylor provided a heterosexual gloss for these actors, they in their turn shielded the star from predatory straight men. The bloom may be off the 50s’ rose, but the idea of a world away from a thousand camera phones and instant social media cancellations remains curiously endearing – as does the appeal of an audience unified by their adoration of a handful of impeccably glamorous stars.
