Fiona Sturges, writer and critic
I’ve always loved stories of Hollywood stars behaving atrociously, so Erotic Vagrancy, Roger Lewis’s twin biography of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, could have been written with me in mind. Champagne on tap, diamonds the size of chess pieces, yachts for people, yachts for dogs, a pet chipmunk named Nibbles: this irresistibly gossipy doorstopper has atrociousness in spades. The “erotic vagrancy” of the title refers to the statement issued by the pope about Taylor and Burton’s ostentatious antics in Rome during the filming of Cleopatra – “Where are we all going to end up? In an erotic vagrancy without end or safe port?” carped the pontiff. It’s worth noting that both stars were married at the time, though not to each other (Burton would go on to become Taylor’s fifth and sixth husband). Lewis relays all this in a tone of appalled glee, his underlying thesis being that Taylor, an ex-MGM child star, remained a child for life: petulant, attention-seeking, semi-feral and, when the occasion required it, dazzlingly charming.
