093 American Royalty transcript (Elizabeth Taylor)

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Amit: [00:00:00] This is Famous and Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2011, age 79. Her father was an art dealer who had been transferred to London from New York.

Her mother had acted in the theater in New York. Judy Garland, uh, Barbara Walters, not Barbara Walters. We've done an episode [00:00:30] on Barbara Walters. It's not bad. She first appeared on screen at age 10.

Friend: It wouldn't be Natalie Wood. She was younger. I think Candace Bergen still alive, right? Not Candace Bergen, who has of this recording, I believe, is still with us.

Uh,

yes. Great

Michael: guest though. She once said her acting was purely intuitive. I. She said quote, what I try to do is give the maximum emotional effect with the minimum of visual movement in,

Friend: wow, that's the date's too [00:01:00] late for Lee Silva that she would fit that description.

Not Angela Lansbury. Ethel Mermaid,

Michael: not an Ethel Merman.

Late in life, she became a social activist. She helped establish the American Foundation for AIDS research and helped raise money for it.

Friend: Doris Day, I am stuck.

Michael: After her sixth divorce, she checked into the Betty Ford Center. In addition to alcohol and drugs, she had a problem with overeating, and it became the butt of [00:01:30] jokes by the comedian Joan Rivers,

Friend: Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Elizabeth Taylor.

Friend: Oh my goodness.

Archival: I think however busy you've been, however important you are, that thing, that midlife crisis, whatever it is, hits you in such a strange way, I think. And then it's, you're down rather than up. And yet now I find life so exciting. It's like, uh, so [00:02:00] adventurous. There's so many things to do. There's so many things to learn.

And I'm doing that now. If I want to go someplace, I go. If there's something I want to study, I'll study it. Now I have the time. I'm not under any obligation to anyone but myself and to I know the self be true. That's all I have to do.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: And I'm Amit [00:02:30] Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

Elizabeth Taylor died at 2011, age 79, category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Elizabeth Taylor, the actress who dazzled generations of [00:03:00] moviegoers with her stunning beauty and whose name was synonymous with Hollywood glamor, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 79. Yes, and I. Yeah. Right.

It's not

enough.

It's not enough. It's not enough. It's really not enough. I was waiting for more accurate, deadly accurate, but very accurate. And maybe there's some subtle good things, but kind of boring.

Amit: Very boring. I mean, this might be the most famous person we've done so far. She's up there. Yeah. And we tend to like a [00:03:30] correlation between level of fame and ity.

Michael: Yeah, well, or just attention and artistry at least, right? Yes. Whether it's, I don't know if it's more words, but it's, it's. More something

Amit: substance and it's a bit redundant also. It's like dazzled generations stunning beauty. Hollywood glamor. Yeah. You're in a mood today. I mean, I read this before. Yeah. But reading it again and even looking at the screen, uh, it's underwhelming.

Yeah. It especially, it's like it's right above where George Carlin was right. In my Google Docs, [00:04:00] and that was overwhelming.

Michael: Yeah. This is underwhelming. Okay, let's talk about the positives here. Okay. Dazzled degenerations. Great. Fine. Yeah. No, no, no. Let's think about it. Was it generations? Actually, it's a good question.

'cause it's dazzled. Generations of moviegoers, actually, I'm not sure that's true. She kinda dazzled single generation. Yeah. Well, maybe two. Maybe two generations of moviegoers stunning beauty. I like. Yeah, I mean, I think that, that, everybody says this about Elizabeth Taylor, one of the most beautiful woman, blah, blah, blah, right?

Yeah. I think that stuff to talk [00:04:30] about is synonymous with Hollywood glamor. This is where it felt kind of lazy. To me. I think it's true, right? Yeah. As you said, synonymous with Hollywood glamor. But what does that mean? Yes. Her name is almost a substitute for all the associations we have with Hollywood Glamor.

Yeah, but I don't know. I mean, there's not a statement being made about who she is or why she was significant. I mean, I feel like a eighth grader could say that you want a why?

Amit: Why synonymous, right. So something about [00:05:00] the her value, or at least the Hollywood lifestyle of all the husbands,

Michael: or even glamor, right?

Yeah. I mean, it never says lifestyle. It never sort of calls attention to her hyper visible, hyper scrutinized public life. Yes. They don't even use the word celebrity here, and I kind of feel like. If ever there was a reason to use the word celebrity in the first line of an obituary, Elizabeth Taylor is that person.

Friend: Yes.

Michael: The thing is, she's also a historical figure as a celebrity in some ways, [00:05:30] and I think we'll get into this in the episode, she's almost like the first modern celebrity. Yeah. And I think that was known. When she died and they should have captured that.

Amit: So do you think by avoiding the marriages, which is the story that always gets told Yeah.

And even we led up at the top of the quiz with it. Is that

Michael: generous or is that, I think there is supposed to be, and should have been some nod to her personal life or her quote unquote private life. Yeah. 'cause she didn't have that. And the fact that they didn't. [00:06:00] Even try here synonymous with Hollywood glamor?

Is that what they're sort of alluding to? I don't know that it has to be the marriages specifically, although I think had they done that, it would've been fair game. Yeah. But overall feels like just glossing over and punting and not. Really making any kind of case for significance. That's what it's most missing to me, is that her name is still familiar to people, even though a lot of people have never even seen any of her movies.

Friend: Yeah.

Michael: I think like young people today still know the name Elizabeth Taylor. They don't even know how [00:06:30] they know it, but they know it.

Amit: Yeah. This looks more like, uh, like a definition, almost like if, if Elizabeth Taylor was in the dictionary, right? It's just like a definition of this, not a summation of her life, especially the day after she died.

Michael: It's very me, it's, it is very, it's very me. I've got my score. Okay. I'm gonna go five. Hmm. Okay. That's probably higher than I should. As you said, it's accurate. It is a significant life if you ask me, but I do think that you kind of have to make the case that [00:07:00] it's a significant life and we're going to Yes.

Right. These words are fine. It's a perfect middle score. I'm, I'm tempted to go four, but I'm gonna give it a five.

Amit: Yeah. I wasn't even tempted to go five and I considered a four, but I'm gonna go with three. Yeah. This is just lazy pants.

Michael: Yeah. Okay. And, um,

Amit: I think you're probably right. Yeah. There's just, there's no room for that in the life of Elizabeth Taylor.

Yeah.

Michael: Ever since I called you out for being an EZA, you've really had a hot streak of like, you know what the, the low scores are coming out. This is true. I am

Amit: very reactive.

Friend: I'm so glad you are.

Michael: Alright, category two, [00:07:30] five things I love about you here, Ahad and I develop a list of five things that offer a different angle or if you prefer a new narrative on who this person was and how they lived.

Okay. Maybe I'll lead. Yeah. The first thing I wrote, and I thought about this one for a while, destigmatize de-stigmatize. Ooh. I like there are many. Instances in the Elizabeth Taylor story where she took something that was a stigma and de-stigmatized it. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. The [00:08:00] first thing I would call out attention to in terms of things she de-stigmatized was large paychecks.

She gets the first million dollar paycheck for a Cleopatra. Yep. And I'm gonna go into that. She kind of like breaks free of the studio system and she's one of the first actors or actresses to really break free of the constraints of that system, her alcoholism and her addiction. She is really the first big time celeb to go to Betty Ford.

Yep. And that was a big deal. I think it's hard to put your mind back in the early [00:08:30] eighties when there's. All this stigma around addiction and alcoholism, and she was very public about her struggles with those things.

Archival: But I was the first celebrity to ever go to the Betty Ford Senator, and they really, they told me, didn't quite know how to deal with me.

Friend: Mm-hmm.

Archival: And. My peers had to pretend that it was just sort of Jane Schmo and I didn't quite know what to do 'cause I just wanted to disappear and get mixed up in the woodwork. But within a day or two days, [00:09:00] I realized that we were all in the same boat. We were there for one reason, to save our lives.

Michael: AIDS activism, which we're gonna save for later.

She was very, very early on in saying the stigma that we have around HIV and AIDS is not Okay. Probably the

Amit: most important person in that movement other than a victim themselves.

Michael: Correct. And then the last one I have under de-stigmatization is selling perfume. Like she was the first, and I'm not just saying perfume, she was like.

By the time [00:09:30] you're

Amit: just, you're talking about passion and white diamonds. Here

Michael: I am talking about passion and white diamonds. We should play the ad right now.

Archival: Not so fast on Ryan. These have always brought me luck.

Amit: I be white diamonds. The intriguing new fragrance from Elizabeth Taylor.

Michael: Here's the thing.

Back in the nineties, any celebrity who wanted to sell products was labeled a sellout Uhhuh. She was not getting acting roles anymore. Yeah. She was no longer a leading lady. Hollywood was not calling, [00:10:00] and she launches a product line and does very, very well. Yes. With her perfume, and I think she removed the stigma around that.

The stigma of selling out. Yeah. Okay. I mean, not totally, but I think a lot of her life is about removing stigma. I don't like love all of these things. I don't love celebrities, hawking products. Yeah. But I, overall, I do think that one of the main parts of her legacy, which was not captured even a little bit in the first line of the obituary is that she moved the needle.

On things that had been stigmatized. And [00:10:30] this is a term that keeps coming up in our show, creates permission structure for a lot of different things. Yeah. And that's a contribution, and it's something I love. I love when somebody tests the rules and boundaries and norms around what's okay and what's not okay.

I mean, I don't like rule breaking for rule breaking's sake, but I do like it when it normalizes things that maybe need to be normalized. Yeah. And Elizabeth Taylor did that. Yep. Alright. You take number

Amit: two. Yeah. Number two, the audacity to ask, so this actually goes back to the Cleopatra million dollar check.

Michael: Yeah.

Amit: So this is really just an opportunity [00:11:00] for me to tell the story of Elizabeth Taylor's power. Mm. And you talked about de-stigmatizing. It's also the permission that she gave herself to really just make bold ask and make bold moves to go for it. Yeah. So for Cleopatra, which was essentially made in the early sixties, but production or pre-production started maybe in the late fifties.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, this is like a. Famously expensive movie that almost bankrupt 20th Century Fox. Yes, totally.

Amit: Yeah. Yeah. And so they call her to basically ask her to do this. And she's the, [00:11:30] the story is she's in the bathtub mm-hmm. With her husband, Eddie Fisher at the time. And she was like, what is it? I can't be bothered.

And they're like, well, it's Fox. And then they said they're remaking that. Cleopatra movie and they want you as a leading role. And she was like, that movie sucked. So tell them I wouldn't do it for a million dollars. Yeah. And so you freeze right there and like, what does a million dollars mean back then?

So basically money back then to money Now it's about 10 x. Yeah. So you're asking for about 10 million. Not a huge paycheck by today's standards, but certainly films have [00:12:00] evolved. Big damn

Friend: deal back then.

Amit: Yeah. Huge damn deal back then. So previously the highest. Known, or at least according to Elizabeth known paycheck for a blockbuster film was Charlton Heston for Ben Hur for $250,000.

So this is four times that. Four times that. Wow. And so what she was doing was basically a bar trick where I'm like, Michael, I, how much would it take for you to go run across the bar naked? Yeah. And you're like, I don't know, like 50,000. Yeah, you just make up the most expensive number that you know I can't reach.

Yeah. And she [00:12:30] did it. She had the audacity to ask. Yeah. And I love that about her. And I think that's who she was at the time, and she wasn't afraid. Love that.

Michael: Okay. Alright. Number three. I'm just gonna say AIDS activist. This is, okay, I'm going to play this card here. I had thought about leading with it. If you erase everything else Elizabeth Taylor did in her life and just say she was famous and she dedicated all of her efforts and energy and fame and parlayed that into drawing awareness around [00:13:00] AIDS and raising money for the cause.

That alone. Is an fricking unbelievable legacy. Yeah. Full stop. Think of the millions of people she saved. She helped, she stood up for, I mean, you, it's hard for, I think maybe, I don't know, younger people to go back and understand just how much stigma there was around AIDS in the eighties.

Archival: What would you say is the biggest obstacle.

For the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, the stigma that still exists. People don't [00:13:30] really want to give money. They would rather give to something that doesn't have the stigma attached to it. They don't want to become involved. They don't want to think that there is a possibility that it could touch them, that it won't affect their lives or anybody that they know, and that simply is not the truth.

Michael: You and I grew up with this, right? Yes. But it was terrifying. There was an unbelievable amount of prejudice. Um, yeah. It

Amit: accelerated homophobia just

Michael: a hundred percent. And people from the religious right came [00:14:00] out and said all kinds of things about like, this is God's punishment for being gay. I mean, there was, yeah.

Like Reagan famously would not utter the words for years and years. I mean, the federal government was unbelievably slow.

Archival: No, it's, I mean, it's a pretty serious thing that, uh, one and every three people that get this. Died and I wondered if the president is aware of it. I don't have it. Are you, do you, you don't have it.

Well, I'm relieved to hear that, Larry, do you? You didn't answer my question. I just wonder how do you know? Does [00:14:30] the president, in other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke? No, I don't know anything about it. Lester.

Michael: Elizabeth Taylor worked it and worked it hard and was very, very early on in terms of drawing attention well before any other celebrity.

I think this is also important because these days we think, okay, celebrities are famous. They have a lot of money, they have a lot of power and influence. They all have their little. Causes, they're trying to save forests or animals or whatever it was. I don't think in the 1980s this level of activism was [00:15:00] coupled with celebrity the way it is.

Yeah. I think Elizabeth Taylor is extraordinarily pioneering in this regard, and she was giving testimony before Congress. She was. On Nancy Reagan's case such that eventually federal funds get released and there is de-stigmatization around it and mass education. And she continues those efforts for the rest of her life.

There's a whole long history as to how she got there in the first place, and her friendships with closeted gay men in Hollywood Rock Hudson and Montgomery Cliff. Well, it

Amit: was Rock Hudson's death. That was kind of one of the tipping points. [00:15:30]

Michael: Well, but she had even taken interest before that. Yeah, I looked into that a little bit.

'cause I had thought that it was Rock Hudson's death that spurred her into action. Okay. And she was. In motion moving towards the cause before he died. When he died, it upped her game. What was moving her emotion before that? I think that there were people suffering and nobody was doing anything. Got it.

And nobody was even willing to talk about it. And she, people were sick and dying and hurting. And I mean, she's got this famous press conference where she says,

Archival: and it's so angered me that [00:16:00] I finally thought to myself. Bitch, do something yourself. Instead of sitting there just getting angry, do something and it's beautiful and wonderful and it And she's referring

Amit: to herself as bitch.

Correct? Because there's like, because she's like, she was like, I, I am this. Starlet and this, this is my purpose, and I

Michael: just don't think the expectation that celebrities would take on causes when she did. This is what it is today. So that's my number three. Okay.

Amit: It's interesting you [00:16:30] mentioned the friendship with Rock Hudson because my number four is her platonic adult friendships, particularly with Michael Jackson.

Yeah. Because I find that one the most fascinating, but throughout all of her. Really adulthood in Hollywood. She had lots of really strong platonic adult friendships. Some of 'em happen to have been later gay men. Yeah. But you know, rock Hudson, James Dean, uh, even Colin Ferrell. Yeah, I saw that one. Yeah. Uh, I just think that's cool.

It's really needed. 'cause we talk about same sex friendships. It was a [00:17:00] comp a lot Yeah. Throughout the show. But I think the fact that Elizabeth prioritized, platonic. Relationships with men is particularly interesting and particularly admirable because those are useful friendships to have. Yeah. And often they're things that stop or at least recede once you're married.

Michael: Yeah.

Amit: And I liked the connection with Michael Jackson specifically because of the reasons that they gave as to why their bond was so tight. I mean, describe to do with

Michael: childhood celebrity,

Amit: didn't it? That's exactly right. Yeah. So they called it like a brother sisterhood, and Elizabeth said that the [00:17:30] reason they bonded so well is because they both know the loneliness of having no childhood.

Yeah. Do you got something for number five? I do. It's okay. I kind of like it. Um, for fun factor. Let's do it. Okay. So, um, I wonder if I have this number five late to her own funeral. I had this as well. Did you?

Michael: I was gonna do for my number five. And you

Amit: probably know why I chose it.

Michael: Absolutely. Because if I

Amit: tell you, Michael, like, Hey, I'll meet you somewhere at three 30.

What time am I gonna be there? Yeah,

Friend: 3 45 ish. Yeah. There you go. At earliest, that's exactly,

Amit: that's exactly what she did, [00:18:00] is. Literally she purposely started her funeral 15 minutes after it was commencing.

Michael: It was written into the will that the service will start at two o'clock and my casket will show up at two 15.

Amit: Yes. And this was, this was very Elizabeth Taylor. 'cause she was famous for a 10:00 AM call time, which is kind of ludicrously late. Yeah. In Hollywood. But this was the diva in her. Yeah. You know, like she definitely overcame. Parts of the divaness, but this, I love that she carried it all the way till the end.

Friend: You'd be late to your own funeral and here she was. Yeah. Yeah.

Amit: I just like it. It's a baller [00:18:30] move. It's a power move and it's, it's a type of person that when this category is called Five things I Love About You. Yeah. This is something that. I particularly love,

Friend: so I hate that about you and I love that about Elizabeth Taylor, but I actually had this too, just because I haven't ations there is a part of me that loves it.

No,

Michael: you know, I'll say just briefly, like it drives me crazy that you are at least 15 minutes late to whatever we're gonna do. Yeah. I also sort of respect that you are like, my time is my time and it'll happen if it [00:19:00] really needs to happen, and if it doesn't happen, then it'll happen 15 minutes later. Yes. I mean, I don't.

Want to give you permission to always be late, but there's a secret part of me that respects it.

Amit: Okay. Thank you.

Michael: You're welcome. All right, let's recap. So number one, I said de-stigmatize.

Amit: Uh, number two, I said the audacity to ask number

Michael: three, I said AIDS activist number four,

Amit: I said platonic adult friendships,

Michael: particularly with Michael Jackson.

And number five, we both said late to her own funeral. Yep. All right, let's [00:19:30] take a break. All right. Category three, one love. In this category, we each choose one word or phrase that characterizes Elizabeth Taylor's loving relationships. We will first review her family life data. Okay, everybody settle in.

Amit: Yeah. This is interesting 'cause most of the time you listen to any podcast about Elizabeth Taylor. Yeah. Or watch any documentary, it's This is all tired thing. There's a whole thing

Michael: and we are gonna go through it, and it does matter. All right, so let's start with the data. Eight marriages, seven men.[00:20:00]

Husband number one, Conrad. Nikki Hilton. He was heir to the Hilton hotel's chain. Liz was 18 when they married. He was 25. This guy is a total piece of shit. He was physically abusive. He even caused a miscarriage from physical abuse like she was.

Amit: Tortured by this guy. Can I throw in factoids as you do these?

Sure. So interesting thing about this one is they actually use the footage from the wedding to advertise one of her films.

Michael: Is that right? Yeah.

Amit: Oh,

Michael: I didn't know that. Okay. For father

Amit: to the Bride.

Michael: Alright. Husband, number two. [00:20:30] British actor Michael Wilding. He was 20 years older than her. This was 20 when they got married.

He's 40. They had two sons, Michael Howard and Christopher Edward. His failing career was a source of marital strife. This guy sounds boring. They're divorced in 1957. Liz was 25 at this time. Husband number three is an important one. Mike Todd. Yes. They were married in 1957. Right after she gets outta the previous marriage, Liz was still 25.

He's actually 50, he's 25 years older. Nobody [00:21:00] seems to point out there. There was a pattern. Yeah. Yeah. The age discrepancy. She often describes him as the love of her life. He was a big time executive in Hollywood and very charismatic. And colorful figure. They had one daughter together. He died in 1958 in a plane crash 13 months after her marriage.

Yes. And his plane, by the way, was named the Liz. Yes. Okay, so then this one came up when we did the Carrie Fisher episode. Mike Todd's best friend was Eddie Fisher, husband of Debbie father to [00:21:30] Carrie Fisher. Liz is 27 Eddie's 41. The way Carrie Fisher tells the story is the. Perfect way to say it.

Archival: Mike Todd, tragically.

Tragically lied. Yeah. Passed away in a plane accident, and my father consoled Elizabeth with his penis.

Michael: So Elizabeth Taylor later said she really only married him due to her grief. This was. When things started to get little tabloidy and a little paparazzi and people started to turn against her. Yes.

That's an important point. They're officially divorced in [00:22:00] 1964. At that point, her affair with Richard Burton is well underway. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor met on the set of Cleopatra. Liz was 32 when they got married. Richard was 37. Their relationship was sometimes referred to as the marriage of the century by the media.

It was sort of famously tumultuous, exciting. It was. It was the Angelina of the Day, right? Yeah. I mean that's I think probably the best comparison. They're divorced in 1974. Liz is 42. [00:22:30] They got married again in 1975 when Liz was 43 and then divorced again in 1976 when Liz was 44. That marriage is when the paparazzi descends and is always there.

The level of attention at all the airports and all the hotels and all the events had reached a new level that didn't exist in celebrity news prior to that. Mm-hmm. Okay. The next marriage, John Warner, soon to be a Senator Liz is 44 when they get married. This is in the mid seventies. John Warner is 49.

[00:23:00] Once John Warner was elected to the senate. Liz started to find her life as a politician's wife in Washington, boring and lonely, becoming depressed, overweight, and increasingly addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol. They divorced in 1982. Liz is 50. It's around this time that she goes to Betty Ford.

The last marriage, Larry Fortensky. This one is. Things are just totally off the rails by this point. They met at Betty Ford. I think they met during her second stay 'cause she relapsed and went back to Betty Ford in the late eighties. Liz is 59. [00:23:30] Larry is a construction worker. He's 39. They were married in 1991 at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

Celebrated guests shared the grounds with Jackson's drafts, zebras and llamas. They were divorced in 1996. Liz was 64. She died at 79, single. Okay. We also have a other relevant info. Okay. Here's what I think is most important. Sure. Child, actress.

Friend: Yeah.

Michael: And her mom is one complicated figure. This is like a case study in how to ruin a child's [00:24:00] mind.

Yes. Her mom sees her star potential at age eight and starts para her around MGM and and like dressing her up. Been training her and you gotta be a star and we're gonna make you a star. And living out her dreams through her child, daughter who has these striking eyes and made to look like an adult from like age 13 or so.

Well, yeah, 13 or 14 begins a kind of like, I would say, sexualizing her, right? Yes. I mean, if you ask me, that's one of the most important parts of the story, that a lot of [00:24:30] these relationships are a reaction to what I would call abuse. I mean, this is child abuse. Yeah. Like fame is. Terrible. And she puts her daughter right on this path that I think never quite corrects.

I have something, but having gone through the life data I need to take. Take a break. Take a break. So why don't you start. Okay.

Amit: Mine is Suspension Bridge. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yes. I like where you're going with this, so I'm, I'm trying, I'm really trying with the metaphor here. Yeah. So Liz, as everyone does, starts [00:25:00] alone and ends alone.

So she crossed a bridge to get there. That bridge could have been very straight and sturdy, or it could have been very adventurous. Hers happened to have eight planks on him. Yeah. Two of them were adjoined. Together. Yeah. Given the double marriage to Richard Burden Fused. So she steps on this bridge, and this is something that I think is a really big misconception about Liz Taylor, that I think people assume a bit of, I'm just gonna use the word sluttiness.

Yeah. With all of these marriages she had, but she was actually quite [00:25:30] prudish, like she did very firmly believe that when she entered into these relationships or these marriages that they were meant to last forever. She famously

Michael: said, I never slept with anyone who wasn't my husband.

Amit: Yeah. I

Michael: think that came into

Amit: question later.

Yeah. But she really never even dated anyone who wasn't her husband. Yeah. There's a one period of

Michael: time in the eighties after Warner and before Larry, there was also a guy named

Amit: Henry that showed up. Did you hear about him?

Friend: I forgot about Henry. There was a

Amit: very subtle Henry that showed up, I think in between the two Richard burdens.

Okay. So [00:26:00] anyway, she steps on this first plank thinking that yes, this is gonna be the last plank and this is gonna be the smooth bridge all the way till the end. And it doesn't work out. It's shaky and rocky at first. It's exciting and shaky and rocky. And then it's just kind of annoying and shaky and rocky, as is my experience on suspension bridges.

Sure. But she really, really did think that each one is going to last forever. I mean, these, these were passionate marriages. Yeah. By and large, except for I think some of the abuse that happened with Nikki Hilton and then there was verbal abuse throughout a whole bunch of otherwise. Yeah. But I think what's most interesting about it [00:26:30] is she crossed to the other side after this Rocky Suspension Bridge, and I'm, again, I'm reiterating this is rocky in both an exciting and passionate way, and then Rocky in that it kind of ends.

Shaky and abruptly and then it goes on to the next one. Yeah, right. That's another reason I chose bridge. 'cause there's not big gaps here. Like most of the marriages, with the exception of the very last one, were within a year of the previous

Michael: divorce. I'm totally picturing Indiana Jones and that suspension bridge over the cliff.

Yes.

Amit: Yeah. And she makes it to the end. And who knew at the end [00:27:00] without a final husband and partner, she really did come out happy. Yeah. And she said, as much,

Archival: are you surprised yourself when you realize how many times you've been married? No. Because when I have fallen in love, it's always ended up being a marrying kind of love.

Mm-hmm. That's just part of me, I suppose, part of the way I was brought up. But I've changed, I've grown up. I'm not turning 65 for nothing. I.

Michael: I like it. I have some things to add to it. Okay. You used the word fun. [00:27:30] Before I reveal my phrase, I wanna take a minute to call out two themes that have come up on the history of Famous and Gravy.

The first is the idea of celebrity as Mirror you and I, Amit, are. Interested in celebrity, but from a very different point of view. You and I have always been more interested in not the inner workings of celebrity life so much as, what does it say about us? How does it reflect back on individuals and culture?

That's one thing that's come up on Famous and Gravy. My second. Thing that I want to [00:28:00] introduce is my philosophy or understanding of what love actually is, what an intimacy is. It's been a while since I've said this on the show, but I see love and intimacy as somebody seeing you the way you want to be seen.

Friend: Mm-hmm.

Michael: That that's what intimacy is really about, and that's about inner beauty. That's also about future self. That's about who you're becoming, who you're growing into. That's what we want in all of our. Close relationships, but certainly in our partners. And I think one of the things [00:28:30] that's complicated about that is that when we talk about our needs and how we need to be loved, we don't always know where we're

Friend: going

Michael: and what our future selves are going to be.

We need our relationships for people to see who we might be. So those two themes, celebrity as mirror and love as seeing future self

Amit: as a projection.

Michael: I came up with this fun house mirrors. Okay, so a house of mirrors, this is from Wikipedia, is traditional attraction at carnivals and [00:29:00] amusement parks. The basic concept behind a house of mirrors is that it's a maze like puzzle.

In addition to the maze, participants are also given mirrors as obstacles. Glass panes to parts of the maze that they cannot yet get to. Sometimes the mirrors may be distorted because of different curves in the glass to give participants unusual and confusing reflections of themselves, some humorous and others frightening.

I'm gonna draw out this metaphor. No, I'm, I'm getting there. I think that if you have a mother who [00:29:30] sticks you in the Hollywood system at a young age, and that's how you understand love in your family of origin.

Friend: Mm-hmm.

Michael: Then the question of who am I and how do I experience love and how do I experience self-worth is off the rails almost from the get go.

All of her marriages, some of them seem like they're a reaction. To that experience. Her first marriage is, I think I am just trying to be a woman and I think I'm just trying to be married at age 18. Yeah. Finds herself abused by some son of a bitch. [00:30:00] And then the next thing she wants is stability. I'm gonna go with a man who's 20 years older than me and seems boring as hell and I'll just try and be a normal housewife.

Well, that's not exciting. So then the next marriage is Mike Todd, who sees her potential and her beauty, but he seems to see beyond just her. Physical appearance. He seems to see this is who you can become. That's I think, one of the reasons she describes him as the love of her life. I think her turn to Eddie Fisher after Mike's tragic plane death is just sort of the [00:30:30] state of deep vulnerability and trying to keep Mike Todd's memory alive.

They were best friends. Yeah. Richard Burton I think represents something really interesting in that they are act. A ton together in a lot of different roles, and he is kind of a piece of shit when it comes to her body image. He calls her fat. Yeah. Quirky. You know, he's like, everybody else is saying, Liz, you're the most beautiful woman in the world.

And he says, I don't know about that. She's got a double chin. She's overdeveloped in the chest and she's got short, stubby legs. I think part of why [00:31:00] she's attracted to him is because he does. Actually see her as a human, whereas the rest of the world sees her as some sex symbol. Then I think when she's later in life looking for significance and I wanna have legacy, she marries a senator or a guy who's about to be a senator and like, maybe that's what my celebrity is all about.

And, and this is just before her turn to AIDS and activism. And then finally, Larry, who has a blow dried mullet, la la. Patrick Swayze. It is

Amit: very Swayze. It's

Michael: very Swayze. She met him in [00:31:30] recovery. Yeah. And part of what they talk about in recovery is the God size hole that exists. What that's really about is how do you experience love and intimacy, and one of the messages of 12 steps and of recovery is that.

We look for this in the world and in other people to fill that God-sized toll. Yeah. Larry wasn't up to the task, but I think he represented her sobriety. I think he represented the significance and the spiritual quest she found herself on. And Larry, by the way, relapsed, which is part of the reason their marriage fell apart to begin with.

Oh, did it? I [00:32:00] didn't

Amit: realize

Michael: that. So fun house mirrors, I think. It's what's being reflected back at her. Mm-hmm. And these distorted images of what's being reflected back at her and the fact that it's a maze and that some of these are deceptions and some of these can be trusted and it's all fun.

Archival: They say that people keep marrying the same people over and over again.

You haven't, I mean, each. Relationship could not be more different. It's like, you know, I've kind of gone through the alphabet.

Michael: It's all just a fun house. It's all [00:32:30] just a show. It's part of an experience. Right. I maybe went a little far with that metaphor, but I think you see it. Yeah. I'm pretty proud of it.

Yeah. I'm signing

Amit: off on

Michael: it. Thank you. When I came up with that, this idea of funhouse, I found myself having a lot more forgiveness. It's just easy to write off somebody who's married eight times to seven different men. It's easy to make that a punchline, and if you understand her as a child actress who is struggling to find validation in relationships, not to [00:33:00] mention in the world a feeling of belonging, how do I understand my sense of self with this?

Insane experience of fame.

Friend: Yeah.

Michael: I found myself like really, I don't know, not just forgiving her but like my heart was going out to her around this. Yeah, it all made a lot more sense to me. Good one. Thank you. Alright, next category.

Amit: Yes,

Michael: net worth. Here Amin and I are each going to write down our numbers we're they're gonna talk a little bit about our reasoning.

We'll then reveal the actual real net worth number. And finally, we will place this [00:33:30] person on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard. Okay. My reasoning was not all that

Amit: complicated.

Michael: I assume that nobody ever said what the number was, but the perfume line was clearly very, very successful.

Amit: Yes. In one of her biographies, they made note without listing a number.

She made more on the perfume lines than she did in her entire career of acting. Just to give you an idea of the amount of money that did pass through her. So age 12, she was on contract with MGM. Yep. She was [00:34:00] making $750 a week. Yeah. Which in today's numbers, that translates to about $650,000 a year. Yeah, I heard that in today's number.

I mean that, just imagine that that's what she was making at.

Michael: 12. This was mom's plan to make her the breadwinner for the family, which she did.

Amit: Yes. And that by 1952 she was making $4,700 a week, which in today's numbers is about $3 million. She's still not even out of her teens. Oh my God. And the sixties was the big payday.

'cause that's when all of the big ones happened in Cleopatra cle. [00:34:30] Yeah. So she negotiated a million dollars straight up the. Biggest part of that was actually the kicker. As she said, she wants actually 10% of all the net profits. So not only did she get a million, she got another 6 million on the back end.

What? I mean, she got 7 million in that movie, which was $70 million total. Jesus. Okay, so here's the most important fact of all. So during the sixties, they said that Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, they were married for the majority of the sixties. Mm-hmm. Combined, earned $88 million in today's numbers through the [00:35:00] sixties.

That $44 million is north of 400 million. Oh my God. Okay, so I'm saying movies. This is

Michael: just movies. This is, we haven't even gotten to the perfume line yet. We haven't even gotten

Amit: to the perfume line, but then we get this fact that she earned more from the perfume line than she did from the movies and et cetera.

Okay, so I'll leave it at that. Okay. With that, Ahmed Kippur wrote down. 500

Michael: million. Okay. Michael Osborne wrote down 400 million. All right. Not so bad. Not so bad. The [00:35:30] actual net worth of Elizabeth Taylor is estimated to be between 600 million and 1 billion. You win. Okay, you win. So what are we gonna call her number if it's between 600 and a billion?

Should we call it 800? No, I, I was

Amit: saying we

Michael: just go with 600. Okay. 600

Amit: million. Let's

Michael: be conservative

Amit: and no matter what, so we have an outlier in the famous and gravy leaderboard. 'cause we did an episode on Ross Perot, which was 4.1 billion, 4.1 billion. Okay. So Elizabeth Taylor. It will now be [00:36:00] number two.

And she's beating Barbara Walters. Oh, she's smoking Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters was one 70

Michael: Oh, right. Who also, by the way, dated John Warner.

Amit: Yes, that's right. Isn't, isn't

Michael: that funny?

Amit: And famously interviewed Elizabeth Taylor Indeed. Yeah. So that would put her number two on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard.

If we are to throw out our outlier, who was not an entertainer, she's our new winner. She's our new queen. But if we keep her. And we play Fair Game. Of all the Famous Gravy episodes, she becomes number two at 600 million, which is a conservative [00:36:30] estimate. Yeah. Right below her is Kenny Rogers and Tina Turner at $250 million each.

So let's crown Elizabeth Taylor at 600 million. I just wanna tell you what this does actually to our show. Yeah. Okay. So. Previously our median. Oh, this is gonna skew all, everything. Yeah. Yeah. So previously our median in mode was 20 million. Okay. I don't imagine that's gonna change too much. Mm-hmm. What's most interesting is our non Ross Perot average is $49 million.

And so once we add Elizabeth here, and we're only gonna add her at [00:37:00] 600 million, I wanted to see what that does. To our non Ross per average. Sure. So adding Elizabeth Taylor at 600 million makes our new famous Eng Gravy average jumps from 49 million to 56 million. Huh. So we can do 93 episodes in the single entry of Elizabeth Taylor.

Moves the entire average up $7 million.

Michael: This is exciting. This is very big. This is very big. You know what the leaderboard is sort of interesting, is like there's always gonna be somebody above you and all these [00:37:30] people who we've covered who have tens of millions. In some cases, hundreds of millions are still looking up at other people and saying, I don't have as much as that person.

Yeah. The psychology of this kind of wealth is just, I don't know. It's I guess a whole other podcast. Yeah. But we have a queen. We have a new queen. We have a new queen. Well done. Queen Elizabeth. Until we do the real, according to this. All right, next category. Little Lebowski, urban achievers.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski.

Urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers. [00:38:00] Yes. And proud. We are of all of them.

Michael: In this category, we choose a trophy and award, a cameo and impersonation or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person. Can I go first? Yes. I kinda wanna make this quick. So it was her first Simpsons appearance, season four, episode 10.

This is back when The Simpsons were awesome and funny.

Amit: This was Peak Simpsons. Totally. This is

Michael: Peak Simpsons in a way. Or at least when they're beginning the hot run in the nineties. So in this episode called Lisa's first word, I actually watched it with my kids and [00:38:30] it holds up. It's a fun episode. Yeah.

It's about when Lisa Simpson spoke her first word at the very end of this episode. Maggie has not yet spoken Maggie, the baby. All she does at the very end right before we cut the credits is Maggie takes the pacifier out of her mouth and says, daddy, daddy. And it's very cute, and Elizabeth Taylor voiced, Maggie

Amit: voiced that one word.

Yeah.

Michael: The reason this is my little Bobowski urban achiever is that I remember in 1994 when this episode [00:39:00] came out that Elizabeth Taylor doing The Simpsons. Was such a big deal for the Simpson. Yeah. Remember it. I actually remember the hype around, they got Elizabeth Taylor to voice. This was back when the Simpsons were trying to build their cred with having more and more impressive celebrity cameos.

I didn't really know who Elizabeth Taylor was. She was, if anything, the lady with the big hair selling perfume while I was watching price is Right. That's what she

Amit: was to me. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. And the reason I chose this is that there's a cliff. [00:39:30] Of Elizabeth Taylor's celebrity in a way between the Boomers and the Gen Xers.

Mm-hmm. The Simpsons are the Gen Xers show, and we don't know Elizabeth Taylor movies or maybe a couple you could make a case for, but for the most part they're not remembered. Yeah. Her acting career is a complete afterthought. Like you said,

Amit: she was the big hair perfume lady.

Michael: Totally. But she was such a big deal.

And so in the public limelight for the Boomers, she is. Omnipresent. She is patient. Zero for the paparazzi. I mean, there's [00:40:00] something about her voicing Maggie Simpson, the baby.

Friend: Yeah.

Michael: That represents this generational cutoff between how we perceive who this person was. Everything you and I have talked about, I knew none of it.

Yeah. I knew neither marriages. I might've known a little bit about AIDS activism and I knew a few movies, but I also knew that for the people who came before me, she was a big damn deal. So it's the way, it's a generational divide. Okay. Because The Simpsons was our show once upon a time.

Amit: Yeah. So I looked up some stuff 'cause I almost [00:40:30] chose that they tried to play it in the media saying we have this big special guest star.

Mm-hmm. For Maggie's first word. And there was articles written about. The speculation of who it might be. Many of them guessed Elizabeth Taylor. Yeah. 'cause they're like, who would be the most outlandish, biggest star They could land. A lot of them guessed Madonna as well. Oh yeah. That's good one. But that she was mentioning the same breath.

Yeah. Okay. So time to mind. Yeah. What?

Michael: So Amme, what do you got for, it's only two years

Amit: later, so we've like, despite the 79 year life. We're, we're honing in on, on a three year period. The Flintstones, the live action movie. I almost went with this one as well. Um, [00:41:00] starring John Goodman, Rosie O'Donnell, Rick Moranis, and Elizabeth Taylor who played Wilma's mother, known as Pearl.

Slag Hoople. So,

Michael: so Pearl Slag Hoople is Fred Flintstone's mother-in-law.

Amit: Correct. And she's very hard on Fred because Fred is not quite the society. Fred's a deadbeat. Fred's a deadbeat. He's not quite the society man that she had hoped for. Wilma

Archival: Plus I don't Fossil doing here. Well, somebody has to be here looking after my daughter and grandchild while you are out [00:41:30] carousing with a bunch of Neanderthals.

Oh really?

Amit: Yeah. So does this sound like somebody else's mother that we've talked about in this show? This episode? Uh oh. Oh, oh. I hadn't put that together. Yeah. Interesting. That's what I kind of got from it, and I was like, I don't know if that's intentional or written in, but I was like, this sounds a lot like Elizabeth Taylor's mother that tune

Friend: out a little bit.

Yeah,

Amit: yeah, yeah. Oh, that's good. And so that was one interesting fact about it. One, it is just. Freaking funny. Yeah, that Elizabeth Taylor, the starlet of all time is type.

Michael: Too funny. It wasn't [00:42:00] funny at the time, but yes. I mean it's pretty funny. No, wait, have you seen this movie?

Amit: I did back in the time. I didn't fully rewatch.

I rewatched the clips of her with it. You know, she won a razzy for this. Yes, that's what I was gonna say. So that was the other thing I found interesting is like, so we talk about Elizabeth Taylor as. The words we use synonymous with glamor, dazzled stars. But she was actually a good actress. She had the acting chops in the fact that she did this and it got her a razzy.

Yeah. Is pretty funny. So lastly, I think why this is really significant, in addition to all those things we just said, this was her [00:42:30] last ever big screen appearance. I didn't realize that. Yeah. She never again appeared on widescreen. She did some TV appearances. She had, I don't remember if her Broadway was before or after that, but she had a little bit of.

Broadway. Yeah, but this was her last movie.

Michael: I really like what you had to say though. 'cause I mean, this category for me is like different side of a person. It's always interesting when somebody chooses a part that seems to reflect somebody in their life. Yeah. Like a mother. Correct. You know?

Amit: Yeah. And here's the kicker.

Why did she do it? She did it as, [00:43:00] AS is written about entirely to raise money for AIDS awareness. Her caveat in accepting this role, she got paid for it, but I imagine it was a pittance compared to a $600 million net worth. Right. Was that the premiers held in New York and DC had to be fundraisers for AIDS research.

Michael: I mean, I think finding that cause was such an unlock for her. Mm-hmm. I think the experience of fame. It was just like awful until she found a good use for it. Yeah, and it seems like that, I mean, that is basically the story of the last [00:43:30] third of her life is that no matter what, she's got this cause

Amit: Yeah.

She had purpose. Yeah. And so that's it. That's my little baki. Urban achiever is Pearl Slag Huble.

Michael: Alright, let's take another break. All right. Category six words to live by. In this category, we choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them. Can I lead?

Yeah, go ahead. All right. This one just spoke right at me. The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're gonna have some pretty annoying virtues. I like. Isn't that great? [00:44:00] I really like that.

Amit: Isn't that great? Yeah. I might need a new bathroom art with that,

Friend: I thought that's, this is

Michael: brilliant.

I like the hedging. You can be pretty sure they're gonna have some annoying virtues. I really like to use the word annoying here. Yeah. There's a kind of like, there's. Admission to faults in that like something about this person's gonna annoy me. Mm-hmm. If they're so virtuous. I don't know. When I meet new people, I'm always interested to find what's wrong with them, what they're struggling with, what the conflict is, and maybe even what their [00:44:30] vices are.

I think this is also a real, I gotta say a recovery theme here. Yeah. That one of the things, if you ever go into 12 step rooms and you're like, God, are these gonna be a bunch of like. I don't know, Bible thumping, church, goodie two shoes types. When you start hearing how flawed people are and the stories of the catastrophic mistakes they made you feel a lot better.

Friend: Yeah.

Michael: You feel a lot like, man, okay, I can now look at some of the parts of myself that I don't wanna look at. If anybody doesn't [00:45:00] have vices, they're gonna have annoying virtues. Yep. Probably.

Amit: Yeah. So those are my words to live by. I dig it. Well done, Liz. Okay. My words to live by. Yeah. I don't like fame. I don't like the sense of belonging to the public.

Yeah. So this, she said it appeared in the HBO documentary, but it's what she said to one of her, I guess kind of documentarians, Richard Merman. I don't like the sense of belonging to the public. I don't like fame. Yeah. So this is really interesting, I think, 'cause you love to bring up this point in this conversation about like fame is something that all.

[00:45:30] Looks great, but anybody that goes through it comes out and says, don't do it.

Michael: Yeah. It's a one star review with a thousand reviews. Yeah, right. Like everybody hates it and we all still seem to be eating at that restaurant.

Amit: So I think the point that she's making here, which I really like is how FAME is anti-free.

Michael: Yeah,

Amit: because you don't belong to yourself anymore. You belong to the public.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, this was a little bit where I was trying to draw out with the whole fun house mirrors thing too. Yeah, right. When you have a life as intensely scrutinized as hers, you can never [00:46:00] see yourself clearly, and you have no control over your own story.

Everything about it sounds awful. But to hear her talk about it as maybe the most famous person or one of the most famous people of the 20th century, when are we gonna take that idea to heart? You know, we're not, I guess not.

Amit: No, we can, I mean, we, we just come up with more ways to achieve it. Yeah. Or lie to ourselves about what it means.

Yeah. But it feels like those that at least go through the strongest part of it, if not any part of it, come out and say like. Eh, probably [00:46:30] not worth it.

Michael: Yeah.

Amit: This to me is a call for freedom. What Elizabeth wants to achieve, and maybe she's advising other people, is go for freedom. Hmm. Don't go for validation.

Hmm. So that points to maybe Maslow is a little more Right. Or maybe the chakras are a little more

Michael: Right. The fact that so many people are still pursuing fame, even though everybody who's been through it says This is the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. Yeah. Maybe does speak to the fact that we're all very confused about what it means to feel a sense of belonging, a sense of validation, and a sense of love.

Yeah. [00:47:00] All right. Next category.

Amit: Yes,

Michael: man in the mirror. This category is fairly simple. Did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. Let's talk a little bit. Yeah, I went back and forth. I was like, okay, she's really pretty.

But there's obviously skewed sense of self perception 'cause of the whole child actor's weird mother thing. But she's also finds it validation. So my

Amit: gut reaction, 'cause that's how I had to do it, rather than go back and [00:47:30] forth, was No, she didn't like it. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah.

Amit: And I think 'cause it was, it was valued way too much.

Yeah. And she discovered that freedom was ultimately better.

Michael: Yeah.

Amit: And that her beauty was basically her shackles.

Michael: Yeah. I actually landed on the other side. You did? Yeah. For two reasons. One, I saw a very brief TikTok where somebody asked in a clip, Liz is being beautiful, secretly a curse, and she said, no, as long as you realize it's superficial and that it goes away, [00:48:00] which is the right thing to say?

Mm-hmm. That. Moved me a little bit, but a bigger thing moved me towards it. Resilience.

Friend: Hmm.

Michael: Okay. This is a woman who, by all measures, should have been crushed by the level of scrutiny, by the level of body shaming that she had to deal with for her whole adult life. Even when she had a great figure. Yeah.

And was being shamed about it.

Archival: So when I insult Elizabeth, which I frequently do my double chin, and when she attacks me double chins, you bloody well [00:48:30] have, it's Elizabeth Taylor's greatest fault. She just burns up a lot of food now and then. Are you worried about putting on weight? No. Oh yeah. Does it matter

Michael: to you?

No, it doesn't. I remember her face on the tabloids. I remember literally being in grocery store shopping aisles with my mother and seeing national Inquirer like there's.

Amit: There's the perfume lady.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. Yes. Right. That level of attention and loss of control of your own story should have crushed her.

Friend: Yeah.

Michael: It led to problems. [00:49:00] It led to complicated relationships. It led to addiction and alcoholism. It led to relapse. It led to her perception of overeating. I mean, you know, I don't. Whether or not that's true or not that like that's how she saw herself, but she always bounced back. Yeah. And she always found a way forward.

I think you can only do that if at some deep, deep, deep core level you've got a sense of self-worth.

Amit: Yeah. So what you're saying is that she looks in the mirror and she doesn't see somebody who's been called repeatedly, the most beautiful woman in the world, but she [00:49:30] sees somebody that can withstand.

Anything,

Michael: the onion metaphor gets overplayed, right? That there's like layers and layers. Mm-hmm. And I think that if you were to take the Elizabeth Taylor onion, you would peel back a layer and find self-judgment, and then you'd find validation, and then you'd find self-judgment, then you'd find validation.

And what I'm saying is that little nub at the center of the onion is validation. Ultimately. Yes. 'cause she finds a purposeful life. Self-acceptance as well. Yes. Self-acceptance. Exactly. But the case against is. Pretty easy to make and I'm 50 50 on this.

Amit: Yeah. And I, I mean, like I said, [00:50:00] went for gut reaction.

I think that gut reaction was like 48%. Yeah. But I saw just beauty as a hindrance. I

Michael: had that gut reaction as well. And I'm gonna go with my case, but whatever, we're, we're kind of in the same place. Yeah.

Amit: All right. House divided, but kind of in the same place.

Michael: Exactly. Category eight, cocktail coffee, cannabis.

This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity.

Amit: I'm gonna go coffee, but I'm using coffee as a proxy for just a non-alcoholic beverage. Mm-hmm. You see these images of Elizabeth Taylor [00:50:30] on the beach in Capri or whatever in 1960. Yeah. And it does look damn fun. Yeah. Whether she's with Richard Burton or on another film shoot or yacht

Michael: or whatever.

Or or hanging out in Greek islands or whatever.

Amit: Yeah. She's playful and she's got this great laughter. She's radiant. She's radiant, so I wanna be in that scene with her, you know, back in the sixties with Liz Taylor, but just with a Fanta or something. I don't need the alcohol. Yeah. And I don't need her to prolapse, maybe iced latte.

No, it needs to be fizzy. [00:51:00] Okay.

Michael: Yeah.

Amit: It needs to be fizzy again. We're, we're going with a Fanta, probably an orange one.

Michael: This is not on the menu. Here. We have coffee, cocktail and cannabis. It's, it's a coffee. You can get it

Amit: at a coffee shop. Fine, fine.

Friend: Orange flavored, fizzy. Hold the coffee. Coffee.

Amit: Yeah. So I want that funnel, Elizabeth.

That is carefree. That is an embodiment of glamor because I think there is just a real sense of vitality. Yeah. In it. But I want the older Elizabeth that found happiness after all of the tumultuousness. [00:51:30] Yeah, right. Of the eight marriages, even of the diseases. Yeah. I mean, let's not forget this woman was pronounced dead twice.

Yeah. Well, and by the time she was 17,

Michael: Warren was scoliosis. I mean, she had all kinds of like in and out of the hospital for her whole life. She lived in a lot of physical pain.

Amit: Yeah. And although I think the majority of the interviews that she gave always had a little bit of a laugh track to them. Yeah. I do think she, she must have developed some inner wisdom Yes.

About how to be with yourself. Yeah. And that's what I wanna glean from her, but in the setting of the Italian yacht.

Michael: Alright. [00:52:00] Yeah, I love that scene. I. Okay. I went cannabis. Okay. As you know, I had a former life as an earth scientist. I got into it via geology, and I had a class when I was an undergraduate, mineralogy and petrology.

And I'll never forget the mineralogy professor saying, if you wanna learn mineralogy, you gotta get to know the rocks. Yeah. And there was a closet that had all these rare minerals from all over the globe. There was a collection for the geology department I used to [00:52:30] love. To smoke a little bit of weed and go and just stare at rocks.

Hmm. And I want to do that with Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry collection. She had obviously a deep, deep, deep love of jewelry. I think that there is something beautiful about the idea that you can find these rare rocks and clean them up and turn them into. Objects of perfection where the light shimmers and where you just get lost in these tiny little worlds of rare [00:53:00] chemicals.

Yep. That's kind of all I need. I kind of want to get high and just geek out on the jewelry collection with her, though. With her. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm not a jewelry guy now. I'm terrible at buying jewelry. Mm-hmm. Much like I wanted to talk about dance with Patrick Swayze. I'd like to talk about jewelry with Elizabeth Taylor.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: I feel like there's something to learn here. I could see the attraction on some level. There's a certain

Amit: artisanship

Michael: that she has. Yeah, and, and a certain, I mean, she talks about them being from the earth. I think that there was [00:53:30] something that connected her to the wonder of the world in her jewelry.

Archival: What fascinates you so about jewelry? Ah, the beauty, the perfection. God's workmanship. They're all from the ground. This red is. Oh God, the ruby. But it is one of the great collections, isn't it? I've been told

Michael: I can go there. Okay. And I'd like to go there with a little bit of cannabis.

Amit: Yeah, I like you coming out smelling like white diamonds and and weed.[00:54:00]

There probably is those work for me. There probably is a strain out there called like white diamonds. Okay.

Michael: All right.

Friend: I

Michael: think we've arrived. The last category, the Vander Beek, named after James Vander Beek, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't want your life. In that varsity blues scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on a single characteristic.

So here, Amme and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Elizabeth Taylor lived [00:54:30] her life. Counter arguments here where you and I like to start Yeah, are not all that complicated. No. Pretty obvious child, actress, basically abused, then later physically abused, then shamed by the men in her life.

Often, tremendous amounts of tragedy, tremendous amounts of physical pain, and overall thrown into a set of circumstances in a media environment that no one had ever experienced before. Probably more lack of privacy than anybody else before her. A hundred percent. [00:55:00] Crushing demoralizing. Yes. And I mean, the thing is we internalize those voices and they become, this is the problem with social media, is that we come to think that they're more important than our own true selves.

Mm-hmm. And she was up against that for basically her entire life.

Amit: Yep.

Michael: So that sucks. And James, when you say, I don't want your life, Elizabeth Taylor, I hear you.

Amit: Yeah, I hear you. This, this seems to be one of the most obvious. Yeah. Right. You're either being scrutinized or shamed.

Michael: Correct. So the counterargument.

It's maybe also not so [00:55:30] complicated.

Amit: I agree.

Michael: For me, it starts with, like I said at the top of the episode, erase everything else and talk about the legacy of how many lives you saved and how many people's lives you have helped make better because of your attention to HIV and aids, that you changed the conversation, that you changed the direction of science because you are not gonna stand for this bullshit.

Yeah, I mean that's reason number one for me.

Amit: Yeah. So can we call that purpose Absolutely.

Michael: Purpose. I also think, okay. Lot of pain. There's some fun in here. Yeah. I mean, there's some, there's [00:56:00] some, like, it looked like she was having a good time. She pulled out all the stops totally needed. She's traveling the world.

She's drinking the finest wines. She's eating the most exciting meals. Uh, I don't know, like

Amit: a lot of this looks like fun. There's a fun aspect

Michael: to it. There's a fun aspect to it, and we'd be idiots to not say, you know, having hundreds of millions to throw around on the next dinner or the next plane ride or the next trip to some far off corner of the world.

There, there's a party. Yeah. It's cool. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, I

Amit: can agree with

Michael: that. It's not purpose. It stands in star [00:56:30] contrast to point number one. Yeah. But

Amit: number

Michael: two, let's just go

Amit: with one. Hey listen, they can coexist. And I think that's part of the lesson here. I think that's right. I also think we need to talk about freedom.

Okay. You know, so this is a woman who said that she's in love with being in love and she went through these very highly public eight marriages and she comes out at the end and she's giving interviews in the nineties, and she found joy and freedom at the end just in the same way that like she's. Kind of says that I wish I didn't belong to the public.

Mm-hmm. But she actually did have her own taste of freedom that [00:57:00] she had to go through all of this tumultuousness to get there, which was fun, but she found freedom in the end and seemed to love it.

Michael: We use this phrase a lot, and I think it's like just gut reaction upward staircase. Seemingly, I mean, it's, it's a suspension.

It was pretty winding. No, it was,

Amit: it was a rollercoaster, but the last part went high up. It

Michael: was a fun house mirror, a su suspension bridge. A rollercoaster, but ultimately an upward staircase.

Amit: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I think that wraps it as an argument. I agree. So I think purpose, fun and freedom. Three words.

Michael: I think that's it.[00:57:30]

Purpose, fun, and freedom. It sounds

Amit: like a seventies song, doesn't it? It maybe, yeah, it probably exists out there. All right. You wanna take us out? Sure. So James VanDerBeek. I am Elizabeth Taylor, and you might want my life.

Michael: All right. Speed round plugs for past shows, a lot of directions we could go here. Mm-hmm. I thought about Angela Lansbury. I thought about Shirley Temple. Definitely. I'm actually gonna go with Carrie Fisher. Okay. I think, uh, the Carrie Fisher episode is a kind of interesting [00:58:00] one to contrast with this kind of celebrity and this sort of experience of celebrity.

And she's

Amit: her stepdaughter

Michael: and she's happens to be her stepdaughter. Yeah. So, Carrie Fisher, sentient Princess, what about you? Yeah, what do you got?

Amit: Uh, I'm going Sidney Poitier. Hm. So two reasons. One, the extramarital public affairs. Yeah. I was, I'm just so unfamiliar with this. And he had one, he had a very public extramarital affair while he was still married.

That's right. And that just, that blows my mind. And I learned about that through Sydney and then it came up here again. The second is how he [00:58:30] chose to spend his post acting life. In a way of service in the things that he did for government and causes, and even on private boards.

Michael: What was that episode called?

Defiant One. Defiant One. Sidney Poitier. All right. Here's a little teaser for the next episode of Famous and Gravy. He was an accomplished author. He was one of only a few writers, the likes of Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck among others, to top both the Times' fiction and non-fiction bestseller [00:59:00] lists.

Archival: Just off the top of my head, I don't even know if he's dead. David McCullough,

Michael: not David McCullough.

Amit: Famous and Gravy listeners, we love hearing from you. If you want to reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. You will hear back from one of the two of us in our show notes.

We include all kinds of links, including to our website and social channels. Famous and Gravy is created and co-hosted by Michael Osborne and me, Amit Kapur. This episode was produced by Ali [00:59:30] Arla and original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks and see you next time.