Sixty years ago Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton made history, both in cinema and in international gossip. The actors met in Rome, shooting to shoot 'Cleopatra' directed by Josep L. Mankiewicz, and a love story arose that shocked Hollywood. Both were married and the publication of the first kissing images caused such a stir that it led to excommunication by the Vatican and endangered the extremely expensive Fox production.
A couple of years ago, Pia Lindstrom told me by phone from her New York apartment that referring to the one carried out by her mother, Ingrid Bergman, who, while married to the neurosurgeon Pette Lindstrom, fell into the arms of the also married Roberto Rossellini who, in turn, had Anna Magnani as a lover. The Swedish actress and the Italian director fell in love during the filming of Stromboli, God's Land (1949), and before their marriage a son, Roberto, was born, who would fill the pages of the tabloids as he was one of Carolina's boyfriends from Monaco.
A few years later, (almost) nobody remembered that event, for which Bergman was punished by the Lutheran and Catholic Church while being called "a great evil influence" in the Senate. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were in charge of monopolizing the most sensational headlines. As a result of the disembarkation of the great American productions in Rome because the cost was lower than that of Hollywood, Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr filmed Qvo Vadis (1951) in Cinecittà and, the following year, Audrey Hepburn landed her first film, Roman Holiday, which was her first Oscar for best leading actress.
Through the ruins of the eternal city, other types of gods and goddesses who embodied the new concepts of power, beauty, and seduction began to walk, such as Ava Gardner, Anita Ekberg, Faruq I of Egypt, the former empress Soraya, Walter Chiari, Franco Nero, Jayne Mansfield, Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren… Hollywood was born on the Tiber.
Cleopatra Taylor in Rome
While Fellini was shooting La dolce vita (1960), which for the annals of history remained as the film that popularized the term paparazzi, in California Fox was shouting for carrying out a mammoth project, Cleopatra. No one agreed on the distribution. For Queen of the Nile they tempted Susan Hayward, Joanne Woodward, Joan Collins, and Audrey Hepburn; to give life to Marco Antonio, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, and Anthony Franciosa were taken into account, and for the role of Julius Caesar, Cary Grant, Yul Brynner or Lawrence Olivier.
Finally, the chosen ones were Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison. Daryl F. Zanuck, boss of the studios, gave in to the claims of the 'queen of the Nile' to sign the first major contract in film history. He pocketed a million dollars, 10 percent of the profits, and extra expenses. These conditions, added to the loss of the star for six months due to a tracheostomy that almost cost him his life, almost ruined Fox.
In Cinecittà sparks flew. Taylor and Burton lived a secret romance that would soon reach the ears of the paparazzi. For these intimacy hunters, capturing the violet-eyed actress with an affectionate attitude meant a dignified retirement for life. Elio Sorci, Tazio Secchiarolli, Marcello Geppetti, Pierluigi Praturlon, Felice Quinto, Nino Nanni or Arturo Zavattini carried their cameras up and down to try to corroborate the rumor that emerged in February 1962. They did not have it easy due to the extreme security measures.
Four months later, the technical and artistic team moved to the Gulf of Naples, specifically to the island of Ischia, to shoot the scene of the Battle of Actium. Aware of the persecution of the photographers, both lovers traveled by helicopter. During the days they were in this paradisiacal place, they rented a yacht to rest and, without them knowing it. A friend of Marcello's told that the protagonists were going to rest on a boat.
Hunted by the press
For two days, Marcello Geppetti was hidden among some rocks and bushes waiting for the big moment. Suddenly, Liz (a diminutive name that Taylor hated) and Richard began to sunbathe lying on the deck of the yacht, there were caresses, complicit glances, calm talks, and, finally, the long-awaited kiss. Those grainy, black-and-white images were published all over the world. And this was possible thanks to an invention that the Germans used extensively during World War II to closely monitor their enemies, the zum. Hence the relationship between war and tabloids, since both areas share the word hunt.
The staging of adultery caused the marriage of both actors to go overboard. Elizabeth divorced singer Eddie Fisher, who had left his then-wife Debbie Reynolds and was the father of the very famous Carrie Fisher to marry the highest-paid actress of the time. The feud between Taylor and Reynolds was legendary until, decades later, they made peace.
Those snapshots had a decisive influence on celebrity culture because, from that moment on, the so-called 'famous' began to deal with serious problems to draw a line between their private life and their prefabricated public life that, until then, had been manufactured. the advertising departments of the golden age of cinema thanks to the works of George Hurrell, Norman Hartnell, and Cecil Beaton, who showed the performers as authentic divinities wrapped in a glamorous halo far from the mundane.
