Condemned by the Vatican for ‘erotic vagrancy’, she married eight times, mesmerising a global audience as much for the volatility of her personal life as for a screen career which began when, aged only 12, she starred in the 1944 film National Velvet.
So it was perhaps inevitable that Elizabeth Taylor should inspire someone whom her second son, Christopher Wilding, describes as her ‘kindred spirit’ – American pop superstar Taylor Swift, who has around 560 million followers on social media.
The resultant recording is simply entitled Elizabeth Taylor and, says Wilding, ‘deftly capture[s] the similarities and parallel tracks’ in the two women’s ‘careers and personal lives’.
But its accompanying promotional video prompts questions of its own – not about Taylor Swift, but about Elizabeth Taylor and the tangled, extended family that sprouted from her tempestuous private life.
Every frame of the video is archive footage, taken either from her films or newsreels – such as the crowd surging around London’s Caxton Hall in 1952 when she married her second husband, actor Michael Wilding, with whom she had sons Michael, 73, and Christopher, 71.
The three-minute video also shows her third husband, American film producer Mike Todd, by whom Elizabeth was three months pregnant with their daughter Liza when they married in 1957. But while there’s footage from two of her most acclaimed films – Cleopatra and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? – it lacks even a glimpse of her co-star in both, the man she twice married and divorced, Richard Burton.
It’s a perplexing omission – one which is made more intriguing by Burton’s fourth wife and widow, Sally, who co-operated with last year’s BBC documentary, Wild Genius, celebrating the centenary of Burton’s birth. ‘I know who said no,’ Sally tells me, ‘but I’m not prepared to comment on that in public.’
That shifts attention to actress Kate Burton, 68, elder of Burton’s daughters by Sybil Williams, his first wife whom he ultimately abandoned in favour of Taylor, though only after an affair with actress Claire Bloom. But Kate, too, declines to comment.
This only deepens the mystery. Kate made it plain in an interview before Christmas that she had no animosity towards her stepmother.
Perhaps the conundrum’s solved by Petula Clark in her recent memoir, Is That You, Petula? Burton, she recalls, was cast to play opposite her in Goodbye Mr Chips but pulled out – disdaining to play opposite a ‘pop star’ rather than an actress.
So whoever said ‘no’ could be said to be honouring his memory…
(Very) modern manners
King Charles’s stylish goddaughter India Hicks is horrified by the trend of women dressing super-casually at the airport.
‘I’ve noticed recently that fellow passengers drifting through terminals are embracing ease, outfits that seem better suited to a spin class than an airport, with an alarming amount of midriff and Lycra on enthusiastic display,’ laments the entrepreneur, 58, who was one of Princess Diana’s bridesmaids.
‘Ease is apparently chic these days. Not just ease of clothes, but ease of life. We need to be wary… ease gives way to an aversion to any effort whatsoever and it’s a slippery slope. Next thing you know you’re on the couch in sweatpants ordering everything you eat, wear and use.’
Sir Rocco’s son seals first of two weddings
His father is one of Britain’s best-known hoteliers, so Charles Forte knows a thing or two about hosting celebrations.
And the son of tycoon Sir Rocco Forte decided to get married not once but twice.
Charles, 34, exchanged vows this week with handbag designer Georgie Wright, in an intimate ceremony at Chelsea Old Town Hall.
‘There were only about 20 of us there,’ says filmmaker Amanda Eliasch, a friend of Charles’s Italian-born mother, Aliai. ‘It was a lovely ceremony.’ The couple will do the honours again next week in a lavish wedding at Palermo Cathedral in Sicily.
Charles was named after his grandfather, Trusthouse Forte owner Lord Forte, a close ally of Margaret Thatcher.
Rower James’ wife takes up pole position
If crowds are seen gathering outside a home in an elegant corner of west London, I may have the explanation.
An 8ft pole has been installed in the front room of Olympic double gold medallist James Cracknell’s house so his wife, Jordan Connell, can perform pole dances.
The American-born finance boss, 42, has been taking lessons since January and was keen to practise at home.
‘We have a big white pole in the living room,’ she tells me. ‘It looks very modern and chic, and it’s a great party conversation starter.’
It will be a surprise for rowing champ Cracknell, 53, whom Jordan wed in 2021 following the end of his marriage to GB News presenter Bev Turner, with whom he has three children.
‘He has been at a training camp and has not yet seen the pole, but I’m sure he’s going to be fine with it.’
Hamilton’s own place in the sun not so fun
Having been showing Britons round holiday homes as presenter of A Place In The Sun for more than a decade, Laura Hamilton took the plunge and purchased her own property abroad in 2024.
But the presenter, 43, who bought a house on the island of Majorca, has now discovered the dark side of foreign investment. She is struggling to deal with the Spanish authorities’ laid-back attitude to her building plans.
‘I’m renovating a house, which is a very slow process,’ she says. ‘Spanish rules and regulations are a lot different. They’re incredibly slow at giving out the permits and that has been quite frustrating.’
Poet Laureate Simon Armitage is reviving his musical sideline, a ‘post-rock’ trio called LYR. Their new album, the precipitation-themed Dark Sky Reservation, was completed before Britain had 40 days of non-stop rainfall earlier this year. ‘If we had realised that we were going to be so prophetic, we would have written an album about gold bullion,’ the royal wordsmith mourns.
Anya looks to stars for her magic 30th
I’m not sure what the Brummie gangsters in Peaky Blinders would make of this.
Anya Taylor-Joy, who played Gina, the scheming American wife of Tommy Shelby’s cousin Michael Gray in the hit BBC drama, celebrated her 30th birthday with an eccentric, mystical-themed party in Los Angeles.
The Miami-born actress wore a spectacular tulle gown with floral embellishments, made by the US clothing brand Rodarte.
She was joined by friends including Paris Hilton as she sliced her cake in the shape of a ram’s head to represent her star sign Aries.
Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly will no longer be hosting Strictly Come Dancing when it returns in the autumn, but they will still be together.
‘Tess and I have already planned it,’ Claudia says. ‘We’re having a jacket potato, I’m having salmon, she’s coming to ours, her and Vernon [Kay, Tess’s husband], September 19, and we’re going to watch and support and love.’
Speaking at the Lira Winston Fellowships at St John’s Wood Synagogue in London, she reveals she’s working on the career prospects of her children Jake, 23, Matilda, 19, and Arthur, 14. ‘I told them to nepo up,’ she says. ‘They’re like, “No thanks, Mum.”’
As Jack Whitehall prepares to marry model Roxy Horner today, the comedian’s father, retired theatrical agent Michael, has been reminiscing about the client he had to ditch for being such a prima donna.
‘There was someone that I got rid of because I thought he was being far too difficult, and then he became quite famous,’ Whitehall says. ‘I mean, we’re not talking Cary Grant… although he was called Grant… Richard E Grant.’
Asked if Withnail And I star Grant, 68, had improved with age, Whitehall replies: ‘I think he has, but I haven’t been in touch with him unfortunately. It all fell apart a bit, our relationship.’
Is Teddies gearing up for royal arrival?
Excited chatter reaches me from £59,496-a-year St Edward’s School, Oxford – perhaps the most excited since actress Florence Pugh paraded her lustrous talents there in adolescence.
This time the buzz is unconnected with ‘Flossie’, as the Oscar-nominated Oppenheimer star was known at ‘Teddies’ – the school’s enduring nickname – but is inspired, instead, by ‘security upgrades’. These might have seemed inconsequential, had not Prince William and Catherine discreetly visited Teddies, as I disclosed, in 2024.
‘New gates are being put in,’ a Teddies devotee tells me, adding that the old ‘rubbish’ single-track road leading to the Nuffield gym is being upgraded to two lanes.
Fit for a future king? Perhaps, but I’m assured that Teddies’ exceptional headmaster – ‘Warden’, in Teddies’ parlance – Old Etonian Alastair Chirnside, 39, isn’t expecting to number Prince George among his cohort of pupils in September.
Unless, that is, Chirnside – awarded a ‘Congratulatory First’ in Classics and French at Oxford – is lured back to Eton as Head Master.
