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Authors: William J. Mann
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she stepped out of the Cadillac and into the glare of the flashing cameras, she knew one thing and she knew it very well.
She knew how to be a movie star.
Two
Educating a Movie Star
Spring 1943–Fall 1945
S ARA S OTHERN T AYLOR had just one thing on her mind that morning in the spring of 1943 as her driver steered her Chrysler down Washington Boulevard past the long stucco wall separating Lot One from the street: making her eleven-year-old daughter Elizabeth, seated demurely beside her, a star.
At the studio gates her driver rolled down his window to signal a turn as Sara and her daughter gazed up at the tall Corinthian columns guarding the entrance. It was here at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that Elizabeth Taylor learned her first lessons in how to be a movie star. As they drove onto the lot, Elizabeth kept her eyes on the white marble Thalberg Memorial Building with its central tower. Her mother had carefully explained that inside were the offices of Louis B. Mayer, the studio head who figured more prominently in Sara's cosmos than any deity.
Their driver let them out on the wide avenue that ran down the center of the main lot. Regular players affectionately called it "the alley." Elizabeth had been working at MGM for several months now, making $100 a week just to come in every morning even if she wasn't needed for a film. In fact, she'd made just two pictures in that time, one for the studio and one as a loan-out to Fox; both had been small parts that, while showy, had done little to promote the career of the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl. Sara was tired of it. Her daughter's future was her job, she believed. Wasn't MGM paying her an additional hundred a week for "coaching and chaperoning services"?
Not wasting a second, Sara spotted the director Clarence Brown, set to helm National Velvet, the story of a little English girl who masquerades as a boy and rides her horse to victory in the Grand National. Sara took hold of her daughter's hand, and Brown's quiet morning walk by himself was suddenly ended.
"Two diminutive but formidable females," as Brown described them, blocked his way down the alley where actors and extras in full-dress costume were making their way to the soundstages. Brown looked askance at mother and daughter, who spoke simultaneously.
"She's the right actress to portray Velvet Brown," Sara insisted.
"It's my favorite book," Elizabeth added.
Not wanting to give false encouragement, Brown—the director of Garbo and Norma Shearer—beat a hasty retreat down the alley, but his pursuers were not the kind to be shaken off easily. They pursued him all across the lot, "prattling on," hounding him past Stage Five, where production numbers for MGM's musicals were shot. Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson were there that day, tapping their way across the stage for Thousands Cheer. Judy Garland might have been there that day as well, shooting the final scenes of Presenting Lily Mars, the pinnacle of her teenage glamour period.
But nothing could distract mother and daughter from their chase. Shouting a breathless litany of reasons why Elizabeth would be perfect for the film, they stalked Brown past Stage Fifteen, the largest soundstage in the world, where MGM prop men were busy assembling a full-scale aircraft carrier for Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. By the time Brown had reached Overland Avenue, the tenacious pair was still scurrying behind him, harrying him onto Lot Two, a surreal landscape of fantasy and illusion. The brownstone facades of New York overlapped with nineteenth-century London. Across the way was Tarzan's jungle and Esther Williams's shiny modern swimming pool. Mother and daughter pursued the director past mirage after mirage: the ruins of the Chinese temple from The Good Earth, the Main Line mansion of The Philadelphia Story, Andy Hardy's house. Opposite the train station last used in Waterloo Bridge stretched a replica of a New York pier, complete with a life-size ocean liner. Actually, one eighth of an
She knew how to be a movie star.
Two
Educating a Movie Star
Spring 1943–Fall 1945
S ARA S OTHERN T AYLOR had just one thing on her mind that morning in the spring of 1943 as her driver steered her Chrysler down Washington Boulevard past the long stucco wall separating Lot One from the street: making her eleven-year-old daughter Elizabeth, seated demurely beside her, a star.
At the studio gates her driver rolled down his window to signal a turn as Sara and her daughter gazed up at the tall Corinthian columns guarding the entrance. It was here at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that Elizabeth Taylor learned her first lessons in how to be a movie star. As they drove onto the lot, Elizabeth kept her eyes on the white marble Thalberg Memorial Building with its central tower. Her mother had carefully explained that inside were the offices of Louis B. Mayer, the studio head who figured more prominently in Sara's cosmos than any deity.
Their driver let them out on the wide avenue that ran down the center of the main lot. Regular players affectionately called it "the alley." Elizabeth had been working at MGM for several months now, making $100 a week just to come in every morning even if she wasn't needed for a film. In fact, she'd made just two pictures in that time, one for the studio and one as a loan-out to Fox; both had been small parts that, while showy, had done little to promote the career of the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl. Sara was tired of it. Her daughter's future was her job, she believed. Wasn't MGM paying her an additional hundred a week for "coaching and chaperoning services"?
Not wasting a second, Sara spotted the director Clarence Brown, set to helm National Velvet, the story of a little English girl who masquerades as a boy and rides her horse to victory in the Grand National. Sara took hold of her daughter's hand, and Brown's quiet morning walk by himself was suddenly ended.
"Two diminutive but formidable females," as Brown described them, blocked his way down the alley where actors and extras in full-dress costume were making their way to the soundstages. Brown looked askance at mother and daughter, who spoke simultaneously.
"She's the right actress to portray Velvet Brown," Sara insisted.
"It's my favorite book," Elizabeth added.
Not wanting to give false encouragement, Brown—the director of Garbo and Norma Shearer—beat a hasty retreat down the alley, but his pursuers were not the kind to be shaken off easily. They pursued him all across the lot, "prattling on," hounding him past Stage Five, where production numbers for MGM's musicals were shot. Gene Kelly and Kathryn Grayson were there that day, tapping their way across the stage for Thousands Cheer. Judy Garland might have been there that day as well, shooting the final scenes of Presenting Lily Mars, the pinnacle of her teenage glamour period.
But nothing could distract mother and daughter from their chase. Shouting a breathless litany of reasons why Elizabeth would be perfect for the film, they stalked Brown past Stage Fifteen, the largest soundstage in the world, where MGM prop men were busy assembling a full-scale aircraft carrier for Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. By the time Brown had reached Overland Avenue, the tenacious pair was still scurrying behind him, harrying him onto Lot Two, a surreal landscape of fantasy and illusion. The brownstone facades of New York overlapped with nineteenth-century London. Across the way was Tarzan's jungle and Esther Williams's shiny modern swimming pool. Mother and daughter pursued the director past mirage after mirage: the ruins of the Chinese temple from The Good Earth, the Main Line mansion of The Philadelphia Story, Andy Hardy's house. Opposite the train station last used in Waterloo Bridge stretched a replica of a New York pier, complete with a life-size ocean liner. Actually, one eighth of an
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