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Death of a Legend
Aired March 23, 2011 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tonight on THE JOY BEHAR SHOW. We remember the greatest movie star of all time, Elizabeth Taylor, dead at age 79 after six decades as perhaps the most famous about woman in the world.
Since bursting on to the screen as a 12-year-old Taylor relished the public eye, truly embracing her role as superstar and public icon, winning two Academy Awards for best actress, marrying eight times and setting the standard for fashion and philanthropy.
Taylor was the first modern celebrity, and tonight Joy looks back at her legacy with some of those who knew her best.
JOY BEHAR, HLN HOST: Hollywood lost a legend today. Elizabeth Taylor passed away this morning from congestive heart failure. She was 79 years old.
Tonight we are dedicating the whole hour to Dame Elizabeth -- she`s a dame -- because that`s how big a star she was.
With me now to remember her is another legendary actress, Debbie Reynolds, actress and friend of Elizabeth Taylor`s. Debbie, so nice to hear from you and have you here today --
DEBBIE REYNOLDS, ACTRESS: Thank you.
BEHAR: Because you know, you and Elizabeth had a most interesting relationship. It was quite a passage you had. What was your reaction to the news today?
REYNOLDS: Well, we`ve had a great friendship all through the years, and if it can survive a marriage breaking up and, you know, all this kind of scandal like that, why, then you know we really were friends, girlfriends.
Well, I was, of course, sad to hear about Elizabeth`s passing, but I just talked to her two weeks ago -- it might have been three -- but she was not doing well and she was really in a lot of pain. so it was a blessing in disguise, shall we say, that she could go on to a better place and be out of misery.
BEHAR: Yes. So tell me, what do you think it was that made Elizabeth such an icon? Because people are very, very responsive to her today.
REYNOLDS: Well, she`s very -- you know, she was beautiful, first of all. She`s -- she was the most glamorous and sexual star of our generation. And, really, no one could equal Elizabeth`s beauty. And the women liked her and the men adored her. I know, because my husband left for her.
BEHAR: I love that you take it so lightly now, you know, because I remember when that happened. Boy, that was quite the scandal; nothing to rival it these days. You know?
REYNOLDS: Well, I don`t know. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is sort of the generation of today for that same sort of a scandal.
But it was very hard at the time, but, you know, Elizabeth and I over the years have gotten all past that, and she did a really nice, shall we say, creation with her life. You know, she went on to work very hard for AIDS and become very charitable and get off the path of man-hunting.
BEHAR: Well, you know, I was around when that whole brouhaha happened in those days. I remember the whole thing between you and Elizabeth.
REYNOLDS: Joy, you`ve been around through everything.
BEHAR: I have, it`s true. And Eddie Fisher, who passed away recently, for those of you out there who don`t know the story, Debbie was married to Eddie Fisher. Elizabeth lost her husband Mike Todd at the time. She was a grieving widow. She moved in with Eddie and Eddie left Debbie for Elizabeth.
That`s basically what happened, right, Debbie?
REYNOLDS: Well, I would say that Eddie moved in with Elizabeth and that took precedence over her loneliness, and he was Mike Todd`s best friend, so actually Elizabeth just thought she was replacing Eddie with Mike Todd, but, of course, he could never be Mike Todd, so it didn`t last. When she met Richard Burton, she tossed him out.
BEHAR: She did. The question keeps coming up in my mind, who was the husband that she loved the most? Do you think it was Mike Todd or was it Richard Burton?
REYNOLDS: I would say it would really be a fist fight because equal. I think finally that Burton would win because of his brilliance and intellectual and he could quote poetry and he was just so colorful whereas Mike Todd was more of an entrepreneur, you know. He was a producer. So finally Burton`s mind would have won out over it besides his maleness.
BEHAR: There`s always the rumor that she fought with both of them in these kind of like Virginia Woolf type of fights.
REYNOLDS: Oh, fought with them. Oh, my stars, it was really something. She was in my house one night and having dinner with Mike Todd, and he hauled off and slugged her and knocked her out of the chair, and I almost fainted. I never saw that in my life. And so I ordered him out of the house.
BEHAR: Did you?
REYNOLDS: I certainly did. She said, Debbie, we were just playing. I said, well, that hurt me. I don`t know. But I think you both need to go somewhere else and slug it out.
BEHAR: See, that`s interesting, because if that happened today, it would be really even more scandalous. It`s interesting, because we look back at the whole affair with Eddie Fisher, et cetera, was a scandal, but the hitting of a woman was sort of under wraps in those days. That`s interesting, because that would have been a big deal now.
REYNOLDS: She slugged him back. She got him back. She clobbered him back. She did get him back. I don`t think they ever got away with it. I`ve seen that happen a few times. I was in the south of France with them once, and she got upset with Mike and just slapped him -- but it`s not really a slug, you know.
BEHAR: Yes. She slugged him.
REYNOLDS: And then they run up stairs and jump in bed. Or just in the pool and do it there, too. I mean, you know. They had a good time.
BEHAR: I could really see why at the end of the day you and Elizabeth were friends, because both of you have a similar sense -- from what I could gather, I never met Elizabeth and I`ve met you, and I know both of you from your work, but I could see where you both have that same sense of humor. Yes? Is that --
REYNOLDS: Yes. Sort of rowdy. Sort of rowdy like you, and outward and you know where you stand at all times. With Elizabeth, you knew where you stood. If she was mad at you, she was mad, but then she was over it in a minute.
BEHAR: You and Elizabeth worked together once. You were in something called "These Old Broads" which I think --
REYNOLDS: "These Old Broads".
BEHAR: -- didn`t your daughter, Carrie, write that movie?
REYNOLDS: Carrie wrote it. And she got Elizabeth do it and Shirley Maclaine to do it and me to do it. And we did and it was just a fair picture. But we all had a good time.
All I can say is Elizabeth and I were really friends for years, and we went through a lot of ups and downs. We didn`t hang. Like I raised my kids, she raised her kids, she was married, she lived in Europe. You know. Life goes on.
But towards the end here where we`re older now, Elizabeth and I were the same age. April 1st I turn 79. So it`s gone by very fast, and so you kind of get scared. You look at those numbers and you say is that me? That can`t be me.
BEHAR: I know. It goes by very fast.
REYNOLDS: That must be in my left arm.
BEHAR: Well, you know, I look forward to seeing you when you`re in town again, Debbie, and thanks so much for joining me today.
REYNOLDS: That`s all right. We`ll all remember Elizabeth fondly and she was a great star of our generation.
BEHAR: Thank you, Debbie, very much.
REYNOLDS: Bye.
BEHAR: Bye-bye. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELIZABETH TAYLOR, ACTRESS: So you would think somebody had spoiled you terribly. A wife?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I haven`t any wife. I live with my sister.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: And we are back with remembering the legendary Elizabeth Taylor. With me now are my old pal Larry King, who interviewed Miss Taylor many times for CNN; and gossip columnist extraordinaire Liz Smith, who is a lifelong friend of Elizabeth Taylor`s.
Welcome, guys.
Larry, you interviewed Elizabeth many times. How do you remember Elizabeth, exactly what comes to your head when you think of her?
LARRY KING, CNN: Joy, you would have loved her. She was -- she was everything. She was a great film star. She was the last of the film stars.
BEHAR: Yes.
KING: She was a star, as we would say it.
BEHAR: Yes.
KING: She was a tremendous talent, there she is showing one of her Richard Burton gifts. She loved life. When she supported a cause, she supported it 100 percent.
When the AIDS outbreak occurred, she was a close friend to Rock Hudson. She enlisted many people in the Hollywood area to join in that fight. She urged presidents to get involved. She never quit.
When bad news occurred about Michael Jackson, she was in the front row for him.
(CROSS TALK)
BEHAR: Yes, she was very loyal.
KING: She -- there was no one intensely loyal, intensely giving, very supportive, a great talent. She was -- she was Elizabeth Taylor, no one like her.
BEHAR: There will never be one exactly like her again.
And Liz, I`m very sorry personally for your loss, because you were a lifelong friend of Elizabeth. You always wrote about her in your column, always said a real star. What do you remember about her?
LIZ SMITH, COLUMNIST: Well, she was a mighty woman, a little woman but mighty. And I remember when she was 60 years old, I gave her a T-shirt with her picture on it looking absolutely divine, and it said, "This is what 60 looks like". And she wore that for her birthday party in Disneyland.
You know, she always stayed in touch. I hadn`t seen her in about ten years, but she sent me beautiful chocolates on my birthday last February, and there will never be another one like her.
(CROSS TALK)
BEHAR: You -- yes --
SMITH: And on screen, Joy --
BEHAR: Yes.
SMITH: -- she sort of exhibited her life -- private life with Richard Burton. You know, tempestuous, drunken, fighting, quarrelling, kissing, making up.
BEHAR: Yes, I know or you may have the idea that maybe that`s the way their relationship went also, which made it even more intriguing.
You know --
(CROSS TALK)
SMITH: I think it was. You know, they -- they remarried, I mean, they divorced and remarried.
BEHAR: Right.
SMITH: But it just didn`t work by then because they were drinking a little much.
BEHAR: Exactly.
SMITH: You remember, Elizabeth never made any bones about going to Betty Ford twice?
BEHAR: Yes.
SMITH: And she just lived her life to the fullest.
BEHAR: She did. And she was just proud of herself and the way she looked all the time. She was so beautiful in her youth and then she put on weight she sort of went with that. She was a real girl. And a gal, you know, a broad. And we liked her for that.
Larry, let`s watch a clip of one of your interviews with Liz, ok?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Is it hard, Elizabeth, or easy to work with someone you`re in love with?
TAYLOR: No, I`ve never had a better time in my life.
KING: Than working with Richard?
TAYLOR: Yes, on "Virginia Woolf".
KING: Even though you fight tooth and nail.
TAYLOR: Well, we got it all out on the set, and we would go home, have dinner with the children, play word games with them and learn our lines after dinner and go to sleep.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: Well, that must have been after the -- that was later on the - - after the tempestuous years with Richard Burton on the set of "Cleopatra". These are the "Virginia Woolf" years right? That she`s talking about?
KING: Yes.
BEHAR: Well, she had a great sense of humor didn`t she, Larry? What -- what -- tell us about her sense of humor? Also Liz, I mean, I`m interested to hear about that.
(CROSS TALK)
KING: She was a --
SMITH: Well Joy, I know a great story about her. When, do you remember Joan Rivers attacking her over and over for being fat? Well, she arranged to have George Hamilton bring her as a surprise guest to Joan Rivers` house --
(CROSS TALK)
BEHAR: Oh yes.
SMITH: -- one night when I was there, and Joan Rivers almost fainted. And she never made any more fat jokes about Elizabeth.
BEHAR: Well, that will do it, you know, right, Larry? You show up at their -- at their door and they won`t make so many jokes about you anymore.
KING: I remember once I -- I asked her -- she brought a whole display of jewelry when she was selling her diamonds, and I said, is this costume jewelry? She said, costume jewelry? Are you crazy?
BEHAR: She would have none of that.
SMITH: Well Joy, remember the great story about Princess Margaret saying she thought the crepe diamond was vulgar and Elizabeth made her put it on, and then Elizabeth said, it doesn`t look so vulgar now, does it?
BEHAR: Now Liz, you once asked her what she would take to a desert island if she was stranded there. What did she say, do you remember?
SMITH: Well, this was typical, of course. She said, I couldn`t -- I would take Vaseline and a pair of tweezers.
BEHAR: I can understand that. She wanted to have nice eyebrows.
SMITH: She once asked me to bring her makeup from New York to Paris, and I brought it. And she opened the package and said, Liz, how dare you bring me false eyelashes. I never wear false eyelashes.
BEHAR: Yes well, she was famous for her eyes. I mean, they`re supposedly -- they were really violet. Was that true? Anyway --
(CROSS TALK)
KING: Joy.
BEHAR: Yes go ahead Larry.
KING: -- they were violet, violet. Joy, you will never see eyes like that again. Also, what surprised me, she was tiny.
BEHAR: Yes. Yes, she was a small girl.
SMITH: Yes.
BEHAR: And I remember her in her early movies, you know, the -- the American tragedy movie with the -- what`s the name of that movie, that Shelly Winters and Monty Cliff. What was the name of that?
SMITH: An American --
(CROSS TALK)
BEHAR: Well, it`s based on Theodore Dreiser`s book on American Tragedy.
SMITH: Yes.
BEHAR: But it had another name.
SMITH: American Tragedy.
BEHAR: Which I can`t remember the name, but, anyway.
Ok, she was considered, Larry, one of the most beautiful women in the world. Do you think that she thought she was that beautiful? Did she believe she was that pretty?
KING: Yes. Yes.
BEHAR: Yes?
KING: She -- she knew she was pretty. She also knew she was talented. She -- she knew what she was. Elizabeth Taylor -- see that picture right there?
BEHAR: Yes.
KING: That`s that -- that is those years with Monty Cliff.
BEHAR: Right.
KING: That`s from that movie you were mentioning, "A Place in the Sun."
BEHAR: "A Place in the Sun" that`s it.
And how did she -- Elizabeth -- Elizabeth, I mean, Liz, how did she change as she got older? I mean, she sort of went through a lot of different incarnations physically over the years. But emotionally, how did she change as a person? Was she bawdier when she was older than when she was younger, because she`s well known for her mouth?
SMITH: Well, you know, she always kept up with Richard. When he drank, she drank.
BEHAR: Yes.
SMITH: And -- and she learned Welsh and she lured and enticed all of his Welsh relatives. She was just irresistible. She once -- I was once interviewing her in London.
BEHAR: Yes.
SMITH: And I was all finished and I went to the door and I said, grandly, well, goodbye, Miss Taylor and I opened the door and walked into a closet. She thought that was the funniest thing she had ever seen.
BEHAR: Well, that is pretty funny.
SMITH: She did well at jokes.
BEHAR: Come on that is pretty funny.
SMITH: Yes.
She loved jokes and let`s don`t forget that she single-handedly almost began the fight against AIDS.
BEHAR: She did, she was very, very good --
SMITH: And that was unpopular, Joy. That wasn`t a good thing to do then.
BEHAR: Well, Joan Rivers has been tweeting that she was the one who joined Joan in her fight against AIDS in those days.
SMITH: Well, I -- I mean, it`s useless to say who was first, but I know she was very affected by the death of a young woman who was -- I believe she married one of her sons, and the girl contracted AIDS. That`s what got her into it. The thing with Rock Hudson happened later.
BEHAR: Oh, I see. Ok. We`re going to continue this conversation, so if you guys would just stay there for a minute, we`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAYLOR: The place is famous. They`re treating famous alcoholics, you don`t think?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m not famous, Maggie.
TAYLOR: No, and you don`t take dope. Otherwise you`d be a perfect candidate for Rainbow Hill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: I`m back with Liz Smith who is a great friend of Elizabeth Taylor. Larry had to go take care of his children, so he had to leave me.
Liz, I`m watching "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". Wasn`t that play supposed to be that the Paul Newman character was gay and that was the real issue there?
SMITH: Well, it was another Hollywood travesty on the truth. I mean, it didn`t make much sense how they made it into a movie, but Elizabeth was beautiful and so was Paul Newman, so nobody cared.
BEHAR: But it didn`t make much sense why Paul Newman suddenly didn`t want to sleep with his wife, you know, because they were such a hot couple, she didn`t really deserve his rejection.
I always thought when I watched -- because I didn`t really see the play. What was wrong with Elizabeth or him there? What was wrong was they were not a good match. In the reality of the story, he`s supposed to be homosexual, right?
It`s too much the way Hollywood whitewashes everything.
Let`s talk about her marriages for a second because you know, she said famously that she only slept with the men that she married. She was really an old-fashioned girl in that way even though she was married eight times.
SMITH: We have a lot of static on this line which Elizabeth would approve of. She thought she should always give the press a little static.
BEHAR: I hear you loud and clear.
SMITH: One thing I would like to say about her is that she never saw a child or an animal that she ignored. She ignored a lot of people, but she loved children and dogs. And when she was living on the yacht with Burton in the Thames in her London days, they had, you know, dogs and cats and everything else running around.
BEHAR: Yes.
SMITH: She was a real mother. And she was insane about her children and her grandchildren. I think she had a lot of enjoyment in these final years having them come to her in Bel Air.
BEHAR: It is nice in the golden years to have those kids around.
SMITH: She has a brother that she just loves.
BEHAR: What about -- was there anybody she didn`t like? People like -- she famously did not like Ronald Reagan and she didn`t like George Bush, and that was probably because they didn`t really support the financing AIDS research and stuff. So maybe --
SMITH: I was at her marriage to Larry Fortensky at Netherlands, and the guest of honor was Nancy Reagan. And a man jumped out of a helicopter right in the middle of the wedding and landed right -- almost on top of Mrs. Reagan. And they had to whisk him away. It was fabulous.
And that night at the wedding dinner, she sat with Michael Jackson, not with Larry Fortensky. He sat at another table with all of his relatives. And I went over, and I said to Michael, "Michael, what makes you and Elizabeth so close?" And he said, "Well, you know, we were both child stars and we understand each other."
BEHAR: I guess that`s a good answer, because they both understood the pressures that surrounded them. So that makes sense to me. She was a loyal friend.
SMITH: She was so loyal. If she was ever your friend, she was your friend. You had to do something stupid to lose her friendship.
BEHAR: Of all her husbands, which one of them do you think she really loved the most?
SMITH: Oh, there`s no question, she really loved Richard. I mean he was the love of her life. I think he`d -- they`d still be married. She would have married him again if he had lived.
BEHAR: Or Mike Todd. She was so unhappy when he died. That might have been the other one, too. I think she had the two of them. Yes. All right.
Thank you, Liz, very much for joining me with your thoughts.
SMITH: Ok, Joy, I can`t hear you to say goodbye, but I love you.
BEHAR: Ok. Thank you. We`ll be back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: Elizabeth Taylor, who passed away this morning, was not only one of the great movie stars of our time, she was also a great humanitarian. I`m here with two of her friends, fashion designer Kenneth Cole. He`s also the chairman of AMFAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research. And on the phone, my friend and my pal, singer/songwriter Barry Manilow. Hi, Barry.
BARRY MANILOW, SINGER/SONGWRITER: Hi, Joy.
BEHAR: Tell me, Barry, how do you remember Elizabeth?
MANILOW: A great person. A beautiful, beautiful human being. A real -- I remember her as a real down-to-earth human being.
BEHAR: Tell me about the first time you met her.
MANILOW: I had an assistant who was tired of going on the road and he got a job working for Elizabeth. And he was just a great, great guy. And he introduced me to Elizabeth. And we -- it was just a great time. And then he got ill. And he eventually passed away, and Elizabeth and I stayed friends. And she was just so frustrated that nobody was really doing anything for this AIDS thing. It was like all of our friends were dying. I had lost half of my phone book. And so she decided to do the first AIDS benefit. She threw a dinner. And she called me, sounding very frustrated and saying that she had had called a whole bunch of performers and they had all turned her down. And she said, would you do this? And I said, I have no band, I`m off the road, but yes, I`ll come in and I`ll just sit at the piano and I`ll sing. And she started to cry because I was the only one that said yes. And I did it.
BEHAR: They were scared--
MANILOW: And she was so -- she was so grateful that every year for the last 20 years, on my birthday, I got a big pot of gardenias. And she`s never forgotten my birthday for 20 years now.
BEHAR: That`s nice. So I guess other celebrities were frightened to get in the middle of that. It`s interesting, Kenneth, she was a pioneer when it came to AIDS activism, yes?
KENNETH COLE, CHAIRMAN, AMFAR: She was. These were different times in the `80s when Elizabeth Taylor was very upfront, as was Barry in his own way. And there was this pervasive uncertainty and fear and hostility. And to the degree people were at risk or presumed to be at risk was this extraordinary uncertainty, and it bred a lot of negative emotions.
BEHAR: Yes.
COLE: But Elizabeth Taylor, she was very courageous. And she was really -- you know, she was inspired, she was a woman on a mission, and shortly after she felt the need to get involved, as few were, and her friend Rock Hudson was diagnosed a few months after that. In fact -- in fact--
MANILOW: That was the last straw, I think.
BEHAR: When Rock got it, yes.
MANILOW: She was on a mission from that moment on.
BEHAR: She didn`t like Ronald Reagan`s politics. She knew the Reagans and she was friends with them, I think, but she didn`t like his politics. And here is the reason, I think, because as the AIDS crisis began in 1981, and Reagan couldn`t even say the word "AIDS" until 1987, after 40,000 people had died from the disease. Do you think that possibly, either one of you (inaudible), do you think that possibly Elizabeth forced his hand to actually speak about it eventually? Did she have anything to do with that, Barry?
MANILOW: Could be. Could be. Like I say, she was on a mission. I don`t think anything was going to stop her.
BEHAR: Yes. What do you think, Kenneth?
COLE: I know that he must have -- at a certain point, he felt he needed to address this publicly, and the sentiment was changing. And the at-risk community was growing significantly larger. But AMFAR was formed in `85, and it was the coming together of the National AIDS Research Foundation, which was started by Elizabeth in Los Angeles, and Mathilde Krim had the AIDS Medical Foundation in New York, came together and formed AMFAR in 1985. And it becomes very public, very vocal. And then `87, actually, at an AMFAR event, Ronald Reagan talks about AIDS for the first time.
BEHAR: Finally. Yes. Yes. Now, Sharon Stone, who took over Taylor`s role at AMFAR, said this in part about Elizabeth`s passing. She said she opened the hearts of the world not just to the condition of HIV/AIDS, as she had intended, but ultimately to human rights as a whole. That`s a nice thing to say.
MANILOW: Beautiful.
BEHAR: Is there anything about Elizabeth that either one of you can tell us that we don`t know already? Because you both knew her personally?
COLE: You know, we were supposed to honor Elizabeth a month ago in New York at an event. And she was very courageous, and she committed to do this about three or four months ago, despite the suggestion of her doctors. And she knew she might not be up to it, but she said, I`m going to make this happen, I`m going to be there. And she was deadfast determined to make it. Up to the night before, she believed she could still get there and, and then the doctors specifically said--
BEHAR: She was frail at the end, though. But, Barry, did she ever dish during dinner, you know, like which husband she liked best or anything fun like that?
MANILOW: She did. She loved that. But I tell you, when I remember Elizabeth, because I knew her so personally, I would go to Thanksgiving dinners with her, and she would come over to dinner at my place and watch movies. And I don`t -- I don`t remember her as a movie star, because although she would walk into a room looking like a princess, you would hear this cackle, cackling laughter come out of her, and everybody would crack up. She was just a-- what I remember of her, she was just a great broad.
BEHAR: That`s what everybody says about her. That`s what everybody says. You know, she once said, she once said, I am a very committed wife and I should be committed, too, for being married so many times. She had a very interesting -- she had a wicked sense of humor, didn`t she?
MANILOW: She did.
BEHAR: She was a lot of fun. Everybody that you talk to says that she was a lot of fun.
MANILOW: She was. One day (ph) she wore that big Hope diamond that she has, and she made every woman wear it. She passed it around like it was a -- like a piece of candy.
BEHAR: She had -- how many diamonds did she have? She had two big diamonds, didn`t she?
MANILOW: I don`t know, but what was that real big one that she had? That`s what she was wearing. I think the Hope diamond, right?
BEHAR: I don`t know what it was called, I don`t know. The Hope diamond I think is like--
MANILOW: OK, so it was that real big one.
BEHAR: The real big -- it was called the real big diamond is what it was called.
MANILOW: The real big one, I don`t know from diamonds, but it was a real big one!
(LAUGHTER)
BEHAR: But you know, I never met her personally, of course, but I grew up with the whole Elizabeth Taylor aura, and the whole thing and the Richard Burton and all the scandals that went on. It was an interesting period before, you know, all the paparazzi -- she actually -- they ushered in the paparazzi in many ways. The -- Elizabeth and Richard Burton and that whole thing with Eddie Fisher and everything, which I spoke to Debbie Reynolds about a little while ago.
But you know, there is nobody like her now. Is there anyone like her and Richard now?
MANILOW: There`s too many. There`s nobody like her because there`s too many out there. She was the only one in those days.
BEHAR: They like to put the Brangelina thing in the same category.
MANILOW: It`s not the same thing.
BEHAR: How is it different?
COLE: It`s not the same.
MANILOW: Because she always had class. It was always -- she was this queen -- you know, when crazy things happened, it was like a real scandal.
BEHAR: Well, Angelina is a classy girl in her own way. She adopts all those children. And she -- even though she did have a whole thing with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston and all that stuff, which was equivalent to the thing we`re talking about. But I think that they`re similar in some ways, because they`re both so beautiful and they`re sort of larger than life. She reminds me of her a little bit.
MANILOW: Maybe it was because she came from the `40s and the `50s, and I guess in those days you didn`t really, you know, you didn`t really find all these -- all this gossip as much as you do today.
BEHAR: Ken, how do you think the world is going to remember Elizabeth?
MANILOW: I think they`re going to remember her as the last great movie star and one of the great humanitarians of all time.
BEHAR: Right, and I assume you would agree with that, Kenneth.
COLE: I agree with that. And also somebody who had the courage and the conviction to act out what she believed in. And she didn`t just--
BEHAR: She put her money where her mouth was.
COLE: Right--
(CROSSTALK)
MANILOW: Very inspiring. Very inspiring.
COLE: She -- and she was extraordinarily courageous, and she was fearless, and she would go to the Hill and advocate before whomever about whatever.
BEHAR: She didn`t seem to care what people thought of her. She really didn`t. That`s a beautiful thing when you`re a big movie star.
COLE: She had a real sense of courage and moral justice and responsibility. And she knew what she felt she needed to do.
MANILOW: She used her fame in the right way, I think.
BEHAR: She used it the right way. OK. And Barbra Streisand I think tweeted that she lived a life that was worth living, in a way. Something like that, which is--
MANILOW: Beautiful.
BEHAR: It was beautiful. Thank you so much, you guys.
(CROSSTALK)
MANILOW: OK, bye-bye.
BEHAR: Barry, see you soon. We`ll be back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: No word of Lord Anthony? By now he must have Octavian, and you yourself said he ran the Octavian ship.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It may be that Lord Anthony ran the ship flying Octavian insignia.
TAYLOR: But if it is Octavian ship, if Octavian is on board.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if Lord Anthony finds and kills Octavian, he is still surrounded by half the Roman fleet.
TAYLOR: Then send him help!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: Elizabeth Taylor was not only a glamorous movie star, she set the template for today`s modern celebrity with the off-screen romances and scandals that often eclipsed her career. Here to remember her, are A.O. Scott, film critic for "The New York Times," and two of Liz`s friends, the actress Peta Wilson, and by phone, actress, legendary actress, Angela Lansbury. Hello, everybody. Angela, let me start with you, because you appeared with Elizabeth in "National Velvet" in 1944. I just to want show people a clip before we go on.
ANGELA LANSBURY, ACTRESS: All right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first jump is just a plain hedge jump and then ...
TAYLOR: Mike, don`t tell me anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you have got to know the order of the jumps and the tricks of the race. There is a lot to know.
TAYLOR: No use. Every one riding out there tomorrow will know more than I do. No use.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think a race like this is won by luck?
TAYLOR: No. By knowing that I can win. And telling him so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: Tell me, Angela, how good an actress do you think she was in those days?
LANSBURY: Well, I think she was a very young child, let`s face it, but I think she took direction very well. She understood what she was -- what she was saying, and she understood the situation, and she threw herself into it. I think she had a sense of the dramatic even as a little girl.
BEHAR: She did, and she was beautiful then as a child.
LANSBURY: Oh, my gosh, yes.
BEHAR: Yes.
LANSBURY: Absolutely breathtaking.
BEHAR: Then you went on to star with her in "The Mirror Cracked" in 1980. So how was she behind the scenes? Just was she a diva, was she fun? What was she like behind the scenes?
LANSBURY: I never saw Elizabeth as a diva.
BEHAR: No.
LANSBURY: She was always her own person. She was a terrifically -- she was a good egg (ph). She was a real -- she was a real person, you know.
BEHAR: Yes.
LANSBURY: I never saw her behaving badly. I spent some time with her socially with Rock Hudson during the shooting of the show, and she was just a terrifically interesting and funny, droll person.
BEHAR: Very droll, she was?
LANSBURY: Absolutely. She was very -- she was quite -- what is the expression -- well, she ...
BEHAR: She was fun -- funny?
LANSBURY: I can`t think of the word to describe her. But she was really very down to earth.
BEHAR: Down to earth. Yes. That`s what people say about her. Peta, how did you know Elizabeth?
PETA WILSON, ACTRESS, "LA FEMME NIKITA": I had a very strange situation happen about four or five years ago. I was at a house in Laurel Canyon. I had a knock on the door by a rather strange lady who said to me that she was Elizabeth`s masseuse. And Elizabeth was a very big fan of mine and watched all of the episodes of the TV show and would love to meet me. So I looked at this woman and thought, this woman is rather mad, I`m sure, and she asked for my phone number. And I said, well, look, how about you give me Elizabeth Taylor`s phone number and I`ll give Elizabeth a call. So I took the phone number, and my friend James Moore was with me, and we called this number up. Five minutes later, this lady gets on the phone and she says, hello? Is that my darling? And I went into shock because it really was Elizabeth. We sat on the phone for about an hour, and I just sat there listening to her. She was a huge fan and was so encouraging of me as an artist.
BEHAR: Did she -- yeah, go ahead.
WILSON: Well, she did ask me to come and meet her, and I was thrilled, and so she sort of sought me out. And I went to her house, and I must say on the phone, I said, we have something in common. She said, what is that? And I said, well, my son`s grandfather is Richard Harris. So that then started a whole lot more stories because of Richard Burton and Harris, and I went to her Easter party, and it was lovely. It was about 100 people there, none of whom I knew, except Shirley MacLaine and Debbie Reynolds, and all these incredible actresses. And I was sitting by the spa, as my son was nude in the spa, and Elizabeth came out and she sat on the chair beside me, and the whole party then surrounded us, and she started to compliment me and she asked me how much I enjoyed the show, and I did. And she said, I asked her, she said, what advice would you give me, Elizabeth? And she said, oh, just keep being authentic. Keep that authenticity.
BEHAR: Authentic.
WILSON: Yes. Authenticity.
BEHAR: Because that`s what she was.
WILSON: She was totally authentic.
BEHAR: Yes.
WILSON: And she loved that in people, and she loved that in me, and she really encouraged that. And then she asked to meet my son and I pulled my son out of the pool. And she had her dog there, who she loved, Sugar, and I introduced them, and in one moment she looked at Marlowe, and Marlowe smiled at her, and the next thing, he peed on her dog. I was absolutely mortified. And I looked at her in total horror. And she looked back at me, and she said, "I would expect nothing less than Richard Harris` grandson to be naked and pee on my dog."
BEHAR: That`s a funny story.
WILSON: It was very charming.
BEHAR: You know, Tony -- earlier Larry King referred to Liz as the last true movie star.
A.O. SCOTT, NEW YORK TIMES: Yes.
BEHAR: Do you -- you`re in the business, you`re a film critic.
SCOTT: Yes. I never peed on her dog, though.
BEHAR: No. That`s not what I heard.
SCOTT: Rumors to the contrary.
BEHAR: But do you think that`s true, was she the last true, big movie star?
SCOTT: I think -- I think she`s one of the last. What she really was she combined great acting talent and on-screen magnetism with a kind of celebrity, so that people not only knew who she was married to, and it took some keeping track of, but kind of cared and felt like they knew her. And she had a very warm way of connecting with people. I mean, I say this as someone who knew her only, you know, through the screen ...
BEHAR: Right. Right.
SCOTT: ... but some of that warmth and genuineness and sense of humor that both Angela and Peta were talking about, comes through in these performances.
WILSON: Right.
SCOTT: She was, as a young actress, extraordinarily beautiful, one of the most beautiful women ever to be on the American screen.
BEHAR: She was, yeah, she really was pretty.
SCOTT: If you look at a movie like "Place in the Sun,", I mean she is breathtaking. But she`s also tough, warm, smart, sexy.
BEHAR: Yes.
SCOTT: She has a lot of different very real human characteristics.
BEHAR: I see Angela Lansbury in a similar way, though, I do. Angela, I think of you as -- in a similar way, because I remember I was watching "Gaslight" the other night, Angela`s movie, with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, and Angela stood out like that. I mean, there aren`t that many left like Angela, like Elizabeth ...
SCOTT: Yes.
BEHAR: ... like Ingrid Bergman.
SCOTT: Yes.
BEHAR: You know, they`re good. I mean, you have your Meryl Streeps of the world, still, but it`s hard to find that caliber.
SCOTT: But that kind of large -- I mean it`s probably because the movies back then were ...
BEHAR: That`s true.
SCOTT: ... much more central to people`s entertainment, to the popular culture, to people`s imaginations.
BEHAR: Yes.
SCOTT: And they were -- and they were bigger. They were even physically bigger. They were, you know, you look at "Cleopatra," it`s in gigantic Technicolor and Cinemascope ...
BEHAR: Yes.
SCOTT: ... and you`re looking at Elizabeth` Taylor in one of those old movie houses, and, you know, her face is 40 feet tall.
BEHAR: Yes. They were big, I`m telling you, Angela -- Taylor met Richard Burton on the set of "Cleopatra", and they became famous as Liz and Dick. And how -- how big were they? Do you remember, Angela?
LANSBURY: Oh gosh, yes.
BEHAR: Tell me about it.
LANSBURY: Absolutely. I mean, the whole world just hung on the latest appearance together, you know. I remember. We were all chained to the, you know, to the (inaudible) sections of magazines and newspapers in those days. And some television, although television I don`t think was as prevalent as it is today. I just wanted to add one thing. What you must remember about Elizabeth--
BEHAR: Angela, Angela, just hold it for one minute because I have to take a break. I want to come back. We`ll start with that thought, OK? We`ll be right back, hang on.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: I`m back with my panel. We`re talking about Elizabeth Taylor, and Angela Lansbury was about to tell me something.
LANSBURY: I just wanted to say that Elizabeth was working during a period where there was some outstandingly great directors. And we must remember that directors are so often responsible for the performances of some of the great actresses. And she certainly got to work with the best. She worked with George Stevens, she worked with --
BEHAR: Who directed "Virginia Woolf?"
SCOTT: Mike Nichols.
LANSBURY: Yes.
BEHAR: Mike Nichols is the director`s actor.
LANSBURY: Mike Nichols directed "Virginia Woolf." But "A Place in the Sun," for instance, certainly was an example of an actress who really took a great deal from what George gave her. And I think her stillness and her ability to play very, very, very quietly was very evident in that movie, you know. And I think that we all benefited from those great directors like the Cukors and the Stevens and so on. And she was no exception.
BEHAR: Right. It is all about the director, isn`t it?
LANSBURY: Mike Nichols certainly did work wonderfully well with her in "Virginia Woolf." And I think that was one of her most outstanding performances.
BEHAR: Yes, it was.
LANSBURY: She gave up her beauty for that and looked like a harridan with the storm nest. We`ll never forget it.
BEHAR: No, we won`t, but she still looked good, even when she was a harridan.
SCOTT: Well, you could see it, even though she was this alcoholic monster married to another one, and their marriage was falling apart right before your eyes, you could see the beautiful woman that that guy, played by Richard Burton, George, had been attracted to in the first place. And it is a very, very difficult thing to do and a very subtle kind of acting, even though many of the scenes are far from subtle, to be both the ugliest and the most beautiful self of this person that you`re playing. It`s amazing, really.
BEHAR: I was reading that Angelina Jolie might be doing a remake of "Cleopatra." What do you know about that?
SCOTT: I don`t know anything about it.
BEHAR: Oh, you don`t?
SCOTT: Let`s see them when they come out.
BEHAR: Do you think Angela or, Tony, either one of you, they are -- we ask this question a lot, but are they the quintessential example of what Liz and Dick were?
SCOTT: It is so hard to draw a comparison because the world is so different and the celebrity culture is so different. As Angela was saying, there wasn`t as much television and it was the magazines and the newspapers. And even though there was gossip, it was often very controlled and managed by the studios and by the stars` handlers. Now we`re in the world of Internet and TMZ and everybody has too much information about everyone. So it is very hard. And I do think that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have tried to present themselves with some of that old-fashioned movie star grace and dignity.
BEHAR: She has the looks of an old-fashioned movie actress, I think. Angelina does. OK, thank you, everybody, very much for sharing. Thank you all for watching.
Good night, everybody.
END
