Elizabeth Taylor-Adult Roles

 

Unlike some other child actors, Taylor made an easy transition to adult roles.

 

Before “Conspirator” was released in 1949, a TIME cover article called her "a jewel of great price, a true star sapphire", and the leader among Hollywood's next generation of stars such as Montgomery Clift, Kirk Douglas, and Ava Gardner.

 

The petite Taylor had the figure of a mature woman, with a 19" waist. “Conspirator” failed at the box office, but Taylor's portrayal of a 21-year-old debutante who unknowingly marries a communist spy played by 38-year-old Robert Taylor, was praised by critics for her first adult lead in a film.

 

Taylor's first picture under her new salary of $2,000 per week was “The Big Hangover”.  It was a critical and box office failure. The picture also failed to present Taylor with an opportunity to exhibit her newly realized sensuality.

 

Her first box office success in an adult role came as Kay Banks in the comedy “Father of the Bride”  with Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett.

 

The film spawned a sequel, “Father's Little Dividend”, which Taylor's costar Spencer Tracy summarized with "boring… boring… boring". The film did well at the box office.

 

Taylor had begun filming George Stevens' “A Place in the Sun”. Upon its release in 1951, Taylor was hailed for her performance as Angela Vickers, a spoiled socialite who comes between George Eastman (Clift) and his poor, pregnant factory-working girlfriend Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters). The film, based on Theodore Dreiser's novel, “An American Tragedy”, was an indictment of "the American dream" and its corrupting influences, notes biographer Kitty Kelley.

 

Taylor was unaware of the psychological implications of the story and its powerful nuances, it became the pivotal performance of Taylor's career. Kelley explains that Stevens, its director, knew that with Elizabeth Taylor as the young and beautiful star, the "audience would understand why George Eastman (Clift) would kill for a place in the sun with her."

 

Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, allowed on the set to watch the filming, became "wide-eyed watching the little girl from National Velvet seduce Montgomery Clift in front of the camera," writes Kelley. When the scene was over, Hopper went to her, "Elizabeth, where on earth did you ever learn how to make love like that?"

 

Critics acclaimed the film as a classic, a reputation it sustained throughout the next 50 years of cinema history. The New York Times' A.H. Weiler wrote, "Elizabeth's delineation of the rich and beauteous Angela is the top effort of her career", and the Boxoffice reviewer unequivocally stated "Miss Taylor deserves an Academy Award".

 

With Paul Newman in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof “

Taylor became increasingly unsatisfied with the roles being offered to her at the time. While she wanted to play the lead roles in “The Barefoot Contessa” and “I'll Cry Tomorrow”.

 

MGM continued to restrict her to mindless and somewhat forgettable films such as: a cameo as herself in “Callaway Went Thataway”, “Love Is Better Than Ever”, “Ivanhoe”, “The Girl Who Had Everything”, and “Beau Brummel”.

 

Taylor's next screen endeavor, “Rhapsody”, another tedious romantic drama.

 

Taylor portrayed Louise Durant, a beautiful rich girl in love with a temperamental violinist (Vittorio Gassman) and an earnest young pianist (John Ericson). A film critic for the New York Herald Tribune wrote: "There is beauty in the picture all right, with Miss Taylor glowing into the camera from every angle… but the dramatic pretenses are weak, despite the lofty sentences and handsome manikin poses."

 

Taylor's fourth period picture, “Beau Brummell”, cast her as the elaborately costumed Lady Patricia, which many felt was only a screen prop—a ravishing beauty whose sole purpose was to lend romantic support to the film's title star, Stewart Granger.

 

“The Last Time I Saw Paris” fared only slightly better than her previous pictures, with Taylor being reunited with “The Big Hangover” costar Van Johnson. The role of Helen Ellsworth Willis was based on that of Zelda Fitzgerald and, although pregnant with her second child, Taylor went ahead with the film, her fourth in 12 months. Although proving somewhat successful at the box office, she still yearned for more.