His voice. His voice had been his most characteristic feature. It was the gift he’d been born with that had, among other things, ultimately purchased his celebrity for him. And when you combined that gift with his charm and boyish good looks, a trifecta of appeal emerged—erotic and otherwise—that made him, for a short but intense period of time, irresistible to essentially any woman. Well, okay, perhaps not any woman, but he had had that reputation—certainly during the ’50s and ’60s—of being able to bed a hearty selection of some of the most beautiful women in the world and doing this not only during his prime but also theirs.
Sure, he was still having sex with his (and a few other men’s) share of very attractive women in the ’70s and ’80s, but their quality—if not their quantity—may have gone ever so slightly down a notch. Let’s face it, his allure for the opposite sex had taken the standard beating that all of us endure over time—not only for the opposite sex, but the same sex and everything in between. My father not only had to contend with his somewhat diminishing physical attractions, but in addition he’d developed something of an awkward reputation over time when it came to women. Though many of them were still drawn to him as a result of the gravitational pull of his original appeal and abilities, perhaps more often now, though, a woman might be drawn to him so that she might have something in common with Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor—considered by oh so many to be one of the most beautiful women of her/their/all time—who had married my father.
It had been early on in my conspicuous existence that I’d developed a habit—some might even suggest a defensive one—of mocking my family’s tendency to generate public scandal and its attendant absurd behavior. This mocking, though it originally began in what might laughingly be referred to as my “private life,” eventually spilled over into the much more public arena. Over time I had begun to be known as someone who could be counted on to be amusing when presenting an award, giving a speech, or hosting the odd event. These speeches quite frequently included references to my infamous family. And as it turned out, one of these events—an AIDS-related fund-raiser in Los Angeles chaired by my onetime stepmother, Elizabeth—happened to be an event that I’d agreed to host.
I’d spent quite a bit of my public life fielding questions about Elizabeth and how I felt about her now. Did I know her at all? Did I forgive her? And perhaps even more to the point, did my mother forgive her? For that matter, did anyone forgive my father?
The truth was, up until that point I didn’t really know Elizabeth at all. I think that I may have met her once at the Beverly Hills Hotel while she was still technically however briefly my stepmother, and then we crossed paths many years later in London, when she was once again married to Richard Burton. This meeting had taken place because my childhood friend Gavin de Becker was in their employ in some security-related capacity. Needless to say this reunion was more of the uneventful variety than our awkward overlap during my infancy, although it was not entirely devoid of discomfort. Following that, I don’t recall our crossing paths in any significant way until this AIDS fund-raiser.
On the day of the event, a bouquet of flowers was delivered to me at my home. This beautiful and quite enormous arrangement turned out to be from Elizabeth, and it even included a personal note signed by her, though it had quite clearly been dictated and sent to anyone and everyone connected to the imminent evening. It was nonetheless a very nice thank-you note, which I quite heartlessly used as part of my speech that night.
Yes, there I was at the podium, facing a sea of gleefully Western-clad gay men and friends and fans of gay men. (It was, inexplicably, a cowboy-themed evening.)
So, assuming the air of incredibly quiet dignity that was made possible by my not being decked out in cowboy gear, I strode up to the microphone and introduced myself to what might as well been the cast of Oklahoma! before launching into my ironic familial tale.
“Today a beautiful bouquet of flowers arrived at my doorstep—flowers that actually turned out to be from my onetime stepmother, Elizabeth Taylor. Upon seeing Ms. Taylor’s signature at the bottom, I read the attendant card with some excitement. I knew that it was more than likely the long-awaited apology for having stolen my father from me all those years ago, and so, clutching the little blue card in my hand, I ran back to my bedroom and, closing the door, I sat on the edge of my bed near my phone, lest it become necessary for me to call my psychiatrist after having absorbed Elizabeth’s emotional and contrite communiqué. So, I carefully opened the little envelope and, my heart pounding excitedly, I began to read. ‘Dear Carrie,’ the note began, ‘thank you so much for your participation in tonight’s important event and for joining me in this extraordinarily important fight against AIDS. Yours sincerely, Elizabeth.’ Okay, perhaps the note hadn’t directly addressed the long-ago theft of my dad, but I could read an apology between the lines if I wanted to.” Well, as I hope you can imagine, my remarks caused the audience of gay cowboys to enthusiastically cry and laugh. Many later observed that most everyone in the room was laughing hysterically—everyone that is, with the exception of Elizabeth. But then, that might in part have been because she wasn’t there.
It was mid-morning on the following day that Elizabeth’s assistant Tim phoned to invite me to her house that Sunday for her annual Easter Party. “There’ll be an egg hunt and brunch and swimming for the kids,” he informed me gaily. “Oh, so then I can bring my daughter?” I asked him. Billie was about to turn six at the time. “Of course!” he cheered.
I spent the ensuing six days assembling the perfect Elizabeth egg hunt outfit.
So the following Sunday, I found myself poolside at Elizabeth’s elegant ranch home, tucked humbly into a hillside crowded with trees in the area of town referred to as the Beverly Hills. I sat in a chair near the pool and watched while Billie splashed around with the assortment of other favored children in attendance. After about half an hour or so, Elizabeth appeared in the open sliding-glass doorway wearing a colorful, age-defying dress draping over her somewhat ample iconic form. Looking every inch the aging movie star that she was—hair arranged perfectly and makeup just so—she paused, drawing any and all eyes to her as she made her way to one of the chairs situated under the umbrella near the shallow end of the pool that Billie frolicked in.
Naturally, her hair dresser José made his way confidently toward her, handing her a plate full of canapés, his cowboy hat poised atop the head that was known by many for the golden braid that made its way down to his ornate belt and belt buckle.
I stood at the pool’s edge clad in my usual black attire—worn for the rumored magically flattering effect it had on the chubbier body. (Though I was much thinner at this stage, I nonetheless imagined I was the portly person I eventually became.) Sitting in the shade drinking chilled glasses of iced tea, Elizabeth squinted through the sunshine, studying me.
“I hear there’s something we need to discuss,” she ventured, tilting her head to one side. I shrugged and approached her, nervously smiling a smile that I hoped appeared more confident than I felt.
“Not really,” I assured her, pushing my hair away from my eyes. “It just… well, I heard at some point that you had said something not all that great about my mom at a dinner party recently and I didn’t think that that was…” I searched almost my entire head for the right word, finally coming up with “polite.” As she blinked, looking past me toward the lawn opposite, I continued. “Someone told me you called my mother a Goody Two-shoes at this dinner party recently. And… And, I, uh… I just didn’t think it was all that appropriate. I mean, among other things it’s not accurate, you know? I mean, there had been a point where she might have shied away from swearing, but for many years now she’s been cursing like a sailor.”