Perfectly ‘Liz’
Taylor-Burton story is just as juicy now as it was then
Can you do better than to hire a troubled star, hounded by the paparazzi to play a troubled star who was hounded by the paparazzi?
Probably, but why bother when you’ve got a ringer in the wings who’s already in character?
I’m talking about the casting of Lifetime’s much-hyped movie, “Liz & Dick” airing the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
The film is, of course, about the world’s first paparazzi couple, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, and stars Lindsay “My Name is Trouble” Lohan as La Liz and Aussie Grant Bowler as Welshy boozer Burton.
The story unfolds during a supposed Liz and Dick TV interview post-second-divorce.
Yes, the couple did, in fact, do a “60 Minutes” interview, and much is taken from that. However, they were still married at the time of that interview.
The episodes in their lives are brought to life as the couple looks back on their insanely passionate, wildly scandalous (the Pope even denounced them), vicious real-life “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” coupling.
And it all begins on the set of “Cleopatra,” where they hated each other immediately. A week later, they couldn’t get enough of one another and were running off to rock their trailers between takes.
Lohan, in character as Taylor, is often so believable you might think you’re seeing the real thing, but then every once in a while she’ll backslide and deliver lines that sound DOA.
Not her fault, since Liz’s words in real life were often affected and hammy.
Not that she had anything on her egomaniacal ham of a husband when it came to words.
Bowler has Burton’s words and voice down pat, but are they kidding with that rug? It looks like he’s wearing a yak on his head.
That being said, there are so many things in this movie that are just so damned juicy that it is sure is more fun to watch than the exploits of today’s orchestrated star pairings.
Everything that Taylor-Burton did was gigantic, from making big bombolas like “Cleopatra,” to getting into a vicious public argument at the premiere of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” while their alter-egos were simultaneously fighting up on the screen.
Both were married when they met — she to singer Eddie Fisher, he to an actress, Sybil Burton.
His handler was his beloved brother, Ifor (David Hunt), hers, her mother, Sara (Theresa Russell). But no one could ever handle either of them very well.
We learn that Liz was 29 when they met, Dick six years her senior. They were married the first time for 12 years, during which they made 40 films. Problem was she won two Oscars and he won none.
It’s all here, the glamour, the fights, the boozing, the obsessiveness and even how she cheated on him with Aristotle Onassis in front of the press, to make him jealous.
She was more conscious of her image than he was. After a tabloid declared her, “Cleo-Fat-Ra” and ex- Fisher did a skit, “Cleo, Nympho of the Nile,” she hired a personal paparazzo to shoot glamorous “candid” pictures of her to release to the papers.
Between fights and suicide attempts on her part, Dick bought her a 68-carat diamond, and she bought him a van Gogh. He called her fat, she called him pockmarked.
Exaggerated? Maybe. But really, it’s almost impossible to top the exaggeration that was real life La Liz and her Dick.
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainmen...SWJNlWZjR2KVFO
A trueful, unbiased review.
