The Globe and Mail

Also reviewed here: How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, by William J. Mann

No matter the laws of physics, not all stars follow the same arc. Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor were more or less contemporaries, and rivals on the screen. Taylor was only six years younger than Monroe, though that strikes us oddly because Taylor always seemed senior, classier and more in control of herself. At just about the same time, and from the same studio, Fox, Marilyn was given $100,000 to make Something's Got to Give (it remained unfinished) while Taylor was receiving $1-million to be Cleopatra (the epic that helped destroy the system). Where did that vast difference come from?

Marilyn's picture foundered because of her illnesses, her lateness, her inability to be there to be photographed, and on Aug. 5, 1962, she was found in her own bed, alone and dead. That was one shock. Another was that her will produced only a few thousand dollars – there was not enough to continue the hospital care for her deranged mother. But 50 years later, the estate of Marilyn Monroe raises revenue of about $8-million a year from the use of her name and image.

Elizabeth Taylor is not dead (quickly – did you know that without having to ponder the question?). She is more or less rich, because she always was and because she has taken care of herself. That's how she beat death and disaster so often. But is the public aware of her, or interested, as it manages to be still in the dysfunctional ghostliness of Marilyn? Survival and longevity are admirable things, and Taylor now is 77, the burier of several husbands, the hope of charities, the light of jewellers' dreams. But she is no longer “Liz,” while Marilyn is exactly that one-word melodious refrain.

Approaching this task, I found it hard to believe we really need more books about these far-fetched lives. At the outset, I was more interested in the Taylor book because William Mann's previous work was Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, a masterly piece of research and writing that cut through some white lies and half-truths to make a plausible and touching portrait of a very tricky life. On the other hand, Randy Taraborrelli has the track record of a hack biographer so full of chutzpah that he can consider delivering the “secret” life of a wretched woman whose life and death have already been ground down to make so much stale bread.

So I should admit straightaway that I was wrong. The Mann book is a disappointment, even if it is the more intelligent and the better written. Something has disconcerted Mann in making a complete survey of Taylor's life. His real problem, I think, is that Taylor has been quiet for too long. She hasn't made a movie for more than 15 years. She lives (with difficulty maybe – but her health was always volatile, just as her will to live was awesome) in a retirement no more interesting than the pensioned years of a great sportsman. (Incidentally, that's why Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio had no chemistry – Joe's career was over and he didn't have it in him to be Marilyn's sour spectator. He wanted her to retire too!)

For some reason, Mann has elected to drop Taylor's childhood – in London, in an awkward but privileged family situation – to balance the lack of her final years. But then you find out that he omits some of the working life as well. I can see why. You need patience to go with Miss Taylor every day of every year as she makes one bad film after another while buying a series of outrageous diamonds.

Still, there's a worrying feeling in How to Be a Movie Star of the author abdicating from his assignment. I should add that Mann is as good as anyone I've read on Mike Todd (husband #3) and he makes a real character out of gossip-writer Hedda Hopper (because he has had access to her papers).