The July issue of Vanity Fair has what has got to be its most gorgeous cover’s ever: Elizabeth Taylor in her late 20s in a white bikini in the surf.

Inside, we are treated to excerpts from the upcoming book, Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century. The couple famously fell in love on the set of Cleopatra even though they were married to other people at the time.

They starred in many movies together and married and divorced each other twice over a span of 12 years. Burton died in 1984. In a 1997 interview with Barbara Walters, Miss Taylor remarked that she believes they would have gotten together again – even though he was married to someone else when he died.

Now we know why: When she returned to her Bel Air home after Burton’s memorial service in London, there was a letter waiting to her from her great love that had been mailed three days before his death on Aug. 5, 1984.

She unfolded the letter and read it with trembling hands. He wrote to Elizabeth that he was not unhappy, but he had been happiest with her. No one else could know what their lives had been together. Was it possible? Could there be another chance? For him? For them?

That is among the tidbits in the July issue of Vanity Fair which contributing editor Sam Kashner and co-author Nancy Schoenberger trace the arc of this epic, turbulent love affair, which appropriately began on the set of Cleopatra—a story about another romance for the ages, and one of the most expensive films ever made—and ended spectacularly with jealousy, anger, and divorce, despite the fact that Taylor and Burton never really fell out of love.

Highlights from the excerpt include:

• Taylor and Burton’s icy first encounter, on a balmy day at a star-studded Los Angeles pool party, and subsequent flirtation on the set of Cleopatra 10 years later, where director Joe Mankiewicz found it nearly impossible to break up their on-screen kiss well after the take had ended.

• Their scandalous on-set affair and surprise wedding in Montreal, where they were hounded by paparazzi, and the turmoil they went through while divorcing their respective spouses.

• The jewelry, artwork, and gifts that Burton lavished on Taylor as they took in millions of dollars from their films, including the 33.19-carat Krupp diamond, the 69.42-carat Cartier diamond, now known as the Taylor-Burton diamond, and paintings by Monet, Picasso, van Gogh, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, and Rembrandt.

• Their powerful film interpretation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and string of other collaborations, including Boom! and Divorce His, Divorce Hers.

• Burton’s outpouring of grief and longing in letters to Taylor as their relationship became strained by alcoholism and their frequent altercations.

• A description of the heartbreaking final letter that Burton wrote to Taylor just before his sudden death. She counts it as her most treasured possession and keeps it by her bed at all times.

Miss Taylor shared some love letters with the author. In one of them Burton wrote: “You must know, of course, how much I love you. You must know, of course, how badly I treat you. But the fundamental and most vicious, swinish, murderous, and unchangeable fact is that we totally misunderstand each other … we operate on alien wave­lengths. You are as distant as Venus–planet, I mean–and I am tone-deaf to the music of the spheres. But how-so-be-it nevertheless. (A cliché among Welsh politicians.) I love you and I always will. Come back to me as soon as you can … ”

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One Remark

1. June 2nd, 2010 at 9:49 pm
   2201 East says:

   I heard someone comparing Pitt/Jolie with the Burtons. No comparison whatsoever; with Elizabeth and Richard there were fireworks the world over! When those two were around there were no doubts-never!