Lunch Break Video: Elizabeth Taylor did more than eat during her marriage to Sen. John Warner

Shortly after her second divorce from Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor’s movie star life took an interesting turn: she met the handsome former Secretary of the Navy John Warner at a White House state dinner in the summer of 1976.

By the end of the year, she had made him her seventh husband (if you count Burton twice).

The early years of the marriage seemed to be exciting as Taylor campaigned tirelessly for Warner to be elected to the United States Senate where he would go on to serve for 30 years. Already battling her weight as she reached her mid-40s, the two-time Oscar winner packed on the pounds on the campaign trail.

Then after Warner was elected, he became a workaholic and Taylor became very bored at their Virginia farm. So she ate, and ate, and ate. Still, she did manage to film a television movie in 1978 called Return Engagement which is notable in that it is the only film in her long career that captures her extreme weight gain. She had slimmed down a bit for her return to the big screen in 1980’s The Mirror Crack’d.

In Engagement, Miss Taylor plays a professor of ancient history at a small California college with a secret past who reluctantly agrees to rent a room in her house to one of the new students played by the hunky Joseph Bottoms.

Here is a scene from the movie which I have not seen since its original airing all those years ago: