After ten years of marriage, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were divorced in June 1974. Their intense passion for each other had dissolved into drunken arguments, fights and tantrums. So when Taylor asked to meet her ex-husband, just over a year later, he was understandably trepidatious. 'What will it be like seeing her again? I'm a little scared…keep my fingers crossed,' he wrote in his diary.
A few days later, they announced their decision to remarry. The next month, they flew by Learjet to South Africa, where Taylor decided she had lung cancer. 'I had about 12 hours to contemplate death,' she said later. Taylor was just 17, a sacrificial virgin, when she first got engaged. Her hotel chain heir had a 64-room mansion in Bel Air, with five kitchens, gold silk walls and 26 lavatories with gold taps
If Taylor's eight marriages broke up like meringues, it is because the chief difficulty she had with men is that they were romantic projections, willed into existence on her terms. She'd been just 17, a sacrificial virgin, when she first got engaged. Her hotel chain heir had a 64-room mansion in Bel Air, with five kitchens, gold silk walls and 26 lavatories with gold taps.
On their honeymoon in Europe, Hilton drank, gambled and beat up his 18-year-old bride. In Rome, she told a friend her marriage was a cruel farce. She was wearing long sleeves to conceal her bruises. Michael Wilding was the typical English gentleman, shy and distant in manner and an actor in the style of David Niven.
Her new husband expected her to be domesticated and was astounded at her incompetence. 'Elizabeth has very little of the housewife in her,' he said incredulously. 'Forgets to order dinner. Elizabeth couldn't even fry eggs. She can't cook and shows no sign of trying to learn. 'You'd better watch out,' these old soaks warned him, 'or you'll be known as Mr Elizabeth Taylor.' He didn't really rise even to that level of attainment. Wilding just sat there, 'watching my career turn to ashes'. Which it certainly did.
Almost immediately, he presented her with jewels, roses, Impressionist paintings, even a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. Soon he was flying her to Chicago and Atlantic City for dirty weekends.He allowed Taylor to file for divorce in November 1956, citing 'extreme mental cruelty'. 'Mike's courtship hit me like a tornado,' gasped Taylor. His proposal was novel: 'From now on, you'll f*** nobody but me'.
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