Actress - Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly Last Summer, 1959 - postcard

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• Picture / Image:  Elizabeth Taylor in 'Suddenly Last Summer', 1959 - from 'Made in Holywood, Photograph from the John Kobal Foundation Archive, Santa Barbara Museum of Art
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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Dame Elizabeth Rosemond ""Liz"" Taylor, DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American^[2] actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. As one of the world's most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty, and distinctive violet eyes.

National Velvet (1944) was Taylor's first success, and she starred in Father of the Bride(1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1958), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for BUtterfield 8 (1960), played the title role in Cleopatra (1963), and married her costar Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), for which Taylor won a second Academy Award. From the mid-1970s, she appeared less frequently in film, and made occasional appearances in television and theatre.

Her much-publicized personal life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. From the mid-1980s, Taylor championed HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, who named her seventh on their list of the ""Greatest American Screen Legends"". Taylor died of congestive heart failurein March 2011 at the age of 79, having suffered many years of ill health.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born at Heathwood, her parents' home at 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb,^[3][4][5] a northwestern suburb of London; the younger of two children of Francis Lenn Taylor (1897–1968) and Sara Sothern (née Sara Viola Warmbrodt;^[6] 1895–1994), who were Americans residing in England. Taylor's older brother, Howard Taylor, was born in 1929.^[7] Her parents were originally from Arkansas City, Kansas. Francis Taylor was an art dealer, and Sara was a former actress whose stage name was ""Sara Sothern"". Sothern retired from the stage in 1926 when she married Francis in New York City. Taylor's two first names are in honor of her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Mary (Rosemond) Taylor.

Colonel Victor Cazalet, one of their closest friends, had an important influence on the family. He was a rich, well-connected bachelor, a Member of Parliament and close friend of Winston Churchill. Cazalet loved both art and theatre and was passionate when encouraging the Taylor family to think of England as their permanent home. Additionally, as a Christian Scientist and lay preacher, his links with the family were spiritual. He also became Elizabeth's godfather. In one instance, when she was suffering with a severe infection as a child, she was kept in her bed for weeks. She ""begged"" for his company: ""Mother, please call Victor and ask him to come and sit with me.""^[8]:14

Biographer Alexander Walker suggests that Elizabeth's conversion to Judaism at the age of 27 and her lifelong support for Israel, may have been influenced by views she heard at home. Walker notes that Cazalet actively campaigned for a Jewish homeland, and her mother also worked in various charities, which included sponsoring fundraisers for Zionism. Her mother recalls the influence that Cazalet had on Elizabeth:

Victor sat on the bed and held Elizabeth in his arms and talked to her about God. Her great dark eyes searched his face, drinking in every word, believing and understanding.^[8]:14

A dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States, she was born British through her birth on British soil and an American citizen through her parents. In October 1965, she signed an oath of renunciation at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, but with the phrase ""abjure all allegiance and fidelity to the United States"" struck out; U.S. State Department officials declared that her renunciation was invalid due to the alteration. Taylor signed another oath without the alteration in October 1966.^[9]She applied for U.S. citizenship again in 1977 during then-husband John Warner's Senate campaign.^[10][11]

At the age of three, Taylor began taking ballet lessons. Shortly before the beginning of World War II, her parents decided to return to the United States to avoid hostilities. Her mother took the children first, arriving in New York in April 1939,^[12] while her father remained in London to wrap up matters in his art business, arriving in November.^[13] They settled in Los Angeles, California, where her father established a new art gallery, which included many paintings he shipped from England. The gallery soon attracted numerous Hollywood celebrities who appreciated its modern European paintings. According to Walker, the gallery ""opened many doors for the Taylors, leading them directly into the society of money and prestige"" within Hollywood's movie colony.^[8]:27

Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 American Southern Gothic mystery film based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams. The film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Sam Spiegel from a screenplay by Gore Vidal (though Williams was officially given credit) with cinematography by Jack Hildyard and production design by Oliver Messel. The musical score was composed by Buxton Orr using themes by Malcolm Arnold.

The plot centers on a young woman who, at the insistence of her wealthy New Orleans aunt, is being evaluated by a psychiatric doctor to receive a lobotomy after witnessing the death of her cousin, Sebastian Venable, while traveling with him in Spain the previous summer.

The film stars Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, and Montgomery Clift with Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge, and Gary Raymond.

New Orleans, 1937: Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor) is a young woman institutionalized for a severe emotional disturbance that occurred when her cousin, Sebastian Venable, died under questionable circumstances while they were on summer holiday in Europe. The late Sebastian's wealthy mother, Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn), makes every effort to deny and suppress the potentially sordid truth about her son and his demise. Toward that end, she attempts to bribe the state hospital's administrator, Dr. Lawrence Hockstader (Albert Dekker), by offering to finance a new wing for the underfunded facility if he will coerce his brilliant young surgeon, Dr. John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift), into lobotomizing her niece, thereby removing any chance that the events surrounding her son's death might be revealed by Catherine's ""obscene babbling"".

Mrs. Venable meets with Dr. Cukrowicz in the primordial garden (""like the dawn of creation"") at her estate to discuss her niece's case, and their conversation eventually turns to Sebastian. Mrs. Venable describes him as a poet whose art was his sole occupation – even though he only wrote a single poem each year during the summer months and never published his work – and recounts her own previous vacations with him. Cukrowicz agrees to visit Catherine and begin his evaluation. Catherine has been confined to a private women's mental institution since returning from Europe several months earlier. When Cukrowicz interviews her, she struggles to recall the specific events that led to Sebastian's death and her subsequent breakdown, but expresses a sincere desire to do so.

Beginning to doubt that she has lost her mind, Cukrowicz decides to move Catherine into the state hospital for continued observation. Catherine's mother, Grace (Mercedes McCambridge), and brother, George (Gary Raymond), pay her a visit there and reveal that Sebastian has left them a considerable sum of money. Unfortunately, Mrs. Venable will not give them the inheritance unless they sign papers to commit Catherine to the institution and allow a lobotomy to be performed. Alarmed by this prospect, Catherine tries to escape. She accidentally wanders onto a catwalk suspended over the men's recreational area. With the door at the other end of the catwalk locked, she is forced to fight her way back past the men who are trying to climb up onto the catwalk and grope her, and returns to her room in defeat.

Later, Mrs. Venable drops by to check on the status of Cukrowicz's evaluation. The doctor persuades her to meet Catherine face to face. In the ensuing confrontation, Catherine tries to get her aunt to reveal the true nature of her relationship with Sebastian and the reason why she was left behind and Catherine chosen to take her place as his traveling companion, vaguely hinting that Sebastian used them as ""bait"" and that they ""procured for him"". Mrs. Venable responds to these allegations by fainting. Using this opportunity to slip away, Catherine finds another catwalk that runs above a room filled with women. She climbs the railing and leans out precipitously, considering the jump, but before she can release her hold, an orderly, (David Cameron), comes up behind her, drags her back to her room and sedates her.

In a last-ditch effort to help Catherine, Cukrowicz brings her to the Venable estate where he administers a truth serum that will allow her to overcome any resistance to remembering what happened that summer. Before an audience consisting of her aunt, mother and brother, Miss Foxhill (Mavis Villiers), Dr. Hockstader, and Nurse Benson (Patricia Marmont), all of whom have gathered on the patio in the jungle-like garden, Cukrowicz begins questioning Catherine. She recalls how she and Sebastian spent their days on the beach in the Spanish town of Cabeza de Lobo. On one occasion, he drags her reluctantly into the water, causing the fabric of her white bathing suit to become transparent. A group of young men who had been watching her from the neighboring public beach start to approach but are intercepted by Sebastian. Catherine comes to realize that he is using her to attract these boys in order to proposition them for sex. Since the boys are desperate for money, Sebastian is successful in his efforts; however, he gradually becomes ""fed up with the dark ones"" and, being ""famished for blondes"", makes plans to depart for the northern countries. One scorching white-hot day, Sebastian and Catherine are beset by a team of boys begging for money. When Sebastian rejects them, they take up pursuit through the streets of the town. Sebastian attempts to flee, but the boys swarm around him at every turn. He is finally cornered among the ruins of a temple on a hilltop. In the meantime, Catherine has been frantically trying to catch up with Sebastian, but she reaches him only to see him overwhelmed at last by the boys. To her horror and revulsion, they begin to tear him apart and eat his flesh. She screams for help, to no avail.

At this point in telling her astonishing account of Sebastian's demise, Catherine has collapsed upon the ground, sobbing. Her mind undone by the shock of hearing Catherine's tale, Mrs. Venable closes Sebastian's last book of poems, the pages of which are blank, then slowly rises from her seat and takes Cukrowicz's arm. Calling him ""Sebastian"", she tells him not to be out in the sun for too long and that they should go inside the boat and inform the captain that they want to leave. Mrs. Venable is led away and Cukrowicz returns to check on Catherine, who has recovered. They both walk into the house together.

Suddenly, Last Summer is based on a one-act play by Tennessee Williams that was originally paired with Something Unspoken as part of the 1958 off-Broadway double-bill, Garden District.^[2] The work was adapted for the screen by Gore Vidal; though Williams also received credit, he would later say that he had nothing to do with the film.^[2] Vidal attempted to construct the narrative as a small number of very long scenes, echoing the structure of the play.^[3]

Following A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Suddenly, Last Summer was the third of Williams' plays to be adapted for the screen that dealt with the subject of homosexuality, although it was far more explicit in its treatment than either of the previous films were allowed to be under the Motion Picture Production Code.^[4] Working in conjunction with the National Legion of Decency, the Production Code Administration gave the filmmakers special dispensation to depict Sebastian Venable, declaring, ""Since the film illustrates the horrors of such a lifestyle, it can be considered moral in theme even though it deals with sexual perversion.""^[2] Publicity stills of Sebastian were shot – showing him as a handsome, if drawn, man in a white suit – but his face is never actually seen in the released film. Williams asserted that no actor could convincingly portray Sebastian and that his absence from the screen would only make his presence more strongly felt.^[5]

Elizabeth Taylor selected Suddenly, Last Summer as her first project after having recently ended her contractual commitment to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the time, she was the biggest box office draw in Hollywood, and she used that power to insist that Montgomery Clift be hired for the film.^[6] As a result of a May 1956 car crash near the home of Taylor and her then-husband Michael Wilding, Clift had become heavily dependent on drugs and alcohol. When he was unable to find a doctor willing to attest to his insurability, producer Sam Spiegel approved his casting and went ahead with filming anyway.^[7]

Clift found the long scenes exhausting and had to have his longest scene shot in multiple takes, one or two lines at a time. His shaky performance led director Joseph Mankiewicz to ask Spiegel several times to replace the actor.^[3] Most of the crew were sympathetic toward Clift,^[8] but Katharine Hepburn was especially resentful of the poor treatment to which Mankiewicz subjected him. Indeed, Hepburn found Mankiewicz's conduct so unforgivable that as soon as he called the final ""cut"" of the film, she asked him to confirm that her services were no longer required, and when he did, she spat in his face.^[9] Sources differ as to whether she also spat in Sam Spiegel's face.^[10]

Problems beset the film's musical score, as well. Malcolm Arnold was originally retained to work on it, but he apparently found certain aspects of the story so disturbing that he withdrew from the project after composing only the main themes. Buxton Orr was brought in to complete the score.^[11]

Taylor, following her final monologue wherein she describes Sebastian's murder, burst into tears and could not be consoled: using Method acting techniques, she had tapped into her grief over the 1958 death of her third husband, Mike Todd.^[12]

Production on Suddenly, Last Summer took place between May and September 1959.^[13] Interior scenes were shot at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England. The ""Cabeza de Lobo"" sequence was filmed at Majorca in the Balearic Islands and at Begur, Castell-Platja d'Aro, Costa Brava, and S'Agaró in Girona, Catalonia, Spain.^[14]

Several people involved with Suddenly, Last Summer later went on to denounce the film. Despite being credited for the screenplay, Tennessee Williams denied having any part in writing it. He thought Elizabeth Taylor was miscast as Catherine, telling Life magazine in 1961, ""It stretched my credulity to believe such a 'hip' doll as our Liz wouldn't know at once in the film that she was 'being used for something evil'.""^[15] Williams also told The Village Voice in 1973 that Suddenly, Last Summer went too far afield from his original play and ""made [him] throw up"".^[16] Gore Vidal criticized the ending which had been altered by director Joseph Mankiewicz, adding, ""We were also not helped by ... those overweight ushers from the Roxy Theatre on Fire Island pretending to be small ravenous boys.""^[17] Mankiewicz himself blamed the source material, describing the play as ""badly constructed ... based on the most elementary Freudian psychology.""^[18]

type=printed postcards

theme=people

sub-theme=actresses

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted