'MGM taught me how to be a star more than forty years ago, and I have never really known how to be anything else'
Elizabeth Taylor was the last truly great star to emerge from the Hollywood studio system, and it is hard to imagine any actress ever matching her fame at the height of Cleopatra. Yet, for all the attention she has received, this was the first book to explore Taylor first and foremost as an actress rather than as a glamorous celebrity or half of a legendary couple. Sheridan Morley traces her development from child roles in the 1940s and romantic dramas of the 1950s to the astonishing creative run between 1956 and 1960, when she made Giant, Raintree County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer and Butterfield 8, earning her long-awaited Oscar. He also examines the Cleopatra debacle, her literary collaborations with Richard Burton, including The Taming of the Shrew and Under Milk Wood, and her later success on television. While Morley addresses the turbulence of her private life, he shows how it shaped and deepened her performances. Loss and resilience defined Taylor's life, yet she always returned to the screen with renewed power and determination.
