Elizabeth and Monty

April 15, 2021
In Hollywood during the 1940s and '50s, there were no more physically beautiful stars than Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, and when the two appeared onscreen together, the effect was electrifying. A potential comeliness competition could have torpedoed lesser relationships, but Clift and Taylor established a friendship that defied expectations. For the oft-married Taylor, their friendship could have, should have, gone beyond such platonic confines. Clift, however, was gay, one of Hollywood's less-well-kept secrets at a time when homosexuality was anathema. A combination of alcohol and drug addictions and the stress of sexual secrecy eventually led to a life of dissipation for Clift, while Taylor's predatory romantic escapades only enhanced her mystique. Film industry biographer and novelist Casillo (Marilyn Monroe, 2018) traces the professional and personal triumphs and tragedies of two Hollywood icons, focusing as much on their private peccadilloes as on their career-defining and, in Clift's case, career-destroying roles. Tinseltown was a different sort of town when Elizabeth and Monty were making their marks, and the pressures they felt to conform to society's image of stardom exacted devastating tolls.

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April 2, 2021

Casillo (The Fame Game) explores the seemingly unlikely friendship between stars Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, often called "the most beautiful couple in cinema history." When they met, Taylor was 17, a product of the studio star system since she was a little girl, and though she was a talented performer, she was known more for her beauty than her acting. Clift was 31 and a serious Broadway stage actor. When they starred in A Place in the Sun, they found they had much in common, most notably their overbearing mothers. Not realizing that Clift was gay, Taylor fell in love with him but eventually settled for a long and enduring friendship until Clift's death at 45, caused by his alcohol addiction and exacerbated by a car accident that shattered his face. Casillo covers both stars' careers, but it's their personal lives that take precedence here. Celebrity-watchers might already know some of these facts about Taylor's and Clift's lives, and readers might wish that Casillo had been clearer about the line between reality and the invented dialogue and dramatized events that he drew from interviews. Nevertheless, they'll still be absorbed by this book, which has the feel of a novel. VERDICT A well-researched work that will appeal to readers who like their celebrity biographies juicy.--Rosellen Brewer, Sno-Isle Libs., Marysville, WA

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