Elizabeth Taylor’s drug-addicted lifestyle was so dirty that she contracted Malta fever from her dogs: book

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by Nikki Justin

When Elizabeth Taylor was the biggest movie star in the world, she was also one of the messiest. Things were so bad that she lived in filth and even got sick from it, according to a new book.

In 1958, Taylor starred in 20th Century Fox’s Cleopatra, becoming the first movie star to earn $1 million for a role.

Filming in England immediately ran into problems, including Taylor’s seemingly persistent health problems.

In October 1960, things became so extreme that the studio paid her husband, singer Eddie Fisher, $150,000 to bring Taylor to the set, monitor her diet, and walk her dogs.

Fisher said Taylor was “taking pills and drinking alcohol most of the day,” according to a new book, “Erotic Vagrancy,” by Roger Lewis. Meanwhile, Fisher himself was reportedly addicted to methamphetamine.

When writer Truman Capote visited, he found Taylor’s rooms “crowded with unruly cats and dogs and a general atmosphere of disorderly paraphernalia.”

The filthy atmosphere apparently took a toll on Taylor’s health, Lewis wrote, as the actress was taken to a London clinic, placed in an iron lung and diagnosed with “Malta fever” or “brucellosis, which is caused by the ingestion of animal secretions—unpasteurized milk or milk.” “. Undercooked meat.”

Taylor may have contracted this unusual illness because she “salivated” over “her countless terrible pets who shared her bed,” Lewis wrote.

The actress was released to return to the clinic the following month suffering from severe migraines. Filming stopped, but Taylor’s health problems worsened.

In March 1961, she developed a severe case of pneumonia that put her into a coma. Media outlets wrongly reported the death of the “National Velvet” actress.

By the end of the month, she was released and the demolition of the Cleopatra sets began. All existing footage has been discarded. The production was moved to Rome and new director Joseph Mankiewicz joined.

Seven million dollars have been wasted.

When filming on Cleopatra resumed, Welsh actor Richard Burton joined the cast opposite Taylor.

The book describes Taylor arriving dressed in mink to the set with Fisher, “two secretaries, two maids, make-up artists and hair stylists.”

“Her breasts,” Burton later wrote in his memoirs. [were] He comes out of that stuck, half-asleep body.

The two began an affair behind the backs of Fisher and Burton’s wife Sybil, who ignored the matter: “He’s had these affairs before,” she told Fisher of Burton, “and he always comes home to me.”

As the lovers/co-stars became more visible, even the Vatican commented on their relationship – calling it “sexy vagrancy.”

But Taylor, Lewis wrote, was so afraid Burton would break it off with her that she once attempted suicide by “trying to break through a glass door and had to be restrained.”

When Burton tried to end things — saying, “It was fun, while it lasted” — Taylor overdosed on Seconal and had to have her stomach pumped.

The two eventually left their husbands and married in 1964, but their battles were legendary.

Among Burton’s criticisms of the actress: “Mss T-ts” and “that fat little tart.”

Taylor described Burton as “a drunken, burnt-out Welshman!”

He often mocked Taylor for her lack of formal education and lack of knowledge of Shakespeare.

Her response was wonderful: “I don’t know anything about theater, but I don’t need to. I’m a star.”

Meanwhile, Taylor’s housekeeping habits appear to have not changed during the marriage.

Lewis writes how, “In their wake, there was plundering by the invading army—dog droppings and dinner trays in the Plaza, New York, and the usual chaos of dog droppings and empty bottles in the Grand Hotel, Rome. It took days to clean animal waste from carpets, curtains, mirrors and furniture at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York.

Burton and Taylor were married for about 10 years, then divorced in 1974, before remarrying in 1975 and separating again a year later.