Elizabeth Taylor’s affair with Richard Burton was condemned by everyone, including the Vatican.
The actress, who was married eight times to seven men, is the subject of a new HBO documentary, “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes,” which details the Oscar winner’s life and loves in her own words from a series of recently discovered candid interviews.
In the documentary, Taylor recounts how her romance with her Cleopatra co-star Richard Burton came under fierce attack from the Vatican.
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The long-delayed historical drama “Cleopatra” premiered in 1963. It starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. (Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“The Vatican newspaper published an article calling me very despicable. [of a] “I can’t believe this woman would take my children away from me,” Taylor can be heard saying.
“[It’s] “It was a truly nauseating attack,” she added.
Taylor fell in love with Burton while married to her fourth husband, pop singer Eddie Fisher. The press revealed their on-set affair in 1962, shortly after Fisher had divorced his wife Debbie Reynolds and married Taylor. Burton was then married to his first wife, Sybil Williams.
“[It’s] It was truly a nauseating attack.”
Here, Elizabeth Taylor sits on Eddie Fisher’s lap on the set of “Cleopatra” as Richard Burton looks on. Taylor would soon leave Fisher for Burton. (Getty Images)
“My father called me a whore,” Taylor confessed to the late journalist Richard Merriman. “I got that kind of backlash from everybody.”
In an open letter published in the Vatican’s weekly newspaper, Taylor was accused of “sexual infidelity” for sleeping with Burton while married to Fisher, a charge the Vatican called “an affront to the nobility of the family.” Town & Country report.
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Elizabeth Taylor’s affair with Richard Burton was condemned by everyone, including the Vatican. (Bob Penn/Gamma Raffo via Getty Images)
According to the book “Furious Love,” Representative Iris Faircloth Blitch called on Congress to ensure that “Mr. Taylor and Ms. Burton … are inadmissible for re-entry into the United States on the grounds that they are undesirable.” Representatives from New York and North Carolina agreed, blaming the case for the “moral decline” of the country.
“Someone was trying to blow me up with a bomb in the studio,” Taylor recalls in the film, “so the Italian FBI was there for five days.” [while we filmed]It’s been a really awful week.”
Taylor and Burton decided to stay together.
Burton and Williams separated in 1963. Taylor and Fisher separated in 1964, the same year she married Burton.
A somber Eddie Fisher is pictured here shortly before it was announced that his marriage to Elizabeth Taylor had ended. (Getty Images)
When Merriman asked Taylor if she felt guilty for dumping Fisher and publicly breaking up with Burton, she replied, “Oh, yeah… I feel guilty because we caused each other so much pain.”
Merriman also asked Taylor if he was worried about “God’s retribution” for his actions. Taylor can be heard asking Merriman if that meant he would be “punished in hell.”
“I think we have to make amends here on Earth,” she said. “It’s time to make amends now.”
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The late Hollywood actress is the subject of a new documentary, “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes.” (Warner Bros. Discovery)
Still, Taylor had no regrets.
“I couldn’t help but love him,” Taylor admitted. “That was a fact.”
Burton was her fifth husband from 1964 to 1974. She remarried in 1975 and became her sixth husband. They separated permanently in 1976.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were married twice, from 1964 to 1974 and again from 1975 to 1976. (Frank Edwards/Photos International/Getty Images)
After Taylor dumped him, Fisher became the laughing stock of comedians. He turned to drugs to get through shows, and offers dwindled. He later said that at the height of his career, he made and spent $20 million, much of it on gambling and drugs.
Fisher attempted a full comeback, but the scandal had alienated his old fans, and the younger generation was becoming interested in rock music, so the tour was a flop.
In her 1999 autobiography, “Been There, Done That,” Fisher called Reynolds “self-centered, completely impulsive, insecure, dishonest and hypocritical.” He claimed he’d given up his career during his marriage to Taylor because he was too busy taking her to the emergency room and cleaning up after pets, children and servants. His two ex-wives were furious, and his daughter, “Star Wars” actress Carrie Fisher, threatened to change her name to Reynolds.
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While still married to Debbie Reynolds (right), Eddie Fisher had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor (left). (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Fisher died in 2010 at the age of 82.
Earlier this year, author Roger Lewis released a book called “Erotic Vagrancy,” which portrays the torrid relationship between Taylor and Burton, which led to two marriages and two divorces.
“They were in a lustful reality,” Lewis explained to Fox News Digital. “They were sneaking out for a salacious weekend.”
Author Roger Lewis told Fox News Digital that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton loved each other intensely and fought each other intensely. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
“Every time Burton thought, ‘I’ve got to get back to Sybil, this is stupid,’ Taylor would overdose,” Lewis alleged. “Meanwhile, Eddie Fisher was trying to control her, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t want anyone to tell her what she could or couldn’t do. … It was total chaos.”
The couple were in love and had violent disputes, with Ms Lewis saying Taylor “terrorised” Ms Burton and writing about them in her diary.
“Their fights were physical,” Lewis claimed. “They would punch each other. … I think they were bored and poking each other. There was also competitiveness. But all the fights were carried into the bedroom, where they were rekindled. This went on for years, and it was all in front of servants and hired servants. It was a very extreme relationship.”
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Elizabeth Taylor’s drug addiction and Richard Burton’s alcoholism ultimately drove the couple apart. (Angelo DeLillo/Mondadori via Getty Images)
The relationship fell apart; Taylor’s drug addiction and Burton’s alcoholism led to the couple’s divorce in 1974 after ten years of marriage. Taylor immediately called Burton and asked, “Do you think we’ve made a terrible mistake?” The couple remarried the following year, but separated for good within 12 months.
Lewis said the two remained the love of her life, and Taylor once said, “I was crazy about him until the day he died.”
Burton died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1984. He was 58 years old.
Many people still believe that Richard Burton was Elizabeth Taylor’s lifelong love. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“Elizabeth Taylor did not attend the funeral because she thought it would be too public and inappropriate,” Lewis said, “but a few days later, at dawn, she went alone to the cemetery and prayed at his grave. She said, ‘That was the only time Richard and I were ever alone together’… It was only when he was in his grave, and she was with him at the cemetery, that they finally had some privacy.”
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Taylor kept Burton’s final letter, written three days before her death, in a bedside drawer, where it remained until her death in 2011 at the age of 79.
“I truly believe there was absolute devotion there,” Lewis said. “It was more than just romance. They were the love of each other’s lives, without question. When you look at pictures now… they were looking at each other and devouring each other. It was a shattering love… it became dangerous, but there was love there. It never went away.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
