Six books that try to keep up with Elizabeth Taylor

Stephen Greco is a novelist, journalist, media executive, editor, dramatist and Executive Director of the Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards, which he co-founded in 1988. He is a regular contributor to the magazine Upstate Diary and has contributed as a feature writer and editor to numerous publications including Interview magazine, New York magazine, Air Mail, The Advocate, American Way, Art News, Dance Magazine, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Latina, the London Observer, Stagebill, and The New York Times online.

His new novel is The Woman Who Had Everything.

At Lit Hub Greco tagged six books that approach the question: "Was [Elizabeth Taylor] a great actress, a great beauty, the ultimate movie star, a creature of vulgar excess, or some magnificent combination of all four?" One title on the list:

Kitty Kelley, Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star

Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized biography is the louche pleasure of the group. Kirkus memorably called it a “tacky stroll” through Taylor’s life, and that is not entirely unfair. Kelley is much more interested in Taylor’s appetites—for food, for men, for feuds—than in the nuances of her acting. She assembles gossip with a prosecutorial enthusiasm, often relying on people who seem only too happy to settle an old score.

And yet the book has become fascinating as a period object. Published in 1981, it captures the way Taylor was discussed before her AIDS activism, before the perfume empire, and before the culture reconsidered the courage and generosity of her later life. Here she is still the scandalous, overindulged bad girl of the tabloids, forever arriving late, spending too much, falling ill, falling in love, and making everyone furious.

The best way to encounter this book, by the way, is in a battered vintage paperback like mine, found in a secondhand bookstore. An as-new hard cover or pristine digital edition might violate its spirit.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue