Why Censorship is Ultimately Futile....And I Should Know

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.reuters.com/how-elizabeth-taylor-silenced-censors-reuters;_ylt=AkQ_IuoOhQfZ3JjMMznWQTtfVXcA

On June 10, 1966, Life magazine did one of its many cover stories on Elizabeth Taylor.

Far from her usual smoldering beauty, she looked puffy, haggard, decades older than her 34 years. "Liz in a Shocker," the headline proclaimed. "Her movie shatters the rules of censorship."

The movie, of course, was "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" -- a scorching drama adapted from Edward Albee's Broadway play. Its frank, gritty language brazenly violated the Production Code, rigid guidelines that had dictated the content of American movies since 1934. Albee's words, however, served art, not smut, and Ernest Lehman, the movie's screenwriter-producer, saw no way to modify them without gutting the play. Mike Nichols, the film's director, concurred. So Lehman decided to challenge the Code -- a bold act compared to what had been required of him on his previous stage-to-screen project, "The Sound of Music."

Taylor and her husband, Richard Burton, had a lot riding on the picture. Success as Martha, Albee's foul-mouthed harridan, would grant Taylor what she had long craved: credibility as an actress. She made sacrifices -- gaining pounds and lowering her voice until, per Nichols' coaching, she could "bray." Burton, as Martha's husband George, donned "full-length drab." Most astonishing, though, Hollywood's highest-paid couple voluntarily took a financial hit. When shooting overran the schedule by 35 days, they declined to ask for overtime -- saving the production about $1 million.

With the Burtons aboard, "Virginia Woolf" could not be dismissed as an art house trifle. It was big box office -- a perfect test case to go up against the Code.

In a way, Taylor's whole life had led to that moment. Even in her first big film, "National Velvet," she had nettled the censors, who sought to hide her blossoming sexuality. "Please omit the action of Velvet tapping her chest and the line 'I am flat as a boy,'" the Code Office ordered, and the movie did.

Nor could Taylor be shown in a locker room with "semi-nude jockeys." If the scene "is to be retained at all," the memo continued, "all concerned will have to be fully clothed." (In the final film, a few jockeys do, however, change their shirts.)

The Code might seem like an antiquated joke today, but in its heyday, the censors wielded great power, largely through financial blackmail. They had seized control during the Great Depression by threatening an organized Roman Catholic boycott of all movies -- which no studio then could survive. In response, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America set up the Code Office, also known as the Hays Office, after Will Hays, the former U.S. postmaster general who became MPPDA president in 1922.

The Code wasn't just about sex. It had a racist component, forbidding the depiction of interracial couples. And it demanded reverence for religion and government; improper display of the U.S. flag was as severe an infraction as sodomy.

Farewell Liz: Elizabeth Taylor: 1932-2011

"She was so extraordinarily beautiful that I nearly laughed out loud. She ... [was] famine, fire, destruction and plague ... the only true begetter. Her breasts were apocalyptic, they would topple empires before they withered ... her body was a miracle of construction ... She was unquestionably gorgeous. She was lavish. She was a dark, unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much ... Those huge violet blue eyes... had an odd glint... Aeons passed, civilizations came and went while these cosmic headlights examined my flawed personality. Every pockmark on my face became a crater of the moon."

With the above words, the late actor Richard Burton gushed about his first sight of a then 19-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. And Liz indeed proved "too bloody much" for him, as they burned through two failed attempts at marriage (1964-74; 1975-76).

Taylor of course, was all that Burton described and more. Though she had been ailing, the news of her death  - ostensibly of congestive heart failure - is a spear to our hearts. She grew from child star to powerhouse actress to Hollywood legend and -to some sad degree - tabloid fodder and perfume pitchwoman, but true movie fans will always remember her in the light of Burton's glorious first revelation - "a dark, unyielding largesse"  

Though English-born, both her parents were actually American - from Kansas no less. She took ballet lessons at age three, and at age nine made her Hollywood debut in "There's One Born Every Minute".  That tenure would be short-lived however as then Universal Pictures head Edward Muhl cancelled her contract, saying she had "no talent" (reportedly it was more because he absolutely could not get along with Taylor's mother).

She would, however, land on her feet at the famed gates of MGM, where she started off in October 1942 with "Lassie Come Home" opposite Roddy McDowall. While at MGM she took a role on loan to 20th Century Fox in the adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre before going on (after constant campaigning) to score her breakout role in "National Velvet."

Its runaway success made Taylor one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood at the time, with an annual salary of US$30,000 (keep in mind tis is a 12-year-old, in 1944). Her first box office success as an adult came as Kay Banks in "Father of the Bride" alongside Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. This was followed a by a lackluster sequel before her next breakout role "A Place In the Sun" (with Montgomery Clift and Shelly Winters).

She would receive Oscar nominations for her roles in "Raintree County" "Cat on A Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly, Last Summer" but it was her reunion with Fox Pictures, which paid her a cool $1million to star as Egyptian queen "Cleopatra" that would set the film world and the papparazzi ablaze. It was while filming that the married Taylor met Welshman Richard Burton (born Richard Jenkins) and began one of the great, albeit tragic, Hollywood romances.

It was opposite Burton that she won her second Oscar (the first for Butterfield 8) in the modern classic, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". She and her husband (whom she married a mere nine days after securing her divorce from Eddie Fisher) would go on to make six other films in the 60s. she made two other films with Burton in the 70s and they also collaborated in a TV movie, the appropriately titled "Divorce His, Divorce Hers" .

Taylor remained an active screen presence through the 80s, appearing both in cinematic and television releases. Her last big-screen role was in the 1994 live action adaptation of the classic cartoon series "The Flintstones."

She was a passionate advocate for HIV/AIDS Research and also a staunch defender, in 2005, of her friend Michael Jackson, who predeceased her in 2009. Taylor a famous lover of jewellry, developed a line of perfumes and personal care products inspired by gems - White Diamonds is perhaps the best known.

Taylor dealt with various health problems over the years, including issues regarding congestive heart failure. In February of 2011, new symptoms related to congestive heart failure caused her to be admitted into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment.