The Weekly Screed (#535)

Who’s Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?
by David Benjamin

PARIS — For the first 13 years of my life, Elizabeth Taylor was forbidden fruit. Oh, I could catch a glimpse of the juvenile Liz on TV in “National Velvet” or “Little Women.” But while I was growing up Catholic at St. Mary’s School and obeying the guidance of the Legion of Decency, the adult Liz was making dirty movies.

The Legion, for example, “Condemned” Liz in “Suddenly Last Summer.” Next, “Butterfield 8” got Condemned. And “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”? Condemned.

This isn’t to say I knew naught of Liz. She was ubiquitous — in fan mags, tab rags, gossip columns, in, Life, Look, Esquire, even the Saturday Evening Post. To escape Liz, you had to be one of her husbands. I watched from afar, and smiled when she stole Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds. Eddie never deserved Debbie. But Liz — who had morphed from gentle Velvet Brown to Hard-Hearted Hannah — struck me as Eddie’s soulmate. And then she dumped him, too. Served him right, the two-timing greaseball!

Meanwhile, I transferred to public school and forsook the Legion of Decency. I started making up for missed thrills, devouring sinful literature from Orwell and Salinger to Pynchon and Joyce. And "Godot!" In those days, people read plays — current drama, not just Shakespeare in freshman English. I read Ionesco and O’Neill, Stoppard and Pinter, Lawrence and Lee, Arthur Miller, "Beyond the Fringe," "A Thousand Clowns," and one young playwright who wrote with a dagger dipped in venom — Edward Albee.

My first Albee was the squirmily disturbing “Zoo Story.” From that, I rushed through every Albee in paperback. The best I saved for last, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” then — and perhaps for all time — Albee’s masterpiece. Though I read it twice, I wondered uncertainly about the dark secret that haunted George and Martha. But I loved the play. I wished, somewhere, I could see it in the flesh, performed by live actors.

That was 1965.

The next year, Schuster announced that it was coming. Some guy named Mike Nichols was doing a movie of “Virginia Woolf.” With Liz Taylor and Richard Burton (who got Liz after Eddie). Schuster was, among other roles, my movie buddy. We had compiled a mutual canon of the Greatest Flicks of All Time, including “Cat Ballou,” “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” “The Great Race” by Blake Edwards, “A Shot in the Dark,” also by Blake Edwards (and just about any other Blake Edwards movie).

Then, suddenly the Legion of Decency, in the form of the newly devised MPAA rating system reared up and stabbed Albee in the back. In a misbegotten spasm of Puritan overkill, the hypocrites of Hollywood gave “Virginia Woolf” an “X” rating. “X”?!!! — which meant you had to be 17. Schuster made the cut; I was still four months short!

For a while, I raged at the arbitrary injustice of it all. This was un-American, anti-intellectual and dopey. I could get into “Reefer Madness,” or see Jane Russell in “The Outlaw.” But I was banned from one of the great dramatic achievements of our time.

So I hatched a plan! There was, after all, a loophole.

Any five-year-old — with a parent — could see “Virginia Woolf.” For me, that meant Mom. Of course, Mom was the last person who wanted to see this movie — and the last person I wanted to watch it with. But (I thought — brilliantly) what about a note? Signed by Mom? Saying it was OK with Mom for me to go see this X-rated dirty movie that was NOT dirty and should NOT be X-rated? See? Brilliant! The only hitch was that the note would have to be witnessed, and co-signed, by, well, a Notary Public!

Mom said no. This was the stupidest idea she’d ever heard.

Yeah, but Mom always said no. At first.

Thus began my Great Saturday of Driving Mom Nearly Insane with Edward Albee and Liz Taylor. Mom, I said, I’ve never EVER wanted to see a movie this much in my whole life. This is the most important movie of the year — no! Ten years. No! EVER! Mom, I know, it’s X-rated. But that’s stupid! It’s wrong. It’s not fair. Mom, this is not a skin-flick. Sure, it has swearing, but that’s all. Just swearing. No sex! Yes, Mom, I know about sex. I READ about sex! And the characters TALK about sex in the movie, but nobody does it. It’s just talk. Besides, Mom, I already know what they say in the movie. I’ve been EXPOSED to it1 I read the play, Mom. Twice. Here, look, here’s the play. I read the whole thing. And it’s NOT DIRTY! Look. I even underlined stuff. See? Here, lemme read some of it to ya. C’mon, why not? I’m just tryin’ to show ya, Mom. It’s not dirty. It’s a great play. It’s a great movie, like ‘Bambi’ or ‘Gone with the Wind,’ for Pete’s sake! You wouldn’t keep me from seeing ‘Gone with the Wind,’ wouldja? Mom, please. Please, please, please! Here, lemme read ya from Act 2. Wait. Mom? Mom…”

Imagine this, starting around ten in the morning and continuing ‘til almost sunset. A non-stop relentless chant of please Mom please Mom please Mom please Mom please.

Mom, eventually, cracked. By then, I had an eloquent note already typed, ready for her to sign. I coaxed Mom into the Ford. I drove — to a Notary on East Washington Avenue. The Notary had never notarized a letter allowing an underage film buff to watch two hours of smut, but who was he to judge? He kept a poker face through the whole ordeal. Mom, of course, was mortified, apologetic and — above all — exhausted.

As I recall, the actual movie experience was mildly anticlimactic. When I proudly presented my notarized permission slip to the cashier at the Capitol Theater, I got the impression she would’ve let me into the flick without it. But she showed the note to the manager, who raised an eyebrow but — like the Notary — kept his cool. “Let ‘im through,” he said. He took my historic notarized permission slip, never to be seen again.

“Virginia Woolf” on film revealed more that its words on paper. Liz Taylor, shrill, bitter, gray and voluptuous , matched blow-for-blow the towering stage presence of Burton. She showed herself afraid of nothing, not even Albee. And finally, seeing it exposed in the flesh, I understood the tragedy of George and Martha’s terrible secret.

Coming out of the Capitol, I felt drained and a little blue. This was partly because I’d known beforehand how the story would end. But mostly, I think I was just plain weary — from a sunny Saturday spent playing George to Mom’s Martha.