Sunday, February 16, 1997

Think you've got it rough?

Here's what Elizabeth Taylor's to-do list looks like for the next 10 days:

-- finish taping ABC TV special today;

-- get sawed in half by David Copperfield;

-- have brain surgery;

-- order fried chicken in the IC unit;

-- watch ABC TV special when it's aired Feb. 24;

-- give Larry Fortensky his monthly alimony cheque;

-- turn 65 on Feb. 27.

Feel better now?

Even as you read this, the Piscean Miss Taylor is busy taking part in that TV special with such guests as Claudia Schiffer, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson and John Travolta. The show is both a birthday celebration and an AIDS fund-raiser, though why anyone would want to spend her birthday with that lot remains a mystery to us.

Meanwhile, we wanted to say Happy Birthday to La Liz before anyone else did. To help celebrate her special day, here is a list of some 65 things more or less and depending upon how much we have to fabricate, you should know about Hollywood's last great movie star:

* Taylor's hair-style in the late '50s inspired a food scientist to invent JiffyPop popcorn.

* Since a back surgery many years ago, Taylor can pick up three different radio stations through her spine. Okay, they may not be radio stations. They may be broadcasts from outer space.

* In 1957, she was abducted by aliens. Shortly thereafter she married Eddie Fisher.

* Her role in the break-up of the marriage of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds made her the most hated woman in America in the late '50s.

* In the early '60s, Taylor had past-life therapy and discovered she used to be Cleopatra. She was then paid the unheard-of sum of $1,000,000 to star in the film.

* Taylor's response to seeing herself in Cleopatra: she says she had just enough time once the movie ended to rush to the bathroom and throw up.

* Her middle name is Rosemond.

* She has won two Oscars. The first was for Butterfield 8, an award many believe she won because she nearly died a month before the ceremony. She was 29.

* Her response to Butterfield 8, a movie she hadn't wanted to make in the first place: "I still say it stinks."

* The second Oscar was in 1966 for Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. At the time, critics noted that her performance opposite then-husband Richard Burton must have been as easy as pretending she and he were having a regular evening at home.

* Miss Taylor celebrated her 60th birthday with 1,000 guests at Disneyland.

* She is a close personal friend of Michael Jackson's.

* Her perfumes, all of which are fairly smelly (just one person's opinion, of course), include Passion, White Diamonds, Diamonds and Emeralds, Diamonds and Rubies, Diamonds and Sapphires, Black Pearls, and gawd knows what else, unless we've got this mixed up with her fashion jewelry collection for Avon, and hey -- anything is possible.

* Oh all right, the husbands: Taylor has had seven husbands and has been married eight times. The guy list begins with hotel heir Nicky Hilton, followed by Michael Wilding, Mike Todd, Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton (twice), Senator John Warner and Larry Fortensky.

* She has had two stays at the Betty Ford clinic, which is where she met her last husband.

* She has never received alimony or child support payments from any of her husbands.

* Taylor has been widowed once and divorced seven times.

* The creepiest of her between-husband boyfriends was probably Henry Wynberg, a used-car salesman with a police record.

* She has nine grandchildren.

* Her children are: Michael Wilding, now 46, Christopher Wilding, 42, Liza Todd, 39, and Maria Burton, 36.

* Her most-repeated statement in life: "I will never marry again."

* Her biggest career-limiting move: those muu-muus/caftan thingies.

* Taylor is a founding member of the American Foundation For AIDS Research.

* According to Larry Fortensky, it costs $1.7 million a year to run Miss Taylor's home in Bel Air.

* In 1993, the charitable Miss Taylor gave $5,000 to Casey House in Toronto.

* At the same time Richard Burton bought Taylor a 69-carat diamond for a few mil, he also donated the same amount to charity to keep critics of such lavish spending off their collective backs.

* Elizabeth Taylor has very large breasts.

* She also has back trouble and has had for many years.

* She has been operated on more than 40 times.

* She is fabulously crude and crass in person, so they say.

* And it's also been said that once you have met Taylor a few times, you're expected to bring her jewels at future encounters.

* She has been famous since 1942 when she appeared in There's One Born Every Minute. If you've seen any of her childhood films on late-night TV -- such as National Velvet or as the child who dies of consumption in the 1944 version of Jane Eyre -- you know why.

* She says she will never write an autobiography.

* Taylor may have changed her mind about that autobiography since the publication of C. David Heymann's book about her; his tome (Liz: An Intimate Biography Of Elizabeth Taylor) includes such items as the possibility that Taylor's father Francis was as gay as a plaid rabbit.

* Some of the drugs she is rumored to have been on at one time or another: demerol, percodan, valium, dilaudid, placidyl, seconal, morphine sulfate, mashed potatoes, gravy.

* Taylor is short. Estimates of five-foot-two are wild exaggerations.

* She can look very trailer-trashy when required. Actually, she often looks very trailer-trashy.

* Her last film appearance was in 1994 in The Flintstones.

* Last year, Taylor showed up all over the place on television, including spots on Murphy Brown and The Nanny.

* As for her endless bad health, Taylor has this to keep her going: her own mom was 99 years old when she died.

* She has had three hip replacements. As of this writing, however, she is still not hip.

* She has been declared dead on several occasions, most recently after The Flintstones was in theatres everywhere.

* Her 1991 wedding to Larry Fortensky took place at Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch.

* Larry Fortensky is a grade 10 drop-out. Miss Taylor's education involved Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer School.

* In her heyday, Taylor was a drinkin', brawlin', manizer of some stature.

* Her life was captured in a fairly whitewashed fashion in a four-hour TV miniseries two years ago. Sherilyn Fenn played Taylor.

* That, according to the New Math, is 65 important things to know about Elizabeth Taylor. Oh, go ahead -- count for yourself. You probably roll pennies in your spare time, too, smartie-pants.


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