Let’s Talk About All Eight of Elizabeth Taylor’s Husbands!
Nobody married like Elizabeth Taylor. Which of her seven husbands was the least worst?
There are very few people, living or dead, who have been as famous as Elizabeth Taylor was during her lifetime. She starred in her first film before she was 10, was followed around the world by the paparazzi, and reinvented what it meant to be a celebrity through her work, image, charitable endeavours, and side-hustles. When you think of Liz now, what comes to mind is probably her violet eyes, her love of diamonds, Fran Fine worshipping her, and, of course, her eight marriages to seven different men.
When we talk about Liz’s many marriages, it’s worth remembering that she was very much a woman of her time. Even with her exceptional life and the sheer madness of being famous since childhood, she talked frequently about craving the quiet life of a wife who obeyed her husband. Having been prepped for adulthood from an early age, and heavily sexualized from her adolescence onward, it’s not surprising to realize that Taylor found herself torn between two worlds: the controlling studio that moulded her image and helped to run every part of her life, and the fantasized normalcy of matrimony that adhered to a rigid gender binary. Taylor remade herself time and time again, both as a wife and as a megastar, which is partly why she so fascinates us. She defied so many expectations while eagerly hoping to fit into them on her own terms. Truly, there’s nobody like her in our current world. To talk about the many marriages of Elizabeth Taylor is to talk about decades of womanhood.
ONE: CONRAD HILTON JR.
In 1950, Liz turned 18. MGM had been prepping her for more adult roles for a few years, but now she was ready to play proper women. Actually, her first "mature" role, as the wife of a suspected Soviet spy in Conspirator, started filming when she was 16. Co-star Robert Taylor, one of the biggest male stars at the studio at that time (and married to Barbara Stanwyck), was 38 at the time of its release. The real transition movie for Liz was Father of the Bride, a Vincente Minnelli comedy about a man's existential and financial panic when his daughter gets engaged (her love interest this time around was only 12 years her senior.)
Taylor had gotten engaged to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr., of the Hilton hotel fortune, and MGM decided it was the perfect opportunity for a little bit of promotion. They organised the entire wedding. The studio customer made her dress (and her wedding night lingerie.) All the people who had played her parents on screen attended as guests. This was Liz "all grown up," the perfect fairy-tale story and another convenient way for MGM to market their rising star as an adult.
The marriage was a disaster. Hilton was an abusive creep. He was a drunk who dabbled in heroin, was a degenerate gambler, and frequently beat Elizabeth. At one point, he kicked her in the stomach, leading to her having a miscarriage. Liz's mother told her to stick it out. Mercifully, Liz left him after eight months and was granted a divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty. Hilton ended up dating a string of other famous women, including Joan Collins and Natalie Wood, and died at the age of 42 from a heart attack.
