Look What Great Presents You Got for Being Friends with Elizabeth Taylor

October 2015

Vanity Fair

Rachel Tashjian

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During the notoriously stormy filming of Cleopatra, Taylor and Richard Burton gave the film's director a glitzy
cigarette case to help him remember "the glamour of it all."

In the midst of her infamous on-set affair with Cleopatra co-star Richard Burton, jewelry extremist—oh, and
world-famous actress—Elizabeth Taylor would take refuge in the sparkling environs of Rome's Bulgari flagship,
adding diamonds and emeralds to her already mountainous collection, often with Burton in tow. As a new
exhibition of the historic jewelry house shows, Taylor didn't just shop for herself: she managed to make one
purchase—in cahoots with Dick, quel scandale!—for Cleopatra director Joseph Mankiewicz too. (The show
opens Thursday, October 15 at Bulgari's flagship store in New York, and will run through November 22.)

Mankiewicz celebrated his wedding to Rosemary Matthews in 1962, during the second grueling year of what
would be a three-year process to complete the film. So Liz and Dick put their heads together to commission for
him a silver cigarette case, inlaid with bronze coins from the second and third centuries and inscribed with the
message:

"To Our Favorite Producer and Wife, Lest we forget the glamour of it all. All love, Elizabeth and Rich"

So there you have it: thanks to Taylor's generous spirit, Mankiewicz could remember the destructive, scandalous
liaisons of his two leading actors; the calamity of directing a script he was simultaneously re-writing; Taylor's
diva antics (including her admirable request not to shoot while she was on her period); and getting fired (though
subsequently rehired!) every time he reached for another cigarette (and, all things considered, perhaps a sip of
whiskey, too).

On view are a number of pieces celebrating the house's connection with Rome, including a piece purchased by
Barbara Sinatra using a blank check husband Frank left at the store, telling the clerks she could use it to buy
anything she wanted.