Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

In the run up to playing Maggie, Elizabeth was tested wearing wigs of varying lengths, as well the hairstyle she was sporting at the time. Her own hair won out. Dubbed “the waterfall,” it was the first hairstyle she received from master himself, Alexandre de Paris. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship, as Alexandre would go on to style her hair for many years to come. Eagle-eyed fans will notice that Elizabeth wears a heart-shaped diamond pendant, a gift from Mike Todd, throughout the film. Mike also gave Elizabeth’s mother, Sara, an identical necklace, who later gave hers to the couple’s daughter, Liza.

After director Richard Brooks failed to convince the MGM studio brass to film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in colour (it would double the budget, they argued), Elizabeth’s husband, Mike Todd, helped plead his case. “I told them it was crazy,” Brooks recalled. “It had one of the world’s most beautiful women in the leading role. For Christ’s sake, when you get a chance to shoot the violet eyes of Elizabeth Taylor and the blue ones of Paul Newman … do you use black and white?” Fortunately Mike was more successful and the film was photographed in colour. Brooks believed so wholeheartedly that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof be made in colour that the sets and costumes were already prepared to go before colour cameras.

Paul Newman, who studied his craft at the prestigious Yale Drama School and Actors Studio, was underwhelmed with Elizabeth’s performance during rehearsals. “You have to understand,” Brooks explained to Newman. “Elizabeth doesn’t rehearse the way you do. She goes through all the business and learns to hit her marks, but she can’t give a full performance until she knows it’s for real.” “I’m laid back during run-throughs and unleash real emotion only when the camera is actually rolling,” she later explained.

Elizabeth’s husband, Mike Todd, was killed two weeks into filming Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, when their plane, The Liz, went down near Grants, New Mexico. Mike was en route to New York, where the Friars Club was due to name him Showman of the Year. Elizabeth was to have been at his side, but bronchitis forced her to stay home and ultimately saved her life. (Mike had also invited Cat director Richard Brooks to join them.)

MGM considered replacing Elizabeth or even scrapping the production altogether, but Elizabeth officially returned to the production on April 14 to find her dressing room overflowing with violets from her colleagues. “The only reason I want to do it is because of Mike,” Elizabeth said. “Mike liked me in this picture and I want to finish it for him.”

Elizabeth later explained that “having that [film] to finish saved me in a way. I couldn’t tolerate what I was, and it gave me somebody else to become. When I was Maggie was the only time I could function. The rest of the time I was a robot. When they said ‘Cut,’ I would go back to my dressing room, and I don’t remember much what I did. I would just more or less stare vacantly.”

“She was so weak from lack of food,” recalled the film’s producer, Lawrence Weingarten, “that she couldn’t lift [an empty gift box] off a bed in the first scene she played. But she was remarkable. You can’t see a flaw in her performance.” To help her regain her appetite, director Richard Brooks had Elizabeth do take after take of Big Daddy’s birthday dinner scene.

Elizabeth completed her professional commitment, channeling her tremendous grief into her performance, which would earn her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her searing portrayal of Tennessee Williams' heroine Maggie the Cat.