Giant (1956)

Elizabeth was loaned out by a reluctant MGM for the big screen adaptation of Edna Ferber's sprawling, multigenerational epic novel charting decades of progress and change in a Texas cattle-ranch family. Grace Kelly was director George Stevens’ first choice for the role of Leslie. Stevens asked Rock Hudson whether he would prefer to play opposite Grace Kelly or Elizabeth Taylor as Leslie Lynnton. “I said Elizabeth Taylor, because she she had such an incredible beauty,” Hudson recalled.

In her memoir, Elizabeth recalled that “M-G-M didn’t want to let me go [to Warners to make Giant]. So I had to stamp my flat feet for quite a while in the iron lung, pleading to be given a chance to do a film I considered good. I had to go almost on a sit-down strike. Of course I realized Grace Kelly was a much more desirable actress, a much ‘hotter actress,’ than I was. All I wanted was a chance for seconds. But M-G-M wanted me for some other film—like a sequel to Lassie's mother, or something. Anyway, finally they couldn’t get Grace Kelly, and George settled on me. I got no extra money for it. M-G-M got the money. It was just a chance to do a part that was an opportunity and with a director like George.”

The film, which reunited Elizabeth with her A Place in the Sun director Stevens, gave her arguably her greatest acting challenge since the two worked together six years earlier. As the willful Leslie Benedict, the then 23-year-old Elizabeth was required to age a quarter of a century over the film’s more than three-hour running time. Stevens was an exacting director who had no qualms of demanding multiple takes of his actors to get what he wanted. “I was no longer a teenager and I no longer had anybody on the set to protect me,” she later recalled.

Although Elizabeth was only four years older than Dennis Hopper and more than a year younger than Carroll Baker, she played their mother in the multi-generational epic. Years later, paying tribute to his movie mom, Hopper admitted that, when he was younger, he had a crush on Elizabeth and named his pillow “Liz.”

Director George Stevens lured actress Jane Withers out of a nine year retirement to appear as Vashti Snythe in Giant. To alleviate the boredom of filming on location in Marfa, Texas, Jane established what came to be known as “Withers’ USO,” gathering the cast and crew nightly to enjoy snacks, board games, card games, and light refreshments.

Elizabeth formed deeply intense friendships with her two male leads, Rock Hudson and James Dean, especially when the company moved on location to dusty Marfa, Texas.

On Rock Hudson: “Rock and I hit it off right away and acted like a pair of kids. The heat, humidity and dust [in Marfa] were so thoroughly oppressive we had to bolster our spirits any way we could. So we stayed out drinking all night and luckily were young enough and resilient enough to go straight to the set in the morning with fresh complexions and never even bags under our eyes. During our toots, we concocted the best drink I ever tasted—a chocolate martini, made with vodka, Hershey’s syrup and Kahlua. How we survived I’ll never know.”

On James Dean: “We had an extraordinary friendship. We would sometimes sit up until three in the morning, and he would tell me about his past, his mother, minister, his loves, and the next day he would just look straight through me as if he’d given away or revealed too much of himself. It would take, after one of these sessions, maybe a couple of days before we’d be back on friendship terms. He was afraid to give of himself.”

“He was very afraid of being hurt,” Elizabeth explained on another occasion. “He was afraid of opening up in case it was turned around and used against him.”

On September 30, 1955, just days after completing work on Giant, James Dean was killed in a car accident. Elizabeth had given Jimmy a Siamese kitten named Marcus. “I think he loved that kitten and was as close to that kitten as anything else in life,” she said.

Elizabeth’s costumes were designed by Moss Mabry, who called Giant his most difficult assignment, as Elizabeth had a staggering 42 changes of clothing in the film. However, his efforts earned the costume designer the first of his four Academy Award nominations.

‍Giant would go on to earn a whopping 10 Academy Award nominations (and a win for Stevens as Best Director), as well as a place on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest films ever-made, and endures as one of the most popular films of all-time.