Elizabeth Taylor in London

“I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I’m not afraid to look behind them.” —Elizabeth in Elizabeth Taylor in London

In 1963’s Elizabeth Taylor in London, Elizabeth takes her fans on both sides of the pond for a tour of the city of her birth—visiting some of the sights closest to her heart and reciting the words of some of its most famous writers and residents. It came on the heels of two other small screen tours from two of the day’s most famous and glamorous women: Jacqueline Kennedy’s A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy (1962) and Princess Grace’s A Look at Monaco (1963).

Phil D’Antoni and Norman Baer, former American radio executives turned producers, “impetuously” called Elizabeth’s London secretary to see if they could interest her in appearing in a television special. “It took little more than that phone call and a couple of follow-up cablegrams,” D’Antoni recalled. “Miss Taylor wanted to do the special from the start.” The timing couldn’t have been better for the maverick producers, who Elizabeth later said had something of the spirit of Mike Todd about them. She was already in England, having accompanied Richard Burton to the country of her birth, where he was starring in the title role in Becket on a soundstage at Shepperton Studios.

She was paid a record-breaking $250,000 for her first television special. It may have seemed like peanuts compared to her salary for Cleopatra. But, as Baer pointed out, referring to Elizabeth and Sophia Loren, who starred in their follow up special: “We gave them more per minute than they ever received for film work.”

The show was written by S.K. Perelman, whose script for Mike Todd’s Around the World in 80 Days earned him an Academy Award, and Lou Solomon. Elizabeth’s wardrobe was by Yves St. Laurent for Christian Dior, and Alexandre de Paris styled her hair.

Filming, which was due to take ten days, kicked off in late June 1963 on a terrace of the Dorchester Hotel, Elizabeth’s home away from home in the city of her birth. Over the hour-long program, she recites Barrett Browning, Keats, Wordsworth, and, of course, Shakespeare (Richard helped her prepare a verse from Hamlet). She also read the words of two of England’s most celebrated politicians, Churchill and Pitt, as well as two of its greatest queens. One was a speech Elizabeth I was purported to have made to her troops at Tilbury on August 9, 1588, and the other was a poignant entry Queen Victoria made in her diary on New Year’s Day, 1862, less than three weeks after the death of Prince Albert, her beloved husband and consort.

Although viewers will spot such iconic London sights as the Palace of Westminster, Scotland Yard, the Tower of London, and even the spot where Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre originally stood, Elizabeth also takes us off the beaten path to places that are special to her. This includes a visit to Hampstead and a glimpse at Heathwood, the house where she was born and lived for the first seven years of her life, as well as nearby Golders Hill Park, a childhood favourite. She also takes us to St Mary-le-Bow church and shares the legend of Dick Whittington and his cat.

Elizabeth Taylor in London’s evocative music, including its two themes, ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘The London Theme,’ was composed by John Barry, whose work would earn him an Emmy nomination for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Composing Original Music for Television’. A soundtrack, which included Elizabeth’s poems and speeches, quickly followed.

An impressive ninety-million people tuned into CBS to watch Elizabeth Taylor in London on October 6, 1963. Variety called the pairing of Elizabeth and London “the world’s most distracting foreground with its most illustrious background”. The BBC acquired the UK television rights for $28,000, and broadcast the special on Christmas Eve 1963. The show was such a success that D’Antoni and Baer followed it up the following year with Sophia Loren in Rome.