Call Me Elizabeth is the creation of Kayla Boye, a vivacious and gifted young actress who brings Elizabeth Taylor to life in a one-woman show which just closed at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.
Working from her own script, Boye does a more-than-credible job of impersonating Taylor, which is no easy feat considering how beautiful, famous and complicated the Hollywood star was. Boye isn’t fazed by the challenge, though. Clad in an elegant, low-cut black dress, she attacks her character confidently and boldly over the course of her 70-minute show, which is built around a magazine interview Taylor gave in May, 1961. This was soon after her triumph in “Cleopatra,” the movie that made her the richest, most powerful actress in Hollywood.
In Call Me Elizabeth, Boye sits in her bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel sipping champagne as she answers the questions being fired at her by the unseen journalist. The questions center on her experiences during the filming of “Cleopatra,” coping with a near-fatal illness, last-minute script changes, a two-year shooting schedule, and so on. But what had all the makings of a disaster ended up in triumph. The film was a huge hit; she won an Oscar for her performance and walked away from the project with a million bucks in her purse.
Taylor’s biography comes in for equal scrutiny in the play. We learn that she had a ferociously ambitious and controlling stage mother who not only managed her early career but dictated her first marriage, at 19, to Nicky Hilton (because he was super-rich). Taylor soon learned, much to her rue, that Nicky was not only a playboy but a gambler, a drunk, and a wife-beater.
Her subsequent marriages to Michael Wilding and Eddie Fisher are dissected as well, along with her friendships with such fellow stars as Montgomery Clift, James Dean, and Rock Hudson, all of whom were closeted gays. She was aware of their sexuality but never judged them for it. Live and let live was her philosophy and it’s to her credit that she never wavered from that humanistic, non-judgmental belief. Despite her self-centeredness and love of luxury and glamour, Taylor was at heart a kind and empathetic person. Boye’s portrait of her is a touching and truthful one.
