THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 24, 1995 TAG: 9505240074
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
WE KNEW HER in Virginia when she was the fat and happy Liz. At that time in her life, Virginia Sen. John Warner introduced her from the seashore to the Blue Ridge as ``my country wife.''
Elizabeth referred to herself then as ``a little milkmaid.''
That was her fried-chicken, mashed-potatoes-drowned-in-gravy and five desserts period.
The producers of the NBC miniseries ``Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story'' needed only a shade under seven minutes to cover her life with the senator. Charles Frank, the actor who portrayed Warner in the miniseries, which ended Monday, was hardly on screen long enough for viewers to notice that he was doing the senator with a Beverly Hillbillies accent.
``My generic Southern drawl,'' Frank said when he spoke in Hollywood about his part in the four-hour miniseries. It was as overstuffed as Taylor in her food-a-holic phase.
Taylor, the senator's wife, was putting away the fried chicken so fast that she nearly choked on a chicken bone when campaigning for Warner at Big Stone Gap in 1978.
Poor Sherilyn Fenn, the striking actress who played Taylor on NBC. Fenn was put into dreadful and grotesque makeup to look like Taylor when she was up to 180 pounds or so.
That's the point in the miniseries when Warner fades away, with Taylor's sarcasm ringing in his ears: ``I didn't marry you to sit on the sidelines.''
She referred to Warner's 2,700-acre ranch in Middleburg, Atoka, as ``a chicken coop.''
They met on a blind date in 1976. When Taylor's companion, Chen Sam, checked him out in advance, she told Taylor that Warner was ``dishy,'' according to the book by C. David Heymann on which the miniseries was based. By late 1981, Taylor was separated from husband No. 6.
Frank, who in the past has played John F. Kennedy and astronaut Scott Carpenter on film, said he did little research for the role of Virginia's senior senator. That's because hardly anybody beyond Virginia's borders knows Warner, in Frank's opinion.
``Who but a Virginian would know if I played him badly? I painted his character with a broad brush,'' said Frank. (When I asked the senator through a spokesman for a comment on Frank's performance, I was told the senator would get back to me. I'm still waiting).
In the 6 minutes and 58 seconds the Warner-Taylor story played out on NBC, there was a scene or two that brought out what Heymann called ``flashes of friction'' between the two. Taylor campaigned for Democrats when she was a Republican senator's wife, but I don't recall her clashing in public with the senator about the role of U.S. women in combat.
NBC suggested to viewers that he was against the idea and Taylor favored it. Why did she put her two cents into this argument anyway? The woman carries a Swiss passport.
Taylor's lawyers tried for months to prevent NBC and executive producer Lester Persky from bringing Heymann's story to primetime. Persky said the attempts by Taylor's lawyers to stop the filming were ludicrous.
``How can she claim her life as secret? Privacy belongs to people who do not publish, do not do interviews, do not seek publicity for what they do or sell. I would go down in flames fighting for this project,'' he said to the TV press.
If anyone is entitled to sue the producers of this mess, it's Warner, for being portrayed as a cool, indifferent husband - the senator from Hooterville.
At least the producers got the state flag right.
Why Taylor objected to this miniseries is beyond me. It was a rosy valentine from NBC. She came through it as the unsinkable diva, the woman with great power over all men from co-stars to producers to U.S. senators. by CNB