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‘Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes’ Director Nanette Burstein on Capturing the Private Side of the Screen Legend
Nanette Burstein, the director of the new HBO doc 'Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes,' on the screen legend's life on screen and as an AIDS activist
Then there were Taylor’s off-screen relationships, the good (her union of equals with producer Mike Todd), the bad (her abusive marriage to Conrad Hilton) and the complicated (her co-dependent connection to Richard Burton, which blazed brightly before collapsing in a torrent of booze). There were professional triumphs after Todd died — including Oscar-nominated roles in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Suddenly, Last Summer” and, of course, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — that tapped into Taylor’s volcanic emotions, allowing her to stretch and snarl in ways that her studio overlords initially resisted. Her friendship with gay men like Roddy MacDowall, Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson, whose death helped draw attention to AIDS, gave her a personal connection to the disease.
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