Researching The
Affair
My mother was a huge Elizabeth Taylor fan. I think it was
the jewels, but perhaps she was also jealous of the ease with which she
interchanged husbands (just joking, Dad!).
I remember watching the 1963 Cleopatra with
her and being blown away by the glitz
and glamour, but it wasn’t until I began researching the film for my novel, The Affair, that I realised it came at
the price of almost bankrupting 20th Century Fox. Walter Wanger, the
producer, gave in to all the outrageous demands of his stars and directors
until the budget went stratospheric – adjusted for inflation it’s still one of
the most expensive films ever made. In his book about the making of the film, Wanger
maintains – guess what? – that none of it was his fault. The film’s publicists,
Jack Brodsky and Nathan Weiss, also published a book about the filming and their
struggle to restrain the media after Elizabeth Taylor’s affair with her co-star
Richard Burton leaked out. Guess what? None of it was their fault either.
I went out to Rome in October 2011 to wander round all the
places I’d be writing about. I fingered Cleopatra’s gorgeous gold dress in the
museum at Cinecittà studios, sat in cafés on the Via Veneto watching the
Italian dowagers in full jewellery at midday, and visited nightclubs and
trattorias that have hardly changed over the last fifty years, except that the
prices are now in euros rather than lire.
I wanted some kind of jeopardy in my story, and found
inspiration in a tiny bookshop on a back street where there was a book entitled
Death and the Dolce Vita, by Stephen
Gundle. He writes of the mysterious death of Wilma Montesi, by all accounts a respectable
middle-class Italian girl, who was found drowned on a neglected beach in 1953.
Some claimed it was suicide; others that she had been at a drug-fuelled orgy;
yet more that she was murdered. I won’t give away the ending but it showed me
that beneath the surface a drugs culture was developing in Rome in the 1950s as
organised crime gangs jostled for position and grew in strength, and that gave
me the darkness I needed for my novel.
Back in London, I tried to contact all the cast and crew who
worked on Cleopatra and are still
alive. Francesca Annis (who played a handmaiden) kindly gave me an interview, but
I struck gold when I found an actor called John Gayford, who played the
centurion who stands behind Richard Burton through many scenes. John often had
lunch with Richard, and knew Elizabeth from working with her on Suddenly Last Summer, and he has total
recall for every last detail of the filming. He’s also a very witty man and a
fabulous raconteur! He described the layout of the set, the filming schedule,
the menu in the studio restaurant and bar – every last detail. I couldn’t
include a fraction of what he told me or it would have weighed down the story,
but his advice helped me to create an authentic 1960s atmosphere.
I asked John what everyone on set thought when Taylor and
Burton began their affair and he said “Darling, no one batted an eyelid. They
were only doing what actors and actresses have always done. Besides, we were
all having affairs.” With dozens of actors hanging around in Rome on full pay
for nine months and often with nothing to do, I suppose it’s hardly surprising
they made their own entertainment.
My partner works in the film business and was able to
explain to me how the old cameras worked and what each crew member did. Believe
it or not, the focus puller used to measure the distance between the camera and
the actor’s head with a tape measure so he could set the focus! And in those
days before CGI, they had to build ornate battleships and then destroy them for
the sea battle of Actium. You can see where the budget went…
I invented two main characters: an intelligent but naïve
researcher called Diana who has come to Rome against her husband’s wishes, and
a young American journalist called Scott who is on his first posting and keen
to bed lots of girls. Their stories are woven through the facts of the filming
and the true stories of what was happening to Elizabeth Taylor and Richard
Burton throughout the nine months they were all in Rome. It was great fun to
write and I only wish I could have been there myself at the time: dancing in
Bricktops nightclub, drinking Prosecco, and watching Elizabeth flaunt her
jewels along with her infidelity. Wouldn’t that have been great?
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