Book Review

Before Brangelina, there was Liz-and-Dick, the notoriously controversial celebrity couple defined by big jewels, juicy scandals, extravagant vacations, drunken exploits, hospital visits, and a gypsy caravan of children that the world loved to hate.

Kashner and Schoenberger’s 512-page novel, superbly entitled Furious Love, chronicles the over-the-top, passionate affair and two-time marriage of Hollywood’s Ultimate It-Couple of the 60s and 70s. Included in the work are intimate snippets from Burton’s private archives, impassioned letters written to Elizabeth until his death, and personal photos of the two through the years of their affair, marriages, and friendship. The preface to the work quotes Liz Smith, renowned American gossip columnist, who stated Taylor and Burton as being “the most vivid example of a public love affair that I can think of...Whenever somebody says, ‘So and so is a big star,’ I say, ‘Have they been condemned by the Vatican?’” Liz-and-Dick, the celebrity conglomerate of epic proportions, earned international fame for their passionate—and rather unconventional—antics both on-screen and off.

To the most avid Taylor-Burton enthusiast, the novel may appear no different than no other biography of the couple: documenting the public persona of the duo almost verbatim from “insider” tabloids and celebrity newspaper headlines, all chomping at the bit to divulge any scrap of information that would arouse public condemnation of the King and Queen of film. And yet it is incredibly apparent that the authors pass no judgement on their subjects; instead, the reader is prompted to witness the entire history of the individual before and during celebrity.

What sets their novel apart is its intimate look into not only the public lives of the couple, but their private lives as well. The frenzied persona of Liz-and-Dick, the overly publicized, highly controversial, and internationally condemned love affair of the two actors is presented as entirely its own entity; thus suggesting that it was behind closed doors that the couple became merely Elizabeth and Richard, two struggling human beings in a battle to beat the odds and make their love work. Kashner and Schoeberger are quick to distinguish between the public and private sphere, allotting a distinct personality to the two realms. On the one hand, their readers tour the world of Liz-and-Dick through the eyes of their critics, fans, and professional entourage, and are given heartfelt images of the actors in their most important roles: husband and wife, and father and mother.

The biography begins with a rather bipolar portrait of the duo’s professional and intimate relationships, hinting at the emotional highs and lows of their immortal fame and the gravity and consequences of their decisions. Kashner and Schoenberger travel through their respective childhoods, their first film, their publicized love affair, their brawling marriage, their sumptuously rich lifestyle, and their persistent struggle with drug and alcohol dependency and Elizabeth’s deteriorating health.

Kashner and Schoenberger delve into their private vacations to villas in Mexico, Burton’s home in Wales, their stints on the Kelisma, and other luxurious hideaways in an attempt to expose the human side of the seemingly superhuman pair. The authors paint Taylor and Burton so that they seem entirely real, an attribute that doesn’t come to mind when thinking of the lavish thirteen-year romp in the spotlight; and yet the couple seem relatable, understandable, and authentic throughout the work, victims of the public life they lead. The novel is worthwhile, if not for its comprehensive expose of Liz-and-Dick, for its ability to provide the private lives of Taylor and Burton as the “other side of the story”.

The most poignant part of the work stems from Richard’s private archives: diary entries or letters written to his wife, all spectacularly written with the prose for which he was known. He states, “I love [Elizabeth] ghastily and horribly and terribly”, and “I love that woman so much sometimes that I cannot believe my luck”. The Taylor-Burton romance may have been unconventional, but what it lacked in convention it made up for in passion. Both Elizabeth and Richard are depicted as greedily possessive of each others’ affection, a demon that stoked the embers of passion with unqualified ferocity but also presented itself as an addictive, unscrupulous entity that lead to the downfall of their marriage.

Furious Love, with its trove of insight into the lives of the most divisive love affair of the century, is the perfect testament to the memory of both Richard Burton and the recently deceased Elizabeth Taylor, the last of Hollywood royalty and the trailblazers of modern celebrity. Kashner and Schoenberger, in one all-encompassing work, prove that theirs was truly an indulgent, ravishing, furious love worth remembering.