As early as 1962, Time's Richard Schickel hailed Elizabeth Taylor as the last star – the final flowering of classic Hollywood's studio-driven myth-making system.   He was right, but as William J. Mann demonstrates in How To Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood (HMH, $28), she was also the first modern superstar. Mann astutely shows how she controlled her own image, became a box-office powerhouse, and won public sympathy despite behavior that once would have destroyed her career. By commanding unprecedented high salaries, she personified the power shift from studios to stars, setting the stage for today's mega-million dollar fees commanded by a handful of actors.

Born (1932) in England to American expatriates, she had a comfortable childhood. Her mother, Sara, gave up a minor stage career to marry Francis Taylor, who became a successful art dealer thanks to his wealthy uncle. The Taylors weren't rich, but were well connected. Elizabeth's godfather, Victor Cazalet, paid many of their expenses. Sara, writes Mann, liked gay men – a quality Elizabeth would inherit – and says that Francis was a discreet bisexual. His bachelor uncle and Cazalet may also have been gay.

The family moved to Southern California following the outbreak of World War II, and Sara pushed the astonishingly beautiful Elizabeth into movies. MGM eventually offered a contract. Stardom came with National Velvet (1945). Mann writes that Taylor often confused real and reel life. In 1950, while she was starring in Father of the Bride, MGM was pushing her into marrying handsome hotel heir Nicky Hilton, making the wedding a major media event. The ending wasn't happy. The alcoholic Hilton physically abused her. They were quickly divorced. She would marry seven more times.

Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper suggested that her second husband, actor Michael Wilding, who fathered her two sons, and actor Stewart Granger, then married to Jean Simmons, were lovers. Wilding sued. Hopper, unable to prove her assertion because none of her gay sources would out him, was forced to retract.

Her third husband, producer Mike Todd, showered her with jewels and furs, and financed the lavish lifestyle she adored. His 1958 death in a plane crash shattered her. Consolation came from Todd's friend, singer Eddie Fisher, then wed to MGM star Debbie Reynolds, a marriage portrayed as idyllic. It wasn't. Mann describes the ensuing battle of images: wholesome, devoted Reynolds vs. home-wrecker Taylor. Taylor refused to apologize, asserting she hadn't taken Fisher away from Reynolds because she'd never had him. (The women have long since reconciled.) A nervous MGM worried about her next picture, but the public flocked to see her smoldering Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) Advertisements featured a scantily clad Taylor in bed. She followed with the daring Suddenly, Last Summer (59), and posters showed her in a revealing bathing suit. The movie was a smash. 

Glorious slut

Twentieth Century Fox offered her Cleopatra, and she half-jokingly demanded an unheard-of one-million-dollar fee. The studio blinked, but before she could accept, she owed MGM one picture, for $125,000. She hated playing Gloria Wandrous, "the slut of all time," in Butterfield 8 (60), but carried the film to success. A near-death experience in London won her public sympathy and an Oscar.

While in Rome filming Cleopatra (63), she left Fisher for her married co-star, Richard Burton. That affair made her previous behavior seem quaint. They became the first international paparazzi targets, and were front-page news around the world. A vengeful Hopper insisted the womanizing Burton wouldn't divorce his wife. She was wrong. Meanwhile, filming delays made Cleopatra the most expensive movie ever made – and, adjusted for inflation, probably the costliest in history. Mann disproves the assertion that it wasn't a hit. It was the year's biggest earner, but, like The Wizard of Oz (39), its enormous costs meant it needed several re-releases and a sale to television to earn a profit. In addition to her base salary, Taylor had a percentage of the gross, and ultimately collected a staggering $7 million.

To the dismay of Hollywood's old guard, the public loved "The Burtons" and their glamorous lifestyle, characterized by sensational jewelry, huge yachts, and homes around the world. Their string of box office successes culminated with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (66), which replaced Taylor's glamorous image with that of a middle-aged, foul-mouthed shrew whose behavior masked terrible pain. It won her a second Best Actress Oscar. Their alcohol-fueled marriage ended in divorce, a brief remarriage, and a final divorce.

Between 1945 and 1966, Taylor starred in 17 Top 10 movies (and made no films in 1961 and 62), but by the end of the 60s, she no longer was synonymous with big box-office. It didn't matter. She commanded high sums on television, and earned acclaim and a great deal of money starring in a Broadway revival of The Little Foxes. She survived two more marriages and divorces, well-publicized stays at the Betty Ford Clinic, and made another fortune with her line of perfumes.

She capitalized on her fame by becoming a tireless advocate for people with AIDS, a disease which killed her good friend Rock Hudson. She made it a respectable cause, created two foundations –one for research, one for ongoing care – and raised over $100 million. As Mann points out, Hudson was one of many gay men whom Taylor befriended. Others included Richard Hanley, who was Louis B. Mayer's and  Mike Todd's private secretary; Malcolm Forbes, and actors Roddy McDowell and Montgomery Clift.

Mann writes little about her life  today – she's in poor health, uses a wheelchair, and makes few public appearances. His thesis, convincingly developed, is that Taylor, drawn to luxurious living, used stardom as a means to attain that life. She often gave excellent performances, but her greatest cultural achievement may have been managing her public image to blur the distinction between notoriety and fame, and ultimately transforming herself into a revered legend.