Free The Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Ellis Amburn

journalists and educators Tommy Thomason, Russ Hurst, and Phil Record.
    I have the late Hollywood Reporter columnist Radie Harris to thank for taking me to dinner with Elizabeth Taylor. Also present at that dinner were Elizabeth’s chums Calvin Klein, Andy Warhol, and Halston. Radie has since died, and I remember her with tremendous affection and respect—as well as gratitude for such other high-wattage evenings as the ones she arranged for me with Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Henry Fonda.
    Mutual friends of Dame Elizabeth and myself, lawyer L. Arnold Weissberger and agent Milton Goldman, introduced me to John Gielgud, Gloria Swanson, Bill Travers, Carol Channing, and Lillian Gish. Joshua and Nedda Logan introduced me to Mary Martin, Estee Lauder, Gloria Vanderbilt, Anthony Perkins, Lois Chiles, Celeste Holm, Eugenia Sheppard, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Phyllis Newman. At Florence and Harold Rome’s Park Avenue home I met Ethel Merman, Al and Dolly Hirschfeld, Arlene Francis and Martin Gabel, and Walter and Jean Kerr. Joyce Haber gave me introductions to Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Marlo Thomas, Wolfgang Puck, and Dani Janssen.
    The well-connected society writer David Patrick Columbia met with me at Swifty’s restaurant on Madison Avenue, which led to some exclusive revelations.
    In Los Angeles, Shelley Winters, Robert Wagner, and I enjoyed a productive gabfest at Chasen’s. Novelist Norman Bogner opened important channels, arranging interviews with two of Elizabeth Taylor’s directors—Edward Dmytryk and Brian Hutton. Dale Olson, Jean Porter, Curtis Harrington, Frank Taylor, Ed Ditterline, Robert and Jacqueline Burr, Gary Graver, Colin Donnarumma, and hundreds of others whose paths crossed Dame Elizabeth’s graciously consented to be interviewed.
    Befriending me during many trips to California over the years were ICM agent and lifelong friend Ron Bernstein, Dorris Halsey, Priscilla Presley, Kim Novak, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Spero Pastos, Ms. Aldous Huxley, Peggy Lee, James Stewart, Dr. Mani Bhaumik, Patricia (Ms. Joseph Cotten) Medina, Tony Bill, Hector Arce, Yvonne De Carlo, George Cukor, Edie Goetz, Evarts Zigler, Ella Raines, Mike Hamilburg, Hermes Pan, Jack Haley Jr., Kathryn Grayson, and Julia Phillips.
    New York friends who’ve thrown out lifelines over the years include Ross Claiborne, who introduced me to Joan Blondell (ex-wife of Mike Todd) and Peter Viertel. I lunched with Ginger Rogers at La Grenouille; Kitty Carlisle Hart, Budd Schulberg, and Ms. Richard Rodgers, on different occasions, at Le Madrigal; and with June Allyson (Elizabeth’s costar in Little Women ) and Van Johnson (Elizabeth’s costar in The Last Time I Saw Paris ) at Le Cote Basque. While Rex Reed’s editor, first at Delacorte and later at Morrow, I became involved with his—and Elizabeth Taylor’s—friend Lillian Hellman. I’m grateful to them all for insights on Hollywood, Broadway, Mike Todd, MGM, and the jet set—key stops in the fabulous journey of Elizabeth Taylor.
    At the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on La Cienaga Boulevard in Los Angeles, expert librarians laid out the personal papers of George Stevens, who directed Elizabeth in Giant , for me to inspect. For her professional expertise and longtime friendship, I am grateful to Alachua County librarian Joanne Tremblay. Kudos, also, to librarian Jessica Jaeger. At the cozy High Springs, Florida, library, Martha Roberts, Alice Brown (now at the Gainesville library), Mary Gay, Ann Rich, Morgan Shooter, Pat Carr, Margaret Schmelz, and Renee Patterson were unfailingly helpful.
    The Betty Ford Center courteously provided general information but of course respected anonymity to the letter.
    Thanks again to author/collaborator/editor Diane Reverand, who, when she was Cliff Street Books publisher in 1998, commissioned and edited the original edition of The Most Beautiful Woman in the World . Katherine Nintzel of HarperCollins shepherded