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YOU CAN’T IMAGINE how engrossed I was in Taylor Swift’s newly released video for her song “Elizabeth Taylor” on the album “Life Of A Showgirl.” I have written two books and numerous articles that feature Elizabeth Taylor’s iconic jewelry collection, and much of it was shown throughout Swift’s video in sequences that included movies stills in which ET wore her own jewelry, as well as video footage of red carpet events. Swift is not featured in the video except for her hand with a ring that seems to be a nod to ET’s Krupp diamond. Personally, I think Swift did an incredible job after getting permission from the Elizabeth Taylor Estate and the Wilding and Todd families (the children and descendants of Taylor), all of whom she thanks at the end of the video.
The video includes film stills in a montage from the following movies: “A Place in the Sun,” “Boom!”, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Cleopatra,” “Father of the Bride,” “Giant,” “Suddenly, Last Summer,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, and more. It also show the iconic star with two of her husbands, Mike Todd and Michael Wilding.
Swift released this third video for track two on her album exclusively on Apple Music and Spotify Premium, just as she did with her previous videos, “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Opalite.” Those two later showed up on YouTube, and I expect this one will, too.
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Let’s talk about the legendary jewelry we see in the video.
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A Cartier Paris, circa 1951 ruby, diamond, platinum, and gold necklace given to her by Mike Todd, her husband at the time. It was one of the poignant items in Taylor’s personal collection. While lounging by the pool at their rented villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Todd presented her with a small box. Inside was a platinum, ruby and diamond necklace with round, baguette and fancy-cut diamonds and 19 cushion-shaped rubies. She was pregnant with her daughter Liza at the time, and she would later describe her joy and the happiness that surrounded the moment and the gift by saying: “It was a perfect summer day and a day of perfect love.” Heartbreakingly, Todd was killed the following year when his private plane, The Liz, crashed in New Mexico.
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Taylor is also wearing the diamond tiara that Mike Todd purchased for her, along with a pair of girandole earrings that have a great story behind them. When Taylor and Todd were in Paris, he bought her a pair of beautiful antique paste chandelier earrings she had asked him for in a shop on Place Vendôme. A couple of months later in New York, Taylor said they felt different on her ears. Always wanting to dazzle her, Todd had recreated them with real diamonds as a surprise.
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She also wore some of her favorite jewels in films. In the video, we see her wearing the heart-shaped pendant with a diamond solitaire necklace Todd gave to her in “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.” She was grieving the loss of Todd at the time, and the necklace kept him close to her.
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
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She also wore her Bulgari jewelry given to her by Richard Burton in a number of her films. In the 1968 movie “Boom!” in which she stars with Burton, She is wearing multiple Bulgari pieces. However, it is interesting to note that Burton, one of the great loves of her life and whom she was married to twice doe not appear in the video.
Swift captured these moments and the jewels that went with them throughout her video and more.
In a recent BBC article, Mark Savage, a music correspondent, wrote, “Speaking to the Elvis Duran show last year, Swift explained how she was inspired to write about Taylor on her latest album ‘The Life of A Showgirl.’ ‘She is always someone that I’ve looked up to as being this very glamorous, very beloved, but for some reason a polarizing figure [and] I found myself in that place, too.'”
“She was under a microscope so, so intense, and she handled it with humor and she got along with her life,” she added in a separate interview with Amazon Music.
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“She continued to make incredible art, and so this is a love song kind of through the lens of the motif of what she had to go through in her life and sort of the parallels that I feel in my own life.”
The video is inspiring, so if you are a Spotify Premium or Apple Music subscriber, definitely have a look. And if not, tune in when it is released on YouTube.
