As you all know, we lost an American Icon yesterday, Elizabeth Taylor. One of the world's most beautiful and famous movie stars; she was Hollywood's queen. Famous for her beauty, acting, husbands and also diamonds. A fellow lover of all things sparkly, I have always dreamed of playing dress up in her world famous jewelry box. Can you even imagine??? I remember many years ago watching her "White Diamonds" perfume commercial, "These have always brought me luck."...just in awe of her jewels.
So I have decided to do a tribute post to the jewels of Elizabeth Taylor....they will be missed!
“My mother says I didn’t open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did, the first thing I saw was her engagement ring. I was hooked!” -taylor
Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry, a book that celebrates her jewelry collection, considered by many to be among the finest in the world. As rich as Taylor's jewels are, so are the stories behind them.
Taylor says she sees jewels as an expression of "God's workmanship," and is fascinated by their perfection. "They're all from the ground. We didn't dye them. This red is from God," she said.
Extraordinary Loves and Jewels
It has taken Taylor a lifetime to amass her world-class collection. Her love affair with jewelry began as a child, when she bought a costume brooch for her mother. As she grew up, the men in her life fed her insatiable passion for jewels — especially her third husband, Mike Todd, a larger-than-life Hollywood producer whom she married in 1957.
A spectacular diamond and ruby necklace is among the extraordinary treasures Todd gave Taylor. "I'd never seen anything like that in my life. I probably never will again. He was so generous, and he just took such care of me. I felt so protected … and loved."
When [third husband Mike Todd] gave me this tiara, he said, 'You're my queen, and I think you should have a tiara,'" Taylor wrote in A Life in Jewelry. "I wore it for the first time when we went to the Academy Awards. It was the most perfect night, because Mike's filmAround the World in 80 Days won for Best Picture. It wasn't fashionable to wear tiaras then, but I wore it anyway, because he was my king."
She discovered them in a Paris boutique, they sparkled with paste (glass) gems. She wrote, "A few months later, back in New York, I was getting ready for a party and went to put them on. I opened the box, and the earrings looked all polished up. I put them on. There was something different about how they fit. I said, 'Mike, there's something wrong with my earrings.' He chuckled and said he'd had them made up with real diamonds!"
The Taylor-Burton Diamond, 1969
Her most famous gem was a 69.42-carat pear-shaped diamond that Burton purchased at auction for over $1 million. It was originally set in a ring. "But even for me it was too big," Taylor said. "So we had Cartier design a necklace." She wore the new design to the Academy Awards in 1970.
May Elizabeth Taylor and her amazing jewels rest in peace.
