There was nothing smooth about the making of Butterfield 8, which earned Elizabeth Taylor her first Academy Award. After starting as a child actress, Taylor landed an MGM contract and, in her 20s, began a stretch in which she was Oscar-nominated for Raintree County (1957), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).
At that time, 20th Century Fox offered Taylor a record $1 million salary to star in Cleopatra, but she needed to end her MGM deal. As her final MGM project, she committed to the adaptation of author John O’Hara’s 1935 novel Butterfield 8. With the title referring to NYC’s telephone exchange system, Daniel Mann’s movie starred Taylor as Gloria Wandrous, a model who enjoys flings until falling for a married man. The cast included Laurence Harvey and Taylor’s then husband, Eddie Fisher.
In late 1959, THR reported that the studio agreed to rewrites after Taylor deemed her role “too unsavory.” But she remained unhappy with her character and dialogue. “I did it with a pistol at my head,” Taylor said of making the movie, in archival audio from the 2024 documentary Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes. “The lines were so diabolical. It was such a piece of shit. And it made me angry. And out of the anger, it gave me an incentive.”
A memorable scene involved Taylor’s character writing “no sale” on a mirror in lipstick after believing that she was mistaken for a sex worker. Kate Andersen Brower, who penned 2022’s authorized Taylor biography, tells THR that the star referenced this moment during an early screening: “When Elizabeth saw the movie, she took out a tube of lipstick and wrote on the screening room’s wall, ‘Piece of shit.’ She really did see it as a personal affront that they were making her play a glorified prostitute.”
MGM released Butterfield 8 on Nov. 2, 1960, and THR‘s review heralded Taylor’s “bravura” performance. The film became the biggest title of the year for MGM, collecting $9 million domestically ($99 million today), and Taylor landed the best actress Oscar. Butterfield 8 has since been revisited for its feminist undertones, given that the lead pursues sexual relationships, and for presaging Mikey Madison’s 2025 Oscar-winning role as a sex worker in Anora.
This story appeared in the March 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
