While a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in December 2019, Mark Harmon told a story about Elizabeth Taylor from the set of this movie: "She was such fun. She had a thing in her contract: she worked eight hours a day, and that was it. She'd arrive in the morning, and she was in wardrobe and made up, and she'd get out of her car, and she was ready to work. And then she had a woman who would come on the stage at eight hours and she'd just go [taps his watch], like this, and wherever we were she'd stand up and go, 'good night,' and was gone. And then we'd work for another six hours. And then I ended up doing all my closeups that first week with a stand-in , which is hard because [she's] a nice person, but [she's] not an actor, right? I was having a hard time, and I went to the producers and said, 'I've got a problem here,' and they said 'what do you want us to do about it, it's in her contract.' And I said [shrugs]. So now it's Monday and were on a location out in Altadena somewhere and for some reason that day she's been there two hours longer than her time and everybody knows it. It's like a working crew, so she's sitting on a couch, I'm standing right behind her, I'm on my mark, people are moving lights, and she's just sitting there like this [he crosses his hands on his lap]. And noise and people, you know, production, and all of a sudden in a voice about this loud [indicating his own moderate speaking tone] she says, 'all i have to say'--and everybody stops. and she waits until it's dead silent. And she said, 'is today, I have been here two hours longer than I am supposed to have been.' I'm standing behind her, and I go, 'Hey, Elizabeth, all I gotta say is welcome to the fucking club.' And she turned on me, with those blue eyes, and she went 'Oooh!' And I said, 'No, I'm not pitching you any grief at all, I'm really not. But here's the deal: you go home and we work another eight hours, and we're never going to get this done.' And she turned around, she just sat there very still, for twenty minutes, sat there. They come out, they go, 'we're ready,' she goes, 'Good night,' and she got up and left. So I'm looking to get fired, right? Next day, and from that point on to the rest of that picture, she's there every moment of that film to do everything there is to do. And at the wrap party, which she had at her house, with [her] Butterfield 8 Oscar and [her] Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf [Oscar] standing on that mantel, she wants to meet [everyone] at the door, and as you leave, she has a present for you...and she wants you to open it as she gives it to you. Its a sterling silver frame with a cast and crew picture, that says 'Thank you very much, Elizabeth Taylor.' And she gives me a little box, and I open it up, and it's a 1959 Hamilton Sea-Lectric watch, solid gold, and on the back, you flip it over, it says 'M.H., Two Hours, Tick-Tock, Love E.T.'"
Elizabeth Taylor had, with Tennessee Williams blessing, planned to star onstage in a 1983 revival of ''Sweet Bird of Youth'' with the names of Robert De Niro, [link/nm0000152] and Al Pacino mentioned as possibilities for the role of Chance. Taylor's decision to instead headline - with her ex-husband Richard Burton - a stage revival of Noël Coward's ''Private Lives'' had reportedly left Williams bitterly disappointed during what would prove to be his final months. Ensuant to Williams' February 1983 death Taylor would announce plans to follow her ''Private Lives'' lead by headlining a five city ''Sweet Bird...'' tour including a limited Broadway engagement in May 1984 - plans which would be scrapped in the wake of the disastrous Taylor/ Burton ''Private Lives'' revival.
A TV movie made for the NBC network.
Elizabeth Taylor had earned Oscar nominations for her performances in filmations of two other Tennessee Williams "Southern Gothic" plays: La Chatte sur un toit brûlant (1958) and Soudain l'été dernier (1959), her ''Cat...''leading man: [link/nm0000056], playing Chance in the filmation of Doux oiseau de jeunesse (1962). Taylor and her husband (at the time): Richard Burton, had then headlined a filmation of Williams' uncharacteristic play ''The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore'': entitled Boom! (1968), the film would be cited by Williams as the best screen version of any of his plays, and much cited by cinema pundits as the nadir of both Burton and Taylor's screen role résumés.