Bad Elizabeth - Elisabeth Finch with Michael Musto
Elisabeth Finch was an ambitious writer and producer of the hit ABC series Grey’s Anatomy. As talented as Finch was at crafting episodes of the beloved hospital drama, she was even more talented at lying her ass off about her own life. Finch got ahead in Hollywood by making up a sob story about having and inoperable spinal cancer. She shaved her head, and pretended to throw up in the restroom at work, pulling the heartstrings of her colleagues, family, and lovers. Her charade was so convincing that her "struggle" even became a Grey's Anatomy plot line. And that was just the beginning of the bullshit she spewed. Gideon and Kathy reluctantly marvel at the exploits of this “Zelig of Misfortune,” and her commitment to the reality she created.
Later in the episode Gideon sits down with legendary journalist Michael Musto in his native New York City, to discuss Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor. The glamorous star of films like Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was also known for tempestuous relationships with her many husband, like Richard Burton, and disastrous Hollywood flops like Cleopatra. Was Elizabeth Taylor an out-of-control, home-wrecking diva? Or a was she an ahead-of-her-time, philanthropic, badass? Listen to find out.
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Hosted by Gideon Evans & Kathy Egan Taylor
Produced & Engineer by Will Becton / Executive Producer: Amber Becton
Recorded @ Jett Road Studios
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Jett Road Studios - Website - YouTube - Instagram - Substack
Bad Elizabeth - Instagram - YouTube - Substack
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Vanity Fair (Article)
Anatomy of Lies (TV)
The Plot Thickens: Cleopatra (Podcast)
Transcript
Welcome to Battle Elizabeth.
Speaker:I'm your host, Gideon Evans,
Speaker:and I'm your host Kathy Egan Taylor.
Speaker:The premise of the show is exactly what it sounds like.
Speaker:Each episode we profile a different Elizabeth.
Speaker:Or derivation of that name
Speaker:like Liz or Lizzie or Beth,
Speaker:who deserves to be called bad.
Speaker:And the word bad is also pretty malleable.
Speaker:And in many cases, they're extenuating circumstances that
Speaker:cause these Elizabeths to go awry,
Speaker:and we're not inherently Auntie Elizabeth.
Speaker:In fact, some of our guests this season are good, Elizabeth, and today we are
Speaker:excited to welcome writer Michael Muto, who will be profiling Elizabeth Taylor.
Speaker:Could be a bad Elizabeth.
Speaker:Could be a badass Elizabeth.
Speaker:We'll see what his verdict is later in the show.
Speaker:My mom isn't Elizabeth, actually.
Speaker:Oh, that's our producer and engineer Will Beton of Jet Road Studios.
Speaker:Does your mom go by Elizabeth?
Speaker:She's a Betsy.
Speaker:Ah, right.
Speaker:Well, our episode today is Elizabeth Finch.
Speaker:I remember when you came to me originally, you were like, there's so many Elizabeths
Speaker:out there that are objectively shitty.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I don't know if it's a coincidence,
Speaker:I guess because it is a very popular name.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Oh, right.
Speaker:It's like the 15th,
Speaker:yes,
Speaker:most popular name in America.
Speaker:There's also derivations of it.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Like Liz, Lizzie.
Speaker:Beth, Isabel.
Speaker:Betty.
Speaker:Betsy, Libby.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So each episode will be
Speaker:a different battle.
Speaker:Elizabeth,
Speaker:different Elizabeth, different battle Elizabeth, and what we consider the word
Speaker:bad and what it means and how we apply it.
Speaker:We were talking about that Supreme Court, Potter, Potter Stewart.
Speaker:He was talking about obscenity.
Speaker:There was some case about a movie.
Speaker:It was a Louis mal film that had been released in France, I
Speaker:think it was called The Lovers.
Speaker:I've never seen the movie.
Speaker:And the Supreme Court Justice Stewart Yes.
Speaker:Was like, you know, I can't define obscenity, but I know it.
Speaker:When I see it, I
Speaker:know it when I see it.
Speaker:This, this is not obscenity.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You know, the idea of somebody being bad is sort of up for discussion.
Speaker:But we are the co-host of this podcast, so I think we're just gonna decide if
Speaker:the person is bad and whether they're worthy of an episode on Bad Elizabeth.
Speaker:And if the listeners have a problem with that, I mean, I'm
Speaker:fine with them like trashing us.
Speaker:Saying that person you profiled is not bad.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There's ways to admire some behavior.
Speaker:Like I just remember as a teenager growing up, if we got away with something,
Speaker:I could hear my parents in the next room thinking about a punishment.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And my dad saying, well, well, you gotta hand it to them.
Speaker:They, they were pretty clever about that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, I mean, you can respect some of the bad behavior like, well.
Speaker:You gotta admire someone, he'll take it that far and still get away with it.
Speaker:Totally.
Speaker:So that's basically it.
Speaker:And we are gonna look at various Elizabeths or derivations of the name
Speaker:throughout history, like down the road we wanna do something on Lizzie Borden.
Speaker:Everyone knows that story.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:About her and the ax.
Speaker:And I know you have a soft spot in your heart for Lizzie Borden.
Speaker:I. Should we dive into, let's dive in.
Speaker:Our, Elizabeth Dhore first Elizabeth.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We're gonna start with Elizabeth Finch and, and she
Speaker:spells it with an SI believe she spells it
Speaker:with an S.
Speaker:Elizabeth with an S. She's a television writer.
Speaker:I believe she was born in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Speaker:That's correct.
Speaker:Which is across the river where I grew up in Philadelphia.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Philly.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They root for the Eagles.
Speaker:So she grew up there and she was like an intern, you know, through, through New
Speaker:York and Los Angeles getting onto shows.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I know she went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.
Speaker:To creative rating there.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's a great school and it's a great sort of place to meet
Speaker:other people in the industry.
Speaker:So she came out to LA and she started getting, I guess she
Speaker:started out in the Vampire Diaries, which was like the craze one.
Speaker:Um, what's that Horrible Twilight series, all that stuff.
Speaker:It was capitalized, was like real goth.
Speaker:Like, and then she worked on the Vampire Dies, and then she got into True
Speaker:Blood and I guess she was a writer's assistant and then became a writer.
Speaker:She
Speaker:got onto a bunch of vampire shows, a couple
Speaker:she knew about teenagers and vampires and sort of the whole goth mindset like and
Speaker:the sexy vampire, that's kind of a thing.
Speaker:Right,
Speaker:exactly.
Speaker:So there's an article, a couple of articles in Vanity Fair
Speaker:that's like one of our sources.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And one of the things.
Speaker:That they mentioned in the article is that at one of these shows, maybe True Blood,
Speaker:because it was like HBO, I believe it was a bigger show with Alan Ball, the guy that
Speaker:did six feet under, six feet under, yeah.
Speaker:Anyway, I think writers were getting fired and it was super stressful.
Speaker:And it was around that time that Elizabeth Finch wrote an article for magazine.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It was all about her.
Speaker:Living with cancer.
Speaker:She had a series of physical setbacks, unfortunate ones, and
Speaker:she had this rare form of cancer.
Speaker:And she wrote about this according to the
Speaker:article,
Speaker:and she wrote about it for El Magazine and Self Magazine, like when women's magazines
Speaker:were actually around and important, you know, like the paper version.
Speaker:The paper version that people looked forward to getting in the mail.
Speaker:And she wrote some stuff about her experience of writing and
Speaker:producing for, I believe True Blood.
Speaker:Here's a quotation from her.
Speaker:I watched the producers cut under the fog of Demerol, punched up
Speaker:dialogue about vampire werewolf hybrids with a shunt in my spine.
Speaker:Yes, I was down 17 pounds.
Speaker:Bald vomiting relentlessly, but I was still living alone.
Speaker:Still stubborn as hell.
Speaker:And so that was her experience,
Speaker:and she claimed in that article to have Chondro Sarcoma, which was
Speaker:like a cancer that's on your spine.
Speaker:It's on your spine, but it's blood related, but it's very deadly because
Speaker:it's very resistant to chemotherapy.
Speaker:So it's hard, hard, hard to get rid of it.
Speaker:So this is a fighter who's been through a lot.
Speaker:Mm. So this is what she's written about and her cancer becomes
Speaker:storylines and she's sort of
Speaker:in Grey's Anatomy,
Speaker:right,
Speaker:right, right.
Speaker:She becomes a writer for Grey's Anatomy.
Speaker:And so they use this, well that, that
Speaker:L article kind of catapulted her.
Speaker:Because the writing alone sounds like a voiceover from a Gray's Anatomy character.
Speaker:Totally.
Speaker:So, and
Speaker:also you figure if you're working for medicine, a show about hospitals,
Speaker:you want personal stories, want people that know this like lingo.
Speaker:So she's got the lingo done, plus she's survived it.
Speaker:And she's a, she's a writer for a salacious TV show, which is perfect.
Speaker:And this is a similar demographic.
Speaker:So she gets hired.
Speaker:The problem is, this is all not true.
Speaker:It's complete bullshit.
Speaker:It's an embarrassment of riches.
Speaker:And as we were saying, we were trying to break down what story would be first.
Speaker:We thought this would be the most interesting one 'cause
Speaker:it's incredibly topical.
Speaker:Well, she's alive.
Speaker:And the cancer, you know, one thing that they say in the article
Speaker:is that's kind of her brand.
Speaker:Cancer.
Speaker:Cancer, big kind of cancer is her brand.
Speaker:Cancer.
Speaker:Cancer, well suffering kind of becomes her brand.
Speaker:So basically she does this, um, episode of Grey's Anatomy with Debbie Allen,
Speaker:who plays one of the head surgeons.
Speaker:Surgeons genius surgeons.
Speaker:She's a urologist.
Speaker:And
Speaker:Debbie Allen did fame, right?
Speaker:She's from
Speaker:fame.
Speaker:She's brilliant.
Speaker:She's an American icon.
Speaker:And her sister is Felicia Rashad of the Cosby family.
Speaker:They're sisters.
Speaker:Yes, they're sisters.
Speaker:Anyway, so Debbie Allen plays this head doctor that gets this form of
Speaker:cancer, this rare form of cancer.
Speaker:Chondro.
Speaker:Sarcoma.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I watched that episode today.
Speaker:It might've been the first episode I ever watched of, of Grey Anatomy's.
Speaker:Anatomy.
Speaker:Anatomy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I went and it was good.
Speaker:It was good.
Speaker:The first episode, she's just diagnosed.
Speaker:She's just diagnosed, and it's called, does anybody have a Map or something?
Speaker:Something
Speaker:like that.
Speaker:That's the name of the episode,
Speaker:and basically Elizabeth Finch is the rudders, giving them the map to cancer.
Speaker:You know, like, how do I handle this diagnosis, right?
Speaker:What do I do?
Speaker:The episode, that's the big crescendo of this storyline, is that she gets operated
Speaker:on by a fellow very skilled doctor who they, they sort of butt heads, but
Speaker:he's gonna save her life, god dammit.
Speaker:And he is gonna remove this tumor or whatever it is
Speaker:that's, that's in her spine.
Speaker:But she might be paraplegic.
Speaker:So the stakes are high.
Speaker:And everyone, they were saying like, creating this episode,
Speaker:watching it, and everyone was crying 'cause it's so emotional.
Speaker:And Elizabeth herself.
Speaker:Is in scrubs and they were like, we gotta put you on the episode.
Speaker:She's on the episode and she's, and I guess TV guide or Entertainment Weekly,
Speaker:whatever, when they were publishing photos for like this week on for the marketing.
Speaker:For the marketing.
Speaker:She's in it, she's like in scrubs, like proudly wheeling Debbie Allen's
Speaker:character into the emergency room.
Speaker:So it's highly like emotional based on her personal story.
Speaker:It's her story.
Speaker:It's her story.
Speaker:She's
Speaker:basically writing an autobiography.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And Debbie Allen, I mean a so-called autobiography.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But it's all, again, it's all lies.
Speaker:It's all lies.
Speaker:We should probably go into like what's going on in the writer's room.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Everybody's talking over each other in the writer's room
Speaker:normally, but because Elizabeth Finch kind of has this sad story,
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:She becomes the focus of attention and everybody gives her the
Speaker:floor and nobody would normally hog the limelight like that.
Speaker:But because she has claimed she has cancer and she is a shaved head.
Speaker:Like faked having a shunt from chemo.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Everybody, you know, will give her space to talk.
Speaker:So she's working on Grey's Anatomy having gone through and she's
Speaker:drops little bombs here and there.
Speaker:Like at one point she said she had a kidney operation.
Speaker:She had a kidney transplant, but she claims was donated to her by
Speaker:Anna Paquin, who is on True Blood.
Speaker:And that was a result of the cancer
Speaker:and that was a result of the cancer and also the fake cancer.
Speaker:She discovered the fake cancer when she had knee surgery, which is also
Speaker:peculiar because she's Oh, right.
Speaker:A knee replacement.
Speaker:Knee
Speaker:replacement.
Speaker:Which is curious 'cause she's quite young at this point.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Having knee replacement surgery.
Speaker:So she has all these things that lead to the perfect storm of
Speaker:everything that goes wrong with her.
Speaker:And when she was working at Grey's Anatomy, she did have a shaved head.
Speaker:She shaved
Speaker:her head, she shad her head and she went in every day.
Speaker:'cause she's a fighter.
Speaker:But she would leave, you know, down 17 pounds.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And she would go wretch in the bathroom and people would hear her
Speaker:and they'd say,
Speaker:go home.
Speaker:And they'd say, go home.
Speaker:And she's like, no.
Speaker:So she fought through it more and more things happened to her.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:She was almost like the Farrest Gump of misfortune.
Speaker:Not that she's intellectually No, no, no.
Speaker:Just that she's like all over the place.
Speaker:Like, like Zel ally.
Speaker:Yeah, Zoe.
Speaker:That's like what Allen, you know,
Speaker:like she sat next to a fat man and became a fat man herself.
Speaker:Like, right.
Speaker:I mean, if there's anything admirable about Elizabeth Finch,
Speaker:is she really committed to lying?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:She good at it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was never very committed to lying.
Speaker:Like, are you a good liar?
Speaker:No, no, actually I am.
Speaker:'cause I'm a sneak.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think it's just because I grew up in a B and you know, with like lots
Speaker:of siblings 'cause we're all telling on each other or screwing each other
Speaker:over or like, or blaming each other.
Speaker:You're a
Speaker:successful producer, you're probably somewhat Yeah.
Speaker:Used to like playing with the truth here and there by omission if nothing else.
Speaker:I once went to a friend's house and they serve Lima beans and I was too
Speaker:ashamed to say I didn't like them and I threw up all over their floor.
Speaker:Were you invited back?
Speaker:I was invited back, but I'm not evoking any pity in that story.
Speaker:No, you not at all.
Speaker:So part of what was bad about what Elizabeth did really was kind of.
Speaker:Putting people through the ringer essentially.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like these people, like went out and helped her and talking
Speaker:about how committed she was.
Speaker:Like she went to Minnesota, right to go to the Mayo Clinic, not having cancer.
Speaker:She went to the Mayo Clinic and she was dating a woman at the time,
Speaker:and the woman wanted to be very supportive and she said, I don't want
Speaker:you to be part of my cancer story.
Speaker:Wouldn't let her in.
Speaker:I don't know how one fakes getting an appointment at the Mayo Clinic.
Speaker:I think you just tell people you have an appointment and
Speaker:then you just walk through
Speaker:the doors and then you walk through the doors.
Speaker:But that's crazy to book a plane ticket.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:And she rented an apartment in Minnesota and her Instagram would have
Speaker:like a photo of the exterior of me.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So everybody knew
Speaker:and her brother, there's two things with her brother that he abused her
Speaker:physically abuser, and also that twice that he committed suicide.
Speaker:These are
Speaker:other things she lied about.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Committed
Speaker:suicide on
Speaker:two separate
Speaker:occasions.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:There's two stories about her brother.
Speaker:One was that he committed suicide, but he didn't succeed, so she had
Speaker:to go off and finish it for him.
Speaker:Whoa.
Speaker:But her brother's like working as a doctor somewhere like in Florida.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:So these are other stories that she would plant that she had to maintain, you know,
Speaker:and a lot of this ended up in storylines.
Speaker:She ended up rising through the ranks.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:She ended up being like the head writer and a co eep and everyone loved her.
Speaker:Her.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And then there was, at one point there was the shooting at a synagogue in Oh, right.
Speaker:The Tree of Life.
Speaker:The
Speaker:Tree of Life in Cleveland was Pittsburgh.
Speaker:In Pittsburgh.
Speaker:Pittsburgh.
Speaker:There was a terrible shooting at a synagogue, tree of Life synagogue.
Speaker:And so she said, and this is while she's working at Grey's and Manny,
Speaker:imagine making a very healthy salary.
Speaker:She's like, I've gotta go there.
Speaker:One of my friends was Massacre.
Speaker:It was in the massacre
Speaker:because she went to Carnegie Mellon.
Speaker:So there was a Pittsburgh thing that could have been, could have
Speaker:been true, a real thing, but.
Speaker:But she said she flew there to help clean up the carnage through Jewish faith.
Speaker:Well, she, I don't even think she was Jewish.
Speaker:Jewish.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:And I don't think so.
Speaker:And she
Speaker:said she also was going the, maybe she was because she was
Speaker:a friend of one of the deceased that the FBI had given her special
Speaker:permission to be in there, which is.
Speaker:I don't know how one gets back.
Speaker:Is this like
Speaker:one of those things where it's like to observe somebody's passing properly,
Speaker:you have to do this, this, and this.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:It's like
Speaker:a death, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You
Speaker:know, she basically knew somehow that Jews need to be buried within 24 hours.
Speaker:That's what I'm trying to, so I think, and it's so horrible.
Speaker:'cause this is, again, this is like what makes her worse
Speaker:than just like a typical liar.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because this is truly a tragedy.
Speaker:Yeah, it's awful.
Speaker:And she basically exploited it.
Speaker:And said, I have to clean the guts of my friend off the floor to get that person.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:She used force, like I have
Speaker:to clean up the carnage.
Speaker:So these kind of
Speaker:out there lies.
Speaker:They're almost too crazy to make up.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:Like do you think that was a reason why people believed it?
Speaker:The bigger the lie, would she, the more people will believe it?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Like why would she even make up.
Speaker:This.
Speaker:She went on a plane, or she claimed she did on social media.
Speaker:She yelled at Delta Airlines for losing her bag.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:That they made her check because it had cancer medication.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:In the bag.
Speaker:So it's like, wow.
Speaker:I mean, she really is good.
Speaker:She really believed in,
Speaker:so I think with Elizabeth Finch, she's like, but it's my story.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:So she just lived that life like So as a result of going to.
Speaker:Clean up her friend's remains at the synagogue.
Speaker:She said, I'm going to take some time off and deal with my trauma.
Speaker:Still getting paid by Grey's Anatomy 'cause she's their, their queen.
Speaker:And they gave
Speaker:her a lot of like space to take time off.
Speaker:Lots of Lee leeway.
Speaker:Lots of Lee.
Speaker:And apparently
Speaker:senior writers like helped her finish scripts when she had to
Speaker:run exactly when she had to run
Speaker:off.
Speaker:So she did.
Speaker:A lot of people like had her back for it.
Speaker:'cause of course they're gonna have her back.
Speaker:She's dying, she's fighting this cancer and showing up every day
Speaker:and has had such a tumultuous life.
Speaker:So she goes to this clinic like I guess in Scottdale, and I imagine it's like one
Speaker:of those Tony in Arizona where In Arizona?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I imagine it's like kind of like Silver Hill in Connecticut
Speaker:or, or passages in Malibu.
Speaker:It's like Adirondack chairs on a hill.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:You can get some networking done.
Speaker:Gets this networking done
Speaker:and, and you know, it's probably 90, it's pretty, probably it's beautiful and it's
Speaker:probably like 90 grand a week to be there.
Speaker:But she meets this woman who's there.
Speaker:Jen.
Speaker:Jen Byer.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:She is the mother of five and she's escaping a very abusive,
Speaker:um, domestic situation.
Speaker:Her husband was very abusive and so she's basically hiding from
Speaker:him, but I believe she's there
Speaker:for trauma.
Speaker:And she also, Jen, she's trying to hold onto her kids because she disassociated
Speaker:at one point and walked away from her kids in a car and then children's services.
Speaker:Her husband was awful and abusive.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And frightening.
Speaker:And the children really seemed to, from what we get to know of
Speaker:her in the article, she's really a loving woman and a caring mother.
Speaker:Genius.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And her kids are good kids and they love their mother.
Speaker:And so anyway, she was there recovering and they met and of
Speaker:course they started relationship.
Speaker:Fell in
Speaker:love.
Speaker:Elizabeth went by the name Joe.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Because which is also a character on Grey's Anatomy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's her next character.
Speaker:She stole Jennifer's storyline and created a storyline for the
Speaker:Joe character on Grey's Anatomy, which is about domestic abuse.
Speaker:Also the abuse that Jen was getting from her husband.
Speaker:Her husband, yes.
Speaker:Elizabeth created the storyline for her own fake character
Speaker:for fake characters.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That
Speaker:her brother and her brother was very, yeah.
Speaker:Had abused her.
Speaker:It was kind of like that zeal thing where she's like mimicking
Speaker:and taking other people's traumas.
Speaker:And it's kind of crazy.
Speaker:I mean, it is impressive that she's not only writing for Grey's Anatomy,
Speaker:but she's writing her own storyline.
Speaker:Her own storyline.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:That is kind of, we have to hand it too.
Speaker:It's No, that's what I'm,
Speaker:I am impressed by that.
Speaker:And, and she kind of like, she really kept on top of her storylines, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the other thing
Speaker:that we were talking about, it was just sort of the, the industry
Speaker:we're in, in, you know, we both work in television and film, right?
Speaker:It does attract some kooky characters,
Speaker:and I guess you meet people from time to time that are just kind of like,
Speaker:they have trouble telling the truth.
Speaker:A a lot of it, I think is an attention getting thing.
Speaker:I think there's a way you can control.
Speaker:You think
Speaker:there's a choice, but is there a physiological Well, yes.
Speaker:I actually, in preparation for this episode, I listened to an episode
Speaker:of Radiolab, which I really like.
Speaker:There was a, an episode in 2010, which was about lying, and there have been many
Speaker:studies about liars and pathological or compulsive liars, and you know how there's
Speaker:brain material that's like gray matter?
Speaker:It's called gray matter.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That's where I think thoughts are formed in the prefrontal cortex or cortex.
Speaker:Apparently liars have more white matter, which is the connecting material.
Speaker:Between those gray matter.
Speaker:So I think they're very good at connecting stories.
Speaker:Yeah, so they're actually really good at this and they're kind
Speaker:of better at it than non liars.
Speaker:And apparently the white matter that grows between the gray matter occurs
Speaker:between the age of two and 10 and 10 is apparently developmentally the
Speaker:time when you start telling lies.
Speaker:So
Speaker:with Elizabeth Finch, it's almost like she's a. A method writer or something,
Speaker:instead of a method actor who's like, okay, I am like, right, you know,
Speaker:like, I'm gonna lose a bunch of weight and I'm gonna go into this mode.
Speaker:It was almost like she did that, but as a writer to some degree.
Speaker:Totally.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean it's, it's interesting 'cause like you think of method actor, like,
Speaker:you know, you think of like Adrian Brody.
Speaker:You have to remember, you know, he's a tremendous actor, but like, you
Speaker:didn't go through the Holocaust.
Speaker:You actually portrayed someone who went through it, so it's not the same.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But she really, like, what's so egregious about her is that
Speaker:she lived these fake stories.
Speaker:It was always designed for other people to hear her problems
Speaker:because that would help her out.
Speaker:But if you have something that is a sob story Yeah.
Speaker:Is it okay to use that?
Speaker:Or is even that like a slippery slope?
Speaker:It can be.
Speaker:I mean, I don't know if you mind me bringing this up, but when we worked at
Speaker:the Daily Show together, when you, we started, you had just had surgery, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I remember you didn't even tell people about it.
Speaker:What was the surgery?
Speaker:I had a craniotomy.
Speaker:I had a brain tumor on the side of my head.
Speaker:Oh man.
Speaker:The thing
Speaker:about when you have problems with your brain Yeah.
Speaker:And you live alone and you work all the time or whatever, and
Speaker:you're thriving, I suppose you do.
Speaker:I mean, if your brain is, is not working, you don't know that.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Oh, interesting.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So there'd be things like, I would say like, oh, I lost words.
Speaker:Like who comes up with an expression like that?
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:Someone who loses words like, I'd be talking to you and I
Speaker:would Couldn't remember the name.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Of the word for car.
Speaker:And I would look at you like that happened.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I was just starting out at the Daily Show and they were trying me out.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:Was there an
Speaker:aspect of like, you were almost nervous to bring it?
Speaker:I didn't want
Speaker:anyone to know.
Speaker:And people say that's the other thing too, is people say the,
Speaker:the craziest things to you.
Speaker:Were you fully recovered at that point?
Speaker:Like cognitively or, I,
Speaker:I should have.
Speaker:I would've.
Speaker:It
Speaker:was a few days.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:it really, it was 10 days after I brain surgery.
Speaker:You could have gone forward.
Speaker:I know, but would and told people and then they would've been like, we can't,
Speaker:they would be like, whoa.
Speaker:You, you got us a flawed one.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:Like, great.
Speaker:Now we can't fire her.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:in your case, you were in a trial basis.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:And I was like, I want this job desperately also.
Speaker:It was good to be distracted.
Speaker:I mean, I cried every night in my office after hours.
Speaker:Ugh.
Speaker:I'm so sorry.
Speaker:That's the time to do it.
Speaker:It was, yeah.
Speaker:It was good that I was around people and I just would wear my hair.
Speaker:But I do remember like Rob Corddry saying like, yeah, I remember once you turned it.
Speaker:'cause it was like a big frank, you could see it actually.
Speaker:It's like a big Frank I know.
Speaker:Through your hair.
Speaker:Yeah, like through my head.
Speaker:And there's a metal plate.
Speaker:That he saw it.
Speaker:He
Speaker:saw, he's like, I was wondering, and Stephen Colbert was like,
Speaker:yeah, I, I saw that too.
Speaker:Your Terminator skull right.
Speaker:Was funny.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So Kathy and I, we've known each other forever, right?
Speaker:It's going on like 30 years I think.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We worked together, uh, Michael Moore.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:The muck breaker.
Speaker:Yeah, the Stu Star.
Speaker:He's the original prankster.
Speaker:You were his assistant?
Speaker:I was his assistant.
Speaker:You were an A, an associate producer, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And
Speaker:then I became kind of later a producer.
Speaker:Yes, a producer and a researcher, but I also like dressed up like a
Speaker:chicken and Got you were a mask.
Speaker:I got arrested at Disney World.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So, and then we also, Kathy and I, we worked at the Daily Show together.
Speaker:We worked at The Daily Show with John Stewart the first time.
Speaker:But we also
Speaker:worked on lots of crazy little things in between.
Speaker:We have.
Speaker:Prank shows and stuff like that.
Speaker:And you got me on LEG.
Speaker:How did I
Speaker:do that?
Speaker:I don't know why you did that for me.
Speaker:You should have had that job.
Speaker:I don't.
Speaker:I did that and you got me the LEG job.
Speaker:I
Speaker:had no idea.
Speaker:A big theme in this episode will be lying.
Speaker:Or, or, yeah.
Speaker:Or being flexible with the truth.
Speaker:And literally every show you just guys mentioned, that's true as a producer.
Speaker:You need to bend the truth to do your job for all shows daily.
Speaker:Show a g my own.
Speaker:I also worked to Fox
Speaker:News.
Speaker:Oh well there you go.
Speaker:Well and MSNBC News.
Speaker:Well, um, I do think the TV aspect is probably interesting to both of us, and
Speaker:we've both had experiences where we've had jobs that required us to kind of.
Speaker:Pull the wool over people's eyes.
Speaker:I think lying could really get you sued.
Speaker:So we would have to tightrope walk.
Speaker:This is what I think drew me to battle.
Speaker:I, I think the TV area or, or sort of our industry anyway, brings
Speaker:out like broken winged people.
Speaker:True and creative people and stuff.
Speaker:All kinds of people.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So this woman she met at the recovery center, Jen Byer.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They kind of fell in love.
Speaker:They fell in
Speaker:love, and they became a family.
Speaker:They married,
Speaker:actually, they married, and then Elizabeth Finch came and lived with
Speaker:her and she became close with her children and she made a really nice
Speaker:life for all of them and inspired them.
Speaker:They went to Hawaii together.
Speaker:That's why the one of her sons was exploring ballet.
Speaker:She did.
Speaker:She paid for classes and
Speaker:she also stood up to this abusive husband.
Speaker:She.
Speaker:Really like told him off at some point.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So there were some redeeming qualities.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:she was very zeal like that.
Speaker:She came in and she absorbed your world and your life and she was
Speaker:incredibly empathetic and lovely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:She and her wife started separating Jennifer and Elizabeth 'cause there was
Speaker:yet another tragedy or something going on.
Speaker:Jennifer started to look into her past, ah, she said she found like.
Speaker:Facebook, Facebook that the night of the, the slaughter at the
Speaker:synagogue in Pittsburgh, she was at like the Abbey and WeHo drinking
Speaker:blue drinks with her friends.
Speaker:Ah, and even the next day.
Speaker:And the other thing too is that she was posting pictures of herself when she was
Speaker:going through chemotherapy, but she was wearing the scarves, but she had full on
Speaker:eyelashes and eyebrows, which apparently everyone says there's the first to go
Speaker:when you go through cancer treatment.
Speaker:And that
Speaker:Jen was.
Speaker:Technically a nurse.
Speaker:I think she, and
Speaker:she also was a nurse and she said, this is the weird thing too, they interviewed
Speaker:in this series, anatomy of Lies.
Speaker:They interviewed one of the male writers and it goes, she could
Speaker:have had a Lego taped to her Cale.
Speaker:That
Speaker:was, she pretended to have it pretended it was like a cancer, a
Speaker:portal, yeah.
Speaker:Oh, for, uh,
Speaker:chemotherapy.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And in her writing meetings, they saw that there, they'd see
Speaker:it, there was something there.
Speaker:But I think Jen also, because they were married and were,
Speaker:you know, intimate, intimate.
Speaker:She didn't see a scar.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And as a nurse, she knew that you would have a scar.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's, that's not
Speaker:like something that they do an incision and then stitch you up.
Speaker:That's an open thing over.
Speaker:Its open while wound to be used again.
Speaker:It's
Speaker:like having a, a gas
Speaker:tank.
Speaker:So I think Jen.
Speaker:Kind of went nuts.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Understandably.
Speaker:And made Elizabeth confess everything.
Speaker:I'm just
Speaker:gonna wait until my son has learned ballet a little better.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then I'm gonna Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Just until he gets into the, to she, oh.
Speaker:I do think
Speaker:that the fact that she wanted to stay with her, she didn't
Speaker:like leave her immediately.
Speaker:She was like, we, I will stay with her if she confesses everything.
Speaker:Oh, that was the condition.
Speaker:Then I believe she didn't.
Speaker:Leave immediately by Elizabeth
Speaker:Finch came with all this access.
Speaker:My friend Anna PackMan has a house in Ojai.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We can go there and relax and get away from everything.
Speaker:She helped finance education for her children.
Speaker:Her children.
Speaker:They loved her.
Speaker:Yeah, they did.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:She was a great listener.
Speaker:I think that's the other thing too, is that people were duped by her, but partly
Speaker:heartbroken because they relied on her.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think also once things started getting ugly between Jen.
Speaker:Elizabeth, I think Elizabeth did send a text kind of saying,
Speaker:you stole my kids away from me.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Ah.
Speaker:So there was also a fear aspect that Elizabeth with her powerful
Speaker:money and Hollywood Oh, would like take the kids away somehow.
Speaker:So, and that maybe was a real fear.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:her first husband, she had five children with, you don't have just five children
Speaker:anyway, and he and the first husband killed himself.
Speaker:He didn't say And he killed himself.
Speaker:Himself.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:He, so she had been through so much with the first marriage.
Speaker:Well, he,
Speaker:he actually killed himself while she was seeing Elizabeth.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Elizabeth found out.
Speaker:At the offices of Grey's Anatomy?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Was that a plot line?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That, yes.
Speaker:That seems like a plot.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:There plot.
Speaker:I think plot.
Speaker:I think she, she used a lot of that stuff.
Speaker:Stuff there.
Speaker:A line.
Speaker:And then her brother, the whole accusation we talked about.
Speaker:Better brother abused her and she said her brother killed himself.
Speaker:Himself too, too.
Speaker:But he didn't.
Speaker:He didn't.
Speaker:He's still
Speaker:alive.
Speaker:What I picture is, you know, when you see like the apartment of the
Speaker:person that's like trying to track down the serial killer and they
Speaker:have all the like index cards and photos and the strings rights stuffs.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I almost picture Elizabeth Finch having her own version of that
Speaker:to keep track of her own stuff.
Speaker:I mean, that's interesting.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Like how do you keep track of all
Speaker:this stuff?
Speaker:Well, no, that's what I say.
Speaker:You need like a flow chart to figure it all out.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:I think it started getting tough for Elizabeth Finch when
Speaker:these worlds were colliding.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So if we're to look at her transgressions and we're thinking about the word bad.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What's slam dunk bad?
Speaker:What's gray area bad, and what's like, oh, I kind of admire that.
Speaker:That's being resourceful.
Speaker:I
Speaker:mean, she's clearly a very good writer and that is obvious in our lives.
Speaker:I mean, she's super creative, so you have to hand it to her there.
Speaker:I think if she only lied to a few people like her family or even just the staff.
Speaker:That would be one thing.
Speaker:But she really like her lies kind of ended up as episodes and
Speaker:went out to millions of people
Speaker:and she was also active like on social media and blogs and stuff like that.
Speaker:Totally.
Speaker:Well, she wrote
Speaker:like eight publications in, in total about her cancer.
Speaker:Wrote about her cancer.
Speaker:And so all those people reading, if you have cancer and you're reading
Speaker:it and she's giving you hope or something, I mean that's pretty shitty.
Speaker:You came in with a bald scarf and I brought you tea 'cause I felt bad.
Speaker:You know, and you had that portal and I just heard you retching and I felt awful.
Speaker:Do you think not shaving the eyebrows, was it an oversight or vanity?
Speaker:I think it's definitely vanity.
Speaker:No one looks good without
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:She's so smart.
Speaker:I have to think.
Speaker:She knew that.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Well, my father went through chemo.
Speaker:He never lost his hair.
Speaker:He did.
Speaker:I
Speaker:mean, she might have known that and also, but it's weird not to lose
Speaker:dry, but even the hydro, uh, chondro Sarcoma, which was a type of cancer,
Speaker:apparently it, it affected older people.
Speaker:So even that.
Speaker:People could have been like seeing red flags that she was young and had it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so she did make a few mistakes for sure.
Speaker:The
Speaker:not responsive to chemo thing was maybe the most appealing aspect
Speaker:of that particular fake diagnosis.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because you could say,
Speaker:well, you know, sometimes it responds it, sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker:It sounds
Speaker:dramatic.
Speaker:And I know in that episode where Debbie Allen's character gets diagnosed,
Speaker:the doctor's like Chondro is.
Speaker:Beast.
Speaker:It's like, so it's so like over the top, you know?
Speaker:It's perfect.
Speaker:For a drama Godzilla verse Kros.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I guess in a weird way, all TV reality, even non-reality shows,
Speaker:we are kind of lying to people.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:Why else would anyone engage?
Speaker:Because you know, you know, it's interesting stuff.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Well, also, and they mention it on the Radiolab episode,
Speaker:they had an expert on lying.
Speaker:Yeah, I hear that.
Speaker:And
Speaker:I think when people.
Speaker:Con you.
Speaker:It's not only that you don't believe that person from now on, it kind of like
Speaker:shatters your belief in like anything.
Speaker:It's a big rug pool.
Speaker:You're falling.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's fucked up.
Speaker:It's like you're toying with people's like, trust.
Speaker:I've worked with people who I put my trust in.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then I found out like they were ripping me off or gaslighting
Speaker:and I'm like, I didn't know people came mean, but they do.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So Jen Byer, her wife and the mother of the five children that, that
Speaker:Elizabeth has sort of commandeered starts looking into Elizabeth's past.
Speaker:And the thing that's so shocking in this age of social media, you could go back
Speaker:five years and you could see that she was not at this Tree of Life synagogue, right?
Speaker:She was going through chemo, but she still had her eyebrows.
Speaker:She
Speaker:didn't
Speaker:have a scar.
Speaker:And didn't have a scar.
Speaker:It's kind of like the usual suspects when they're looking at
Speaker:the bulletin board, they're like, oh, that's what Kaiser Sensei is
Speaker:exactly.
Speaker:And Jen is.
Speaker:Like her life is falling apart.
Speaker:Her life is
Speaker:falling apart.
Speaker:And she's looking at all these plot lines like, oh yeah, that makes
Speaker:sense now that makes sense now.
Speaker:So it started to unravel.
Speaker:So she started looking into her and so she actually ended up writing
Speaker:an email to Shonda Rhimes and the Shondaland, you know, complex.
Speaker:So who, who wrote
Speaker:the email?
Speaker:Jen Byer wrote this.
Speaker:So who wrote this
Speaker:email?
Speaker:Like, you know that she's a con artist and she's been conning you for years.
Speaker:She doesn't have cancer, she's done this to me.
Speaker:She's a dangerous.
Speaker:I love the fact that Jen is the person that revealed it.
Speaker:It feels right 'cause
Speaker:she earned the right, she earned her place.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:She the worst she
Speaker:suffered.
Speaker:I mean, she, she obviously gained a lot, like she got to go on these vacations
Speaker:and stuff like that and got to feel normal for a little bit, but even
Speaker:further betrayed because she already went through this with her husband and
Speaker:opened up to this woman about all this.
Speaker:Stuff.
Speaker:And this woman just took the parts that were useful to her and
Speaker:also got to be a fake mother for a while and really loved that.
Speaker:Well, and then you have disappointed kids that it's like, oh, our fake mom is no
Speaker:longer there.
Speaker:Jen made her confess to the kids.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And confess to her own parents.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Like on on FaceTime or whatever.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think Jen ultimately got a phone call from Disney.
Speaker:They were gonna investigate, but I guess Elizabeth resigned.
Speaker:They didn't even do the investigation.
Speaker:Fast forward.
Speaker:We just realized that in light of the Palisades fires and the Alsina
Speaker:fires, she has a Venmo account.
Speaker:Elizabeth Finch.
Speaker:Elizabeth Finch does, has a Venmo account out saying like, if you could go donate
Speaker:to the fire, and I'm sure she lives in one of those neighborhoods, 'cause
Speaker:that Gras Anatomy money is nice money.
Speaker:And so she said, I have a Venmo account that directly to me so you don't have
Speaker:to worry about fees and all that stuff.
Speaker:I'll take it directly to the fires.
Speaker:You're like, why isn't this a GoFundMe?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:She's
Speaker:appealing to, I think her appeal had something to do with.
Speaker:Pets that needed being rescued, which is another thing to me
Speaker:like when people are like, we're gonna come back and get our pets.
Speaker:Like, no.
Speaker:If you're evacuating a fire, you're taking your pets with you.
Speaker:There's no choice in coming back to get your pets.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So she was appealing to like the lost pets thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So is this thing appealing for money for the wildfires?
Speaker:Was it real?
Speaker:I believe it is real.
Speaker:I wouldn't trust her.
Speaker:I mean, the fact that she
Speaker:put out the request is real.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Well, I mean, I think it's interesting 'cause there's a crime of like,
Speaker:anytime there's a tragedy, there's an opportunity to exploit it, right?
Speaker:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So like is she bad?
Speaker:Yeah, I, I think that for the trauma that she put people through her own family.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This woman, Jennifer, her wife, and
Speaker:everyone who read her articles and watched that show and the staff.
Speaker:So it's a good one.
Speaker:She didn't murder anybody.
Speaker:She didn't really even commit crimes maybe, but it's still pretty bad
Speaker:saying like Finch, she could come back, like James Fry
Speaker:came back with another book.
Speaker:He just wrote a fiction book and he's fine.
Speaker:Yeah, I think she's a bad Elizabeth, but not bad as an evil Elizabeth.
Speaker:She behaved badly and she played with a lot of people's emotions, which
Speaker:I think that's bad, but she's not sinister evil as in like a Hitler.
Speaker:Well, she didn't like.
Speaker:Exterminate her race.
Speaker:She didn't exterminate a
Speaker:whole race of people, so I think she's bad, but I do admire her
Speaker:moxie for, for getting away with it.
Speaker:And she has these, obviously, these superpowers that she could keep up.
Speaker:Like she knew so much about cancer that she actually, maybe she
Speaker:should have been a doctor, maybe.
Speaker:Maybe she will.
Speaker:She could go to med school.
Speaker:If she wants to come on a future episode of our show, I'd love to
Speaker:talk to her,
Speaker:talk about it.
Speaker:That would be interesting.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Right now we're gonna switch gears.
Speaker:We're gonna talk about a different Elizabeth.
Speaker:I'm talking Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, who could be polarizing but not
Speaker:necessarily deserving of the title.
Speaker:Bad.
Speaker:We thought, who better to weigh in on this than Michael Muto?
Speaker:We caught up with a legendary journalist and Liz Taylor aficionado
Speaker:in New York City to get his take
Speaker:when we decided to do this podcast where each episode would be
Speaker:dedicated to a different, that Elizabeth people would suggest.
Speaker:People you know, Elizabeth Holmes or Lizzie Borden.
Speaker:There were a couple of people we knew who said, are you gonna do Elizabeth Taylor?
Speaker:You know, there was a thing with Debbie Reynolds, who is America's
Speaker:sweetheart, and supposedly Elizabeth Taylor stole Eddie Fisher.
Speaker:Liz Taylor probably got married about 300 times, twice to Richard Burton alone.
Speaker:Yet how many years later?
Speaker:Decades and decades later, people are still focusing on Eddie Fisher dumping
Speaker:Debbie Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor.
Speaker:They were the original Brad.
Speaker:Evangelina, what were they called?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Whatever they were.
Speaker:This was the big adultery, marital breakup story of all time and
Speaker:remains so just because of what the different parties represent.
Speaker:Debbie Reynolds, a hardworking, you know, leading lady.
Speaker:Pretty, just very proficient, professional.
Speaker:Liz Taylor, just a knockout, a siren, something other worldly in her beauty.
Speaker:And then you have the sleazeball, Eddie Fisher, who of course.
Speaker:Towards the end I became friends with And you met him.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:He would come to my parties.
Speaker:He was dating a woman who was the publicist for the Limelight
Speaker:nightclub in New York, and she would bring 'em to my parties.
Speaker:We became friends.
Speaker:He decided I looked like a younger version of him.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:At this point, was a cool guy.
Speaker:He wasn't the type of person who could.
Speaker:Lure a young Liz Taylor, but I just don't understand all the blaming of
Speaker:Elizabeth Taylor on this one incident.
Speaker:She had so many romantic incidents in her life and also contributed
Speaker:so much as an actor, as a person.
Speaker:She was not only a great movie star.
Speaker:There's a separate thing of great actor, and she happened to be that too, and
Speaker:anyone who doubts that should really take a look at her performances, katchen
Speaker:roof, suddenly less summer placed in the sun, especially who's afraid of Virginia
Speaker:Wolf, where she redefined herself.
Speaker:Unfortunately, that led to her being typecast as a screaming shrew for the
Speaker:rest of her career, but she dutifully went along with that and still
Speaker:proved to be extremely entertaining.
Speaker:And then you have Liz Taylor, the philanthropist who, when nobody was
Speaker:addressing aids, which was killing tens of thousands of gay men and
Speaker:IV drug users, Liz Taylor bravely went to bat because her friend, rock
Speaker:Hudson had come down with AIDS in 84.
Speaker:He had to go public with it.
Speaker:In 85, he was pretty much being extorted by the tabloids,
Speaker:and he died later that year.
Speaker:Well, that was the year when Liz Taylor, Dr. Matilda Krim and others
Speaker:got together and formed amfAR, an organization to combat aids.
Speaker:And Liz lost so many career opportunities because of that.
Speaker:There were the Bible thumpers saying that people with aids are sinners.
Speaker:You deserved it.
Speaker:This is God's punishment.
Speaker:So if you had AIDS, at that point, you were doubly oppressed, you had
Speaker:a horrible illness that was deadly.
Speaker:And then society is telling you you're a bad person.
Speaker:Stigma.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And
Speaker:Liz went to bat for them,
Speaker:and she spoke out against Reagan for being silent.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Your president Reagan would not even address the subject.
Speaker:I've had fights with his daughter about it.
Speaker:The daughter Patty came around where she realized now like, yeah,
Speaker:he should have said something.
Speaker:I mean, obviously, so Liz Taylor put a face on the AIDS movement.
Speaker:She told everyone how important it was.
Speaker:Jump ahead, you know, COVID, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson
Speaker:immediately said, we have COVID.
Speaker:There was no stigma around COVID.
Speaker:Straight people are getting it.
Speaker:Liz Taylor risked everything and she lost contracts.
Speaker:She lost commercials that she was doing.
Speaker:And she survived and became bigger as an icon as a result of what she did.
Speaker:The money for amfAR, some of it came from Rock Hudson's Estate, is that right?
Speaker:A lot of the money for amfAR came from donations, and when you have Liz
Speaker:Taylor, you know, doing auctions and, and begging people to give money, it
Speaker:made really millions of dollars and helped put a spotlight on this problem
Speaker:that seemed to be out of bounds.
Speaker:Seemed like nobody was addressing it and it was just mounting.
Speaker:And it was two years later that ACT UP was formed.
Speaker:That was the AIDS activist group.
Speaker:And I think Liz paved the way for that.
Speaker:'cause, uh, amfAR was not an activist group, but it was a way of saying, we
Speaker:have to pay attention to this pandemic.
Speaker:She also started the Elizabeth Taylor Foundation to help with aids.
Speaker:I mean, she really gave, and gave, and gave, I think it made her feel
Speaker:newly relevant in a positive way.
Speaker:The movie star thing for her.
Speaker:You know, people were always trying to get more and more out of her.
Speaker:How much more can you suck outta that lemon?
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:They put her on so many magazine covers.
Speaker:They dissected her personal life for so many years.
Speaker:It was very difficult to be Elizabeth Taylor because you're
Speaker:living in the public eye.
Speaker:This was a way for her to be relevant again, but in a much
Speaker:more meaningful way than just as a photo play magazine cover girl,
Speaker:and it seemed like.
Speaker:Some of it.
Speaker:Also, her generosity came out of her relationships.
Speaker:She was so dedicated to friends like Rock Hudson.
Speaker:Well, let's see, her friends were Rock Hudson, Montgomery,
Speaker:cliff, Roddy, McDowell.
Speaker:What do these people have in common?
Speaker:They're all gays.
Speaker:Oh, Michael Jackson.
Speaker:Oh, that's your example of a straight person.
Speaker:Well, yes.
Speaker:You're really in trouble.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker:She was there as a rock, as it were for her friends when they were in need.
Speaker:Monty Cliff had a horrible accident at the peak of his fame, and his
Speaker:face had to be totally reconstructed.
Speaker:And you can even see in movies, he's in a lot of pain from the painkillers and
Speaker:it's a different face and he's struggling to get on and Liz was there for him
Speaker:after the accident.
Speaker:She like told, put the paparazzi not to photograph him when
Speaker:his face was not fixed up.
Speaker:Fiercely protective was Liz.
Speaker:And towards the end she visited heroin, halfway houses.
Speaker:And I know someone that Liz talked to at her visit who's no longer with
Speaker:us, but the woman noted to Liz that she was having problem with her teeth
Speaker:and she needed better dental work.
Speaker:Liz said, you just get whatever dental work you need and I'm gonna pay for it.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And the woman later on called Liz's people and said, does this still hold?
Speaker:What she offered, they said, of course.
Speaker:That's incredible.
Speaker:And do you think she did it partly because she could relate as having
Speaker:some issues with substances as
Speaker:well, or I'm not sure.
Speaker:I know that she did have problems with prescription substances.
Speaker:A lot of people saw her as some kind of drug addict or alcoholic.
Speaker:I don't think that was the case.
Speaker:I think she had been prescribed stuff, painkillers and things.
Speaker:There were different award shows where she would come on and that kind of crazy
Speaker:it seemed, but she was on medications.
Speaker:There was one award show where she came and she said, I want
Speaker:to thank Jimmy Heimer, and she meant Jimmy Lander, the producer.
Speaker:There was another award show where she skipped the nominees
Speaker:and just went to the winner is.
Speaker:And she was like, whoops.
Speaker:She was so cute about it.
Speaker:You couldn't be mad at her.
Speaker:And she even said, what I'm giving right now is not an acceptance speech.
Speaker:She wasn't nominated.
Speaker:What was your first exposure to Elizabeth Taylor films?
Speaker:Was it
Speaker:National Vet? Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, growing up I would see her as a little child.
Speaker:She was a child movie star on TV in, in old movies.
Speaker:She was working ever since.
Speaker:She was a little taught.
Speaker:She was born in England, came to Hollywood, made it overnight
Speaker:and just had a radiant beauty.
Speaker:People always talk about her violet eyes just devastating
Speaker:and emerged as a real actress.
Speaker:It's not easy to be number one movie star, number one actress.
Speaker:She was both.
Speaker:And they say that a
Speaker:place in the sun kind of cemented her as like an adult.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Place in the sun was a great transition for her.
Speaker:She wasn't nominated for that one.
Speaker:That's the one where Monty Cliff is kind of social climbing,
Speaker:falls in love with her dumps.
Speaker:Shelly Winters.
Speaker:Shelly Winters ends up drowning like the first two minutes and she got nominated.
Speaker:Oh Jesus.
Speaker:But it was a great stepping stone for Liz's career.
Speaker:She had
Speaker:a great thing where she faint in it.
Speaker:I actually just watched it yesterday.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:There's a ballroom thing.
Speaker:Yeah, I just watched it again too.
Speaker:But I mean, over and over again in movies by Tennessee Williams
Speaker:and so on, directed by people like George Stevens and Ilea Kaza.
Speaker:Liz proved to be really a dazzling edge.
Speaker:It was.
Speaker:She has a monologue in Cat in the Hotten roof where she's laying in a
Speaker:panis, which is one of the most iconic fashion images of all time telling off
Speaker:her husband for not sleeping with her.
Speaker:And you know what?
Speaker:They trimmed a lot of the play because it's about how
Speaker:the husband is actually gay.
Speaker:He's in love with some male friend of his and his mind.
Speaker:They trimmed that 'cause that was too outrageous.
Speaker:But having Liz play, the wife made it clear he was gay because he
Speaker:wasn't interested in her physically.
Speaker:You gotta be gay.
Speaker:That's
Speaker:amazing.
Speaker:I know there's gonna be a podcast that's coming out, a series about
Speaker:the making of Cleopatra that seemed like craziness there.
Speaker:I saw
Speaker:Cleopatra as a kid.
Speaker:My parents took me.
Speaker:It went on and on and on.
Speaker:So I was like alternately dazzled and just stupid finely bored.
Speaker:But it was so beautiful.
Speaker:That scene where she comes in, it's all 1960s makeup they didn't try for period.
Speaker:It's not ancient Egypt, and that's what I loved about it.
Speaker:It was over budget and she had a crazy thing where she got pneumonia apparently,
Speaker:and they gave her a tracheotomy and she said her heart stopped for five minutes.
Speaker:And during this near death experience, she said she saw.
Speaker:Her former husband, Mike Todd, who said, it's not your time to go, Elizabeth.
Speaker:They say that Mike Todd was really the love of her life.
Speaker:He died in a plane crash when she was nominated for the Oscar for Butterfield
Speaker:eight, where she played a prostitute.
Speaker:She had some kind of tracheotomy or some kind of a hospital
Speaker:visit, and that's why she won.
Speaker:She was not supposed to win that year.
Speaker:Sympathy vote, and I think Liz always even joked about it.
Speaker:This is my tracheotomy Oscar.
Speaker:Oh, interesting.
Speaker:That's fascinating.
Speaker:But years
Speaker:later, she won again for who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, where she let herself go.
Speaker:She gained weight, no makeup, and played this kind of slaughtery,
Speaker:hilarious woman named Martha.
Speaker:We look at it now and we go, that's letting herself go.
Speaker:She's so gorgeous.
Speaker:She still looks great in that.
Speaker:I would love to let herself go like that.
Speaker:Unfortunately, it became very cool.
Speaker:In the cool comedy culture to make fun of her weight.
Speaker:And you had John Belushi on SNL and then you had Joan Rivers making fat jokes.
Speaker:Joan went up to Liz at some Broadway show during intermission, said
Speaker:hi, and Liz just was like, do you honestly think I want to talk to you?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And
Speaker:I think people threw those jokes around without realizing the
Speaker:personal impact it had on Liz.
Speaker:But besides that, she looked gorgeous in Kaf tans, and she helped
Speaker:popularize kaf tans, especially in a movie called X, Y, Z.
Speaker:Just beyond Beautiful.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:Her one weakness was men.
Speaker:One of the two times she was married to Burton.
Speaker:She would literally follow him all over the globe if he was filming
Speaker:a movie and she would try to make sure he wasn't cheating, but he was.
Speaker:Anyway, when Burton did a movie called Blue Beard.
Speaker:He had all these hot female co-stars like Verna Licey and Joey Heatherton and
Speaker:Raquel Welch, and Liz was just really losing her mind, like just trying.
Speaker:But you couldn't keep him down anymore than you could keep Eddie Fisher down.
Speaker:They were married when they met, possibly.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Undoubtedly, Liz and Richard Burton were one of those.
Speaker:Can't live with 'em.
Speaker:Can't live without 'em.
Speaker:Couples, those are the best couples in Hollywood.
Speaker:They give you endless good copy.
Speaker:Were some marriages in Hollywood kind of set up as like, this is gonna help your
Speaker:career, or were they all legit where she loved all the guys she was with?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, a lot of Hollywood marriages are setups, but in Liz's
Speaker:case, she really followed her heart in every one of those marriages, and
Speaker:she actually had to deal with the indignity of Barbara Walters asking, oh.
Speaker:What's which about Will we like
Speaker:Jesus?
Speaker:That's a good impersonation.
Speaker:When Liz Taylor won her second Oscar for Virginia Wolf and Richard Burton, her
Speaker:husband did not win for the same movie.
Speaker:It went to Paul Schofield for Man for All Seasons.
Speaker:I remember as a kid turning on the radio and Liz was being interviewed,
Speaker:not bragging about winning, not even mentioning that she won Simply Railing
Speaker:about the fact that her man had lost.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That's the kind of woman she was.
Speaker:Do you think just a woman who's a strong woman that's in public view will get
Speaker:some scorn from people just based on the fact that they're speaking their mind?
Speaker:Oh, sure.
Speaker:There's, you know, a history of women in Hollywood who fought back,
Speaker:who wouldn't just do anything.
Speaker:Elizabeth Taylor was in that lineage, along with people like Betty Davis.
Speaker:And of course they were scorned by the bosses who just wanted docile
Speaker:little people that did what they said.
Speaker:But Liz was headstrong
Speaker:and she gave the world some wonderful sense with her perfumes through passion.
Speaker:Liz was one of
Speaker:the first big stars to venture into sense, and I must say my mother was
Speaker:never more happy than when I gave her a bottle of white diamonds.
Speaker:I didn't tell her it was in a gift.
Speaker:Bag.
Speaker:But basically Liz would provide a lot of bottles of her perfumes to be
Speaker:in the gift bags for amfAR events.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:And that's a super nice gift bag item.
Speaker:Usually you get like a T-shirt or CD that you didn't want.
Speaker:I heard she was very hands-on
Speaker:in creating the scents too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It wasn't just like, oh, I'll put my name on it.
Speaker:She was instrumental in what she wanted each scent to smell like.
Speaker:And really, when you're Elizabeth Taylor, your whole
Speaker:life, people have stared at you.
Speaker:As you got older, they have tried to undress you with their eyes.
Speaker:They then can go read about you day and night and know
Speaker:every little thing about you.
Speaker:It's really a bizarre thing to be Elizabeth Taylor, but imagine the
Speaker:power that she had as that person where the entire planet was focused on her,
Speaker:and she must have inspired a lot of women, especially creating
Speaker:a second chapter in her life.
Speaker:With her activism
Speaker:and entrepreneurs.
Speaker:20 chapters.
Speaker:Yeah, 20 chapters with her marriages.
Speaker:But yeah, I mean, she paved the way for honesty about going to Betty Ford.
Speaker:That was not necessarily a positive, uh, career move on the part of celebrities.
Speaker:Liz didn't have any secrets.
Speaker:She couldn't because everybody devoured everything she did.
Speaker:So she lived a life without secrets really, and that made it less scandalous.
Speaker:Because she just said, well, this is me
Speaker:authenticity.
Speaker:And I think one positive thing that came out of Betty Ford, apart
Speaker:from working on herself was meeting Larry Fortensky, her last husband.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, her last husband threw me for a loop.
Speaker:It was this guy named Larry Fortensky.
Speaker:What was he like?
Speaker:A hardware repairman.
Speaker:He was a
Speaker:construction worker.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And that was genius because now she had married everyone on the planet.
Speaker:There was no one left.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Here's the only possibly bad thing I ever heard said about Elizabeth Taylor.
Speaker:A friend of mine was an AIDS activist, and she befriended him towards the end
Speaker:of her life and would call him, would want to get together, and he actually
Speaker:said, be careful what you wish for.
Speaker:Which means you might think being friends with an icon of that
Speaker:magnitude is nothing but fun.
Speaker:But it isn't necessarily, I mean, they can be very needy.
Speaker:A lot of work.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's work.
Speaker:It's work.
Speaker:How would you sum up, if somebody were to ask you, is Elizabeth Taylor bad?
Speaker:What would you say?
Speaker:It's really hard to think of anything bad to say about Elizabeth Taylor.
Speaker:You know, we love to gossip about her and talk about what she was up to.
Speaker:If anyone said something negative, you'd go, what?
Speaker:Have you seen a doctor who doesn't love Elizabeth Taylor?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Oh, sure.
Speaker:We'd like to thank our special guest, Michael Muto.
Speaker:If you want more information about Elizabeth Finch or Elizabeth
Speaker:Taylor, visit our show notes.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to Battle Elizabeth.
Speaker:Please rate and review the show on places like Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Speaker:We are Battle Elizabeth Pod on Instagram and Substack.
Speaker:We really want this podcast to be a conversation with our listeners.
Speaker:Feel free to email us at Battle elizabeth pod@gmail.com.
Speaker:If you have any questions or comments, they can be good or bad.
Speaker:Just don't be indifferent.
Speaker:Battle Elizabeth is recorded at Jet Road Studios.
Speaker:It is hosted by me, Gideon Evans,
Speaker:and me, Kathy Egan Taylor.
Speaker:It is produced and engineered by Will Becton, and our executive
Speaker:producer is Amber Becton.
Speaker:Our theme music was composed by Alexis Cardo and Danny Gray.
Speaker:Thanks again for listening.
Speaker:We'll see you next time.
