National Velvet, the 1944 movie about a young girl who claims a rogue horse in a raffle and turns it into steeplechase champion, was the film that first brought fame to Elizabeth Taylor, who died on Wednesday, March 23 at the age of 79.
Another classic that put Taylor in a saddle was Giant, with Rock Hudson and James Dean. Based on a novel by Edna Ferber
The movie Giant
“Ms. Ferber told my father that she was going to write a novel based on him, my mother, and King Ranch,” Groves recounted in her book Bob & Helen Kleberg of King Ranch
“After listening patiently, Daddy said that sometime in the future there would be an accurate history written which she and others could reference, but he did not have the time at the present to devote to it, Furthermore, he added, he did not want an inaccurate book written.
“Ms. Ferber insisted that she would write the book anyway and became rude.
“Daddy turned to me and and said, ‘Helenita, please call for Ms. Ferber’s driver. He’s in the kitchen. She wants to leave now and won’t be coming back.”
In 1967, Taylor was horseback once more, this time on a fiery stallion called Firebird, opposite Marlon Brando in John Huston’s Reflections in a Golden Eye, based on the Carson McCullers novel
While Maggie, Taylor’s character in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, tries to kindle intimacy with her husband, Brick, Taylor’s character, Leonora, in Reflections in a Golden Eye, taunts her husband, Army Major Weldon Pendleton, played by Brando, with veiled comments about her virile mount, Firebird, and Lt. Col. Morris Langdon, with whom she is having an affair.
When Brando sneaks Firebird out for a gallop late one night, things really get interesting.