Wednesday, September 11, 2019

ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND 9/11

The last, strange decade of Elizabeth’s life began with one of the most cataclysmic events in American history, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Michael Jackson was in New York, where he’d just given two concerts, on the 7th and 10th of September, at Madison Square Garden, to which he had brought two of his closest friends and idols: Marlon Brando and Elizabeth. His original idea had been for them to sit onstage like two great Easter Island figureheads flanking the show, but instead they sat in the audience. All three found themselves trapped in the city after the Twin Towers fell. Michael had gotten a call from friends in Saudi Arabia who warned that America was under attack. He hollered down the hallway of his hotel for everyone in his entourage, and for Brando, to leave immediately. Elizabeth was staying at another hotel, the St. Regis, a few blocks away. Now here’s where the story gets complicated. In one version, these three towering icons of American pop culture planned their escape, afraid that they would be the next target. Michael and Brando had trouble leaving their hotel garage because fans kept banging on the car windows, following them down the street, screaming. Unable to fly, they drove out of the city.


The actor Corey Feldman, whom Michael had befriended when Feldman was a child star, remembers that he and Michael had quarreled the previous night at Michael’s show, in Elizabeth’s dressing room backstage at Madison Square Garden. “Elizabeth hadn’t arrived yet, and then 9/11 happened. But I remember that [the next day] Michael was trying to get Elizabeth out! He was at first looking for a private jet,” Feldman recalls. “He wanted permission to fly out—but everything was surreal. I didn’t go with him.”

A former employee of Michael Jackson’s says that Michael, like General Washington, led his entourage to a temporary safe haven in New Jersey, before the three superstars took to the open road. “They actually got as far as Ohio—all three of them, in a car they drove themselves!” he recalls. Brando allegedly annoyed his traveling companions by insisting on stopping at nearly every KFC and Burger King they passed along the highway. One can only imagine the shock their appearance caused at gas stations and rest stops across America.

But one of Elizabeth’s close friends and assistants, who asks to remain anonymous, insists that Elizabeth did not flee New York with her two companions. “Elizabeth stayed behind,” he insists, “where she went to a church to pray, and she went to an armory where people were who couldn’t get home or who’d stayed behind to look for the missing. She also went down to Ground Zero, where she met with first responders. Eventually, the airports opened and she flew home.” She may well have done some of those things, though no reports surfaced in the media of sightings of Elizabeth Taylor ministering to the frightened and wounded or showing up at Ground Zero. But it was during and after the crisis that Elizabeth’s relationship with Michael—whom she already adored—deepened...


4 comments:

  1. I was at the armory and personally saw ms taylor comforting and directing people, I was pleasantly stunned.

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  2. According to Todd Fisher's book "My Girls" Debbie Reynolds was there also and when Elizabeth Taylor's assistant called Debbie on 9/11 and said Elizabeth didn't want her to be alone and invited her to Taylor's hotel. Debbie Reynolds stayed until Friday. She had a sold out show in San Diego on Saturday and didn't want to dissapoint her fans. Elizabeth Taylor called John Warner and he scheduled a private plane for them all (Taylor, Reynolds and entourage) the next day to leave from Teterboro Airport for California.

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    1. Miss Reynolds related the story in her autobiography "Make Them Laugh". I was happy to to see the story was confirmed by Fisher.

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  3. Working as a first responder,I met Liz and a tall German man,who appeared to be her body guard.She came up to me distraught,crying asking if there was anything she could do.She was very close to me.We were very close to a Red Cross central distribution center near Canal St.This was approx.9:00 P:M on Friday night,just prior to me entering through Canal St check point.I told her to go talk to the Red Cross,for she insisted on giving me a check,which I refused.After Liz left the Red Cross station,I walked up and asked if Liz had written a check.The lady said that Liz was too emotional,and that she told Liz to go home and write a check in the morning.One of the honorable situations I witnessed that night and into the next morning.
    Respectfully,
    Scott V.Cross
    Craryville,NY
    12521

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