Who was the bigger movie star? Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor?

Marilyn Monroe, the eternal victim, ‘the waif’ which is what she called herself. How did she become an icon for so many?

Or Elizabeth Taylor, the goddess with the flashing violet eyes. Perhaps the most demanding and self indulgent movie star of them all?

Both had an eye-catching, high-gloss glamour that blazed out of every movie screen throughout the fifties. Both yearned to be taken seriously and nurtured ambitions to be considered great actors. Both had a special indefinable quality, making them compelling to the rest of us… and they still do. Just remember luminous Marilyn in Gentleman Prefer Blondes and hypnotic Elizabeth in, A Place in the Sun. The camera loved both of them and both knew how to work it.

So who left the deepest mark on our culture? Marilyn or Elizabeth?

I have to confess, I’m not hugely impressed by Ms Monroe. As far as I’m concerned she made two great films - ok, that’s more than many actors manage - but both movies owe a huge debt to their directors and screenwriters.

Some Like It Hot. Directed by the genius that was Billy Wilder with a screenplay written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, starring two brilliant actors, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. This was a great movie not because of Marilyn but thanks to everybody else. She’s very good in it, with a dazzling fragility, a trashy beauty and bubble-headed silliness which is endearing. But to me, it’s an extension of the persona she built. It isn’t acting.

Her second great movie is The Misfits. Again this incredible movie exists thanks to a gifted cast - Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach - and director, John Huston and screenwriter, Arthur Miller. Marilyn did Marilyn, albeit dialled down and sadder than Some Like It Hot but it’s the same riff. White blonde hair like a whipped ice cream. Slutty dresses and high heels, give her that tight-wrapped, voluptuous rolling camel walk. She plays a child that never talks back but looks sad, confused or cries. She’s lost. This is not a role model anyone should aspire to though lots of men love this version of womanhood.

I am not team Marilyn Monroe.

I realise this is sacrilege. I’m supposed to admire her and I’m supposed to find something noble in her struggle, but I don’t. If you don’t want people to think your dumb then don’t offer them that option, and don’t allow them monetise it. In reality, I suspect, this persona Marilyn created was the only one allowed to her, the only one she could possess and she never knew quite how to change that.

Yes, I know, she was exploited by Hollywood at a time when the casting couch was regarded as a case of ‘boys will be boys’. And I understand that the only way she could get into the movies was to sell herself. And she had low self-esteem. Unlike Elizabeth Taylor, she had no mother fighting her corner, no family at all in fact, no solid ground beneath her feet. But even when her fame and popularity meant she could call the shots - apparently she had her own production company - Marilyn didn’t call the shots.

Elizabeth Taylor on the other hand, was a very different proposition.

Elizabeth began as a child star at MGM, making movies like National Velvet and Lassie Come Home. But child stars frequently crash and burn. Many cannot make the transition to adult roles because their appeal remains locked in childhood which is why so many succumb to booze, drugs and obscurity. Elizabeth, though, had endurance from the start. Despite being addicted to turbulence and social excitement, she was always hell-bent on survival. Life and no one was going to put her down.

Like Marilyn, Elizabeth was a man-magnet. Her stunning beauty and fizzy sexual energy bestowed a reflected glory on any man who came into her orbit. It made her prey to all sorts of men looking to exploit her fame. While Marilyn was knocked about by a jealous Joe Dimaggio, Elizabeth married Nicky Hilton who beat her up, causing her to miscarry.

In later life, a hard-won store of self-knowledge allowed Elizabeth to reflect:

• ‘I was married too many times and I’ve made horrendous mistakes and I’ve paid for them.’

During the early part of her career, Elizabeth was under contract to MGM, a studio famous for taking expert care of stars likely to be big box office hits. They moulded them, identified strengths, curated their careers, played the long game. Elizabeth was recognised early on as a good actress and was herself unafraid to demand better parts. Despite having the same hourglass figure as Marilyn, similar childlike qualities, and potentially the same vulnerability to exploitation, Elizabeth stood up for herself.

At the age of fifteen she defied Louis B. Mayer. When he swore at Elizabeth’s mother, She turned to him and told him, ‘You and your studio can go straight to hell,’ Elizabeth refused to apologise, naturally she was expected to not L.B. Even at that age she displayed her individuality and an independent, fighting spirit that despite her ‘horrendous mistakes’ saw her through a long life.

Elizabeth appeared in more than two great films. A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift. Giant with Rock Hudson and James Dean. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman, written by Tennesse Williams. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Richard Burton. Raintree County with Montgomery Clift. Suddenly Last Summer, again with Montgomery Clift and also written by Tennessee Williams. The Sandpiper with Richard Burton. She won two Oscars, the first for Butterfield 8, a movie she hated but which did incredible box office when it came out. And another for Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf?

Two Oscars! And her Virginia Woolf role was hardly high glamour, nor like any other character she’d played. Martha was so far and away different from the public version of Elizabeth Taylor with furs, diamonds, a huge entourage, yachts and private planes. The Taylor/Burton marriage was known to be firey. Endless articles appeared in the press describing knock-down, drag-out fights, and rather than deny it, Elizabeth leaned into this notoriety. She didn’t betray herself by pretending to be demure but instead defied expectations by not giving a damn what people thought.

Marilyn might have sung the line ‘diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ but Elizabeth lived it. She expected to be treated well, demanded gifts, asked to be paid well and treated with respect and if she wasn’t she’d hit back. While I have no desire to live the way Elizabeth Taylor did, I admire it. I admire her guts, her determination, her iron-clad will to make demands and not be cowed or shamed. She knew her worth.

Like Marilyn, Elizabeth struggled with addiction to prescription drugs because of a complex cocktail of physical ailments including a spinal deformity, double-pneumonia - which without a tracheotomy would have killed her- repeated appendicitis resulting in an appendectomy, a hysterectomy, three discs in her spine crushed after an accident, a benign brain tumour. On and on. Richard Burton, reflecting on Elizabeth’s catalogue of medical issues, some life-threatening, wrote in his diary:

• ‘I worried a lot about Elizabeth this morning… and how awful it would be to lose her.’

Elizabeth, direct as always, explained:

• ‘I get ill because I live too hard. I give too much, out of a lust for life. I never back away.’

Despite her private troubles - the death of the love of her life Mike Todd in a plane crash was crushing - she became the first actor to earn a million dollar salary by asking for it. Elizabeth had her own production company too, around about the same time as Marilyn. But whereas Marilyn seemed unable to cope with not being liked, Elizabeth didn’t care.

I never see Elizabeth Taylor as a victim, as someone to pity. I see her as someone to respect, admire, feel compassion for as she struggled with life in much the same way most of us do. I find Elizabeth both admirable but oddly relatable. Unfortunately, Marilyn lacked the inner grit and toughness to prevail in a world that had nothing but her exploitation on its mind.

While costs on Elizabeth’s movie Cleopatra sucked away all the money at Twentieth Century Fox, Marilyn’s Something’s Got to Give, also a Fox movie and somewhat under-budgeted, ran into trouble. Marilyn was struggling with a tricky personal life, the Kennedys, Frank Sinatra, no self confidence, and a pay check that was a fraction of the fee Elizabeth secured ($100,000 versus Elizabeth’s $1 million). Despair must have hit hard. Marilyn repeatedly failed to turn up on set. The movie fell ten days behind schedule. Then Marilyn was sacked.

Elizabeth heard what was going on and called Marilyn, offering to walk off Cleopatra set until Marilyn was reinstated on Something’s Got to Give. Marilyn turned her down which was a pretty stupid thing to do. Together they would have been incredibly powerful and Marilyn would have benefitted.

After this offer was turned down, allegedly, Elizabeth Taylor gave Marilyn some advice:

• ‘When somebody’s telling you something that isn’t right, you walk away and just keep on walking.’

Marilyn was trapped in a toxic situation with the Kennedys, not to mention Frank Sinatra who was in an ‘open relationship’ with her. Everyone was taking, no one was giving and Elizabeth was saying: trust your own instincts, don’t be bullied into doing things by other people, be your own person. In a matter of days, Marilyn would be found dead. Elizabeth would go on to lead a long, full life, dying at the age of seventy-nine in 2011.

But who was the biggest movie star? Marilyn? Or Elizabeth?

© Annette Gordon 2025