Another month, another Vanity Fair nostalgia cover with a dead or dying celebrity. Elizabeth Taylor – in all of her Suddenly Last Summer white-swimsuit glory – is the cover girl for July’s Vanity Fair, and the story is all about how Elizabeth and Richard Burton were “the ultimate celebrity couple”. So far, VF has only put out a teaser for the article – it’s an excerpt of Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger’s new book, Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century. I’ll admit it, it sounds like the kind of book I would love – I have Vanity Fair’s Hollywood coffee table book (that was put out in 2000) and there’s a wonderful piece in that book called “When Liz Met Dick”. I also have Elizabeth’s My Love Affair With Jewelry, in which she tells many stories about all of the wonderful gifts Burton (amongst others) gave her over the years. Here’s a little more:

Before Brangelina, before TomKat, before … Speidi … there was Liz and Dick—that is, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the super-couple who set the standard all others can only aspire to in terms of modern celebrity. What other couple has been condemned both by the Vatican and on the floor of the House of Representatives? What other couple lived as decadently, as opulently, and as passionately? What other couple could conquer both Hollywood and Broadway the way these two did over a span of two decades?

In an excerpt from their upcoming book, Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century, featured in the July issue of Vanity Fair, contributing editor Sam Kashner and co-author Nancy Schoenberger trace the arc of this epic, turbulent love affair, which appropriately began on the set of Cleopatra—a story about another romance for the ages, and one of the most expensive films ever made—and ended spectacularly with jealousy, anger, and divorce, despite the fact that Taylor and Burton never really fell out of love.

Kashner and Schoenberger scored a major coup in persuading Taylor to allow them to publish scores of never-before-seen letters that Burton wrote to her, and passages from many of the letters are included in the excerpt. In addition to demonstrating that Burton was a gifted, lyrical, playful writer who could effortlessly summon the beauty of the Shakespearean language he so loved, the correspondence reveals poignant and intimate truths about the power of the bond that Taylor and Burton shared—sexual, creative, and spiritual.

Highlights from the excerpt include:

• Taylor and Burton’s icy first encounter, on a balmy day at a star-studded Los Angeles pool party, and subsequent flirtation on the set of Cleopatra 10 years later, where director Joe Mankiewicz found it nearly impossible to break up their on-screen kiss well after the take had ended.

• Their scandalous on-set affair and surprise wedding in Montreal, where they were hounded by paparazzi, and the turmoil they went through while divorcing their respective spouses.

• The jewelry, artwork, and gifts that Burton lavished on Taylor as they took in millions of dollars from their films, including the 33.19-carat Krupp diamond, the 69.42-carat Cartier diamond, now known as the Taylor-Burton diamond, and paintings by Monet, Picasso, van Gogh, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, and Rembrandt.

• Their powerful film interpretation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and string of other collaborations, including Boom! and Divorce His, Divorce Hers.

• Burton’s outpouring of grief and longing in letters to Taylor as their relationship became strained by alcoholism and their frequent altercations.

• A description of the heartbreaking final letter that Burton wrote to Taylor just before his sudden death. She counts it as her most treasured possession and keeps it by her bed at all times.

[From Vanity Fair]

Elizabeth has always said that she had TWO great loves, Richard and her third husband, Mike Todd. Todd died less than a year and a half into their marriage, in a tragic plane crash. After Todd’s death, she ended up marrying his best friend, Eddie Fisher, although that marriage was allegedly pretty bad from the start. It was during this marriage that she began working with Richard Burton, who was also married to his first wife, Sybil. I’ve always believed that Burton began the affair with Elizabeth not thinking it would go anywhere beyond sex. And then I think he fell in love. And he began buying her stuff, some of the most amazing jewelry in the world. I love talking about Hollywood, but don’t even get me started on how much I love talking about jewelry. If there’s one thing missing from Hollywood couples today, it’s conspicuous consumption in the jewelry department.

Here are some old photos of Liz and Dick and Mike Todd, in various years: