Part of me is disturbed by the idea that as soon as one famous hellraiser has passed on, the tabloids become absolutely giddy with long-forgotten vintage scandals. But another part of me enjoys the vintage scandals, because vintage scandals were always more exciting than present-day ones, for the most part. The gist of this story is that at some point (Radar doesn’t specify WHEN), Peter O’Toole had a torrid affair with his best friend’s girl, Elizabeth Taylor. For a while, Peter, Richard Burton and Elizabeth were inseparable – Burton and O’Toole were drinking buddies and theatre buddies and they just adored each other, and Elizabeth tried to keep up. So… would O’Toole bang his best friend’s girl?
Peter O’Toole took the sizzling secret illicit affair he had with the legendary Elizabeth Taylor to his grave, guarding the news of their steamy relationship to the end.
“Peter had long harbored lust for Liz,” a source told The National Enquirer about the late actor, who passed away over the weekend at age 81, and his on-screen leading lady, who died in 2011 at the age of 79 of congestive heart failure.
“There was always a friendly competition between Peter and Richard [Burton],” said the source about her late husband who passed away in 1984.
“When it came to Liz, the competition was fierce, but well-hidden. And after Peter achieved his secret dream of seducing Liz, he was overwhelmed with shame and guilt.”
For more exclusive details about the steamy affair and to learn why they never revealed what happened pick up the latest issue of The National Enquirer on newsstand Thursday.
I’ve read Furious Love, and from what I remember, Elizabeth wasn’t really fooling around on Burton during their first marriage. I just don’t think that if this affair happened, it happened in the 60s. Now, it could have totally happened in the 1970s or 80s. My guess is probably in 1970s, as Taylor-Burton were falling apart or after they had split for the first time. And if Elizabeth got some saucy O’Toole back in 1970s, good for her. God, he was good looking. Imagine going from Burton to O’Toole… damn. And we already know that she had a life-long affection for Irishmen, right?
Photos courtesy of production stills, Fame/Flynet.
looks like there was a randy message in peter’s name. peter. o’toole. methinks liz sampled peter’s o’toole and o’toole’s peter. lucky liz.
Ha ha ha! Clever Tiki!
I agree. I don’t think Liz and Dick’s love was exclusive and they spent a lot of time apart (emotionally) even when they were together. Not hard to imagine Mr O’Toole would have been a convenient shoulder to cry on. Things happen. Liz had no regrets in life. Unlike a lot of stars today, they knew how to keep their traps shut and their affairs secret.
this PLUS they the technology of paps and social media was vintage too…I agree about ye olde scandal. Although there was less photoshop, there was more to the imagination.
I have a list for Hollywood… who didn’t have an affair with (insert star’s name) in La La Land?
Elizabeth Taylor must have had gold in her crotch or something… man. Men just seem to love her.
She was obviously doing something right
Truth. The funny thing is, it was just considered sexy back then. These days, she’d be totally slut shamed on the internet. Which is really sad.
I love how Liz gets a pass for being slutty, a drunk, a px drug addict but MM always gets crap for it.
They were no different and I love both of them — of course I love Marilyn more but still ..
Pisces Swag. We can be and do whatever we want and people still love us!
Oh she was slut-shamed big time when the press caught wind of her affair with Burton while they were filming Cleopatra. He was married at the time and the tabloid mags went nuts, I remember it clearly as I am an old girl now 🙂
Here’s the other shoe: Taylor was married too at the time she started her affair with Burton, to Eddie Fisher, whom she’d taken away from Debbie Reynolds. It was a huge deal back in the day and yet it did not hurt her career the way infidelity hurt Ingrid Bergman’s when she ran off with Rossellini.
Ya definitely – she received a ton of criticism back then too, in the tabloids. Imagine if she had been young now – if all of them had been born a couple of generations later – they’d be criticized just like say, Lindsay Lohan and others are now.
@HadleyB
I think it’s because Liz had time to rehab her image. When people talk about her they remember her beauty, scandals, affairs, jewels, Burton..but also her her AIDS activism. MM died so young..
My God, that last photo of O’Toole is awful! I hope I never see it again. He looks like some kind of homeless loonie with rotten teeth. Out of all the luscious photos of this handsome man why would you choose to use that one?
Lmao!
It is a truly terrible pic
haha – well his looks on the outside in that pic probably reflected his health on the inside at that point – amazing that he survived the stomach cancer and everything else!
He looks human!
Why can’t humans, look human?
Can you blame her? Those looks, that charm? Give me a time machine, I wouldn’t mind giving it a go myself! 😉
KAISER……… VINTAGE SCANDAL……..HOORAY!
What an awesome CB Christmas gift, I miss these. I have been spending a lot of time watching that old E! program Mysterious and Scandals on YouTube and goodness some of these celebrities today have got nothign on yesterday’s stars.
I enjoy classic movies because so many are just gems. Sometimes I just randomly pick an actor or actress from the movie and read up a little on his or her life. That can be equally interesting and entertaining.
It also fascinates me how movie honchos or publicists of the day would sometimes do trade-offs to protect a certain star’s image. In other words, they’d allow one to be thrown under the bus to save another, more bankable star.
ooh that sounds interesting…examples?
I’m not surprised. I mean, wouldn’t you, if you were either of them?
This seems to be the week for people to announce that they had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor. Makes me feel kind of left out.
*abashedly*
So, EsCon, there’s been something that I’ve wanted to tell you about for quite some time….
Hmmm…..I thought as much.
I didn’t know Convents could move, let alone and escape.. CONVICTS maybe..
You’re the first person to notice this! This is what I had in mind when I first thought of the name. Then it turned into being an escaped nun. :-}
I love Peter O’Toole but I am also a great admirer of his Welsh actress and long suffering wife Sian Phillips. Her performance as Livia in I Claudius was one of the most amazing I have ever seen. She wrote a memoir a few years back I have been meaning to read — maybe she dishes on possible affairs, as I recall she discusses “O’Toole” as she always called him in some detail.
Apparently he did not want her working, he wanted her home and taking care of him and the kids.
Livia will always have the face and voice of Sian Phillips to me. 🙂
(Just as I cannot imagine Claudius having any other face and voice than those of Derek Jacobi.)
Yes, Sian was amazing in ‘I Claudius.’ Then again, all the cast were, even if it does seem a bit dated now. There was talk of a re-adaptation of the novel a few years ago, but it seems to have come to nothing. I wish they would re-make it, if only to let me pick the cast! How about Tilda Swinton as Livia?
Well, hoes before bros, isn’t it?
And I love me some black&white scandals. They seem more vivid than coloured ones.
Old school stars had colorful lives. I keep running across tidbits about so many of them.
Liz married four different men and had three kids in the 1950s decade alone. Who knows how many affairs she had. She once said that she tended to marry her lovers. That was apparently her idea of being traditional.
She said on Barbara Walters that if she wanted to sleep with someone, she married them. And that if she had to do it all over again, she wouldn’t have married so many times. I think she probably would’ve only married Richard Burton and Michael Todd, if she had been young today. She also said that every man she had after Richard were just there to hold her hand.
But we can’t blame her for the first marriage–she married Nicky Hilton and six weeks after the wedding he was ‘off the wagon’ and was abusing her. I can’t imagine being eighteen, not knowing anything about life–she said that she grew up on the Hollywood sets, and that she did her school work by herself–she never really got to be a kid or hang out with any kids her age. I feel for her, on that one.
In that era, the traditional method was to marry someone with whom you felt sexual. Thank god that’s changed; I would be financially ruined after an hundred divorces:)
I think many contemporary stars live colourful lives too…… many celebrities were narcissistic, self-centred and entitled enough to do whatever they felt like doing both then and now, no matter how crazy. But back then, with no internet, there was a distance between the public and celebrities that made it easier to put them on a pedestal.
The book Furious Love is so good, but that was textbook “can’t live with ’em, can’t live w/I ’em”- the recent BBC movie of Burton/Taylor doing “Private Lives” captures it so well.
I am sure Peter O’Toole would have loved nothing better than to have slept with Liz/ if for no other reason than the fact Richard Burton did! They were both brillant in Beckett.
Lucky Elizabeth! At his peak, there’s nothing I would like better. Current dong just doesn’t measure up.