By Marilyn Lester***Actress Ann Talman is no stranger to the stage as a gifted monologist. Talman is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker and a four-time Broadway vet, so she knows her way around storytelling. Her latest effort, a one-woman show, Elizabeth Taylor and The Shadow of Her Smile, is about her unique and long-lived, life-long relationship with the super-star icon Elizabeth Taylor. It’s a memoir with music, well suited to the cabaret room in its intimacy. In the last of a several presentations, at 
54 Below, the actress triumphed in spinning a tale that’s sagacious, touching and enthralling, and laced with plenty of wonderful humor—a window into much more than mere biography.
There are 17 standards in the show, opening and closing with “The Shadow of Your Smile” (Johnny Mandel, Paul Francis Webster). It, like many other tunes throughout the performance, were often performed in snippets, showcasing Talman’s fine soprano. While they’re not exactly secondary, these songs, which include “Long Before I Knew You” (Jule Styne, Adolph Green and Betty Comden), “Once in a Lifetime” (Anthony Newley, Leslie Bricusse), “If My Friends Could See Me Now!” (Cy Coleman, Dorothy Fields), “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” (George and Ira Gershwin), “That’s What Friends Are For” (Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager), “Make Someone Happy” ((Jule Styne, Adolph Green and Betty Comden) and more, are integral—and well-curated—in supporting the text.
As a child, Talman often heard the adults around her comment, “you look just like Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet.” It was an observation that followed her throughout her young life and into young adulthood. Miraculously, when she was a young 21 years old, serendipity (and possibly karma) led to her being cast as Taylor’s daughter in the 1981 Broadway production of The
Little Foxes. Taylor was 49 at the time, a perfect age for sage mothering—and Taylor was very willing to provide that offstage to an enthralled Talman, whose relationship with her own biological mother wasn’t always the most nurturing. And so, for the Broadway run and and beyond, a relationship developed and burgeoned. It was, says Talman, “a spectacular 18 months,” with a bond that endured way beyond that short time.
Fun facts were a charming part of The Shadow of Her Smile. For instance, the very room in which this show was being performed was the VIP lounge for the fabled discotheque, Studio 54, located directly above. Pointing upward, Talman reported, “Elizabeth was here—a lot!” Mother Elizabeth was also full of practical advise for the budding actress: be fashionable and flirty, and no more sports bras! Also of vital importance: “never let them photograph you from below.” Many more glamour tricks of the trade were dispensed, authoritatively spoken by one whose experience in that area was hard-earned and indispensable. We learned that Taylor loved to pull pranks and that she was “one of the most generous people I’ve ever known.” Much of this crucial data was said mimicking t
he persona and voice of Taylor, with accuracy that was quite mind-boggling.
In addition to Taylor’s public and stage personas, Talman revealed much about the “real Elizabeth”—her loves, of course (she liked being married), as well as her empathy with gay men, such as Montgomery Clift. Taylor became a staunch supporter of gay causes, especially during the height of the AIDS crisis, a time of little hope and minimal sympathy. In 1985 she co-founded amfAR for researcher to discover treatments and ultimately find a cure for AIDS. In 1991 she established The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, leaving part of her estate to fund operating expenses.
Talman, in The Shadow of Her Smile, not only humanized Elizabeth Taylor, but touched on universal truths—of relationships (including the often complex ones between mother and daughter), the importance of humor in life, self-image, self awareness and authenticity, compassion, perspective and, of course, lasting and enduring friendship. “What lasts is friendship,” Taylor told James Grissom in a 1991 interview, “(and) partnerships of the soul that keep you focused and strong in your place.” Wise words from a woman whose entire life was viewed in the spotlight, but whom we’ve come to know so much more about through the eyes of Ann Talman.
The Shadow of Her Smile was directed by Lina Koutrakos with musical direction by Alex Rybeck, playing piano in masterful and lush symphonic mode.
