The first look of the TV movie "Burton and Taylor" has been released. The film, which stars Helena Bonham Carter as Elizabeth Taylor and Dominic West as Richard Burton, will make its debut on BBC America in the fall.
According to BBC America, the plot of the movie is: "The film will depict the on-again, off-again pair as they re-team for a 1983 touring revival of Noel Coward's 'Private Lives', their first on-stage collaboration." "Private Lives" was Burton's last collaboration with his former wife, Taylor. It is said that the play was panned by reviewers for being an attempt to ride on the celebrity status and past relationship of its glamorous lead couple.
"Ultimately, I don't agree to do a film because I think it's going to be a success. I do it because I think I'm going to learn something from the character I'm playing," said Carter in an interview with British Vogue. "I'm not sure what yet, but I know I'm going to learn something from Elizabeth. I know that, somehow, I will grow as a soul from having played her."
Just last year, Lindsay Lohan took on the role of Elizabeth Taylor for the movie "Liz & Dick". The film starred Grant Bowler in the role of Burton and chronicled the relationship of the couple since they met in 1961.
The legendary romance between Taylor and Burton has been a source of intrigue for Hollywood for decades. After meeting on the sets of "Cleopatra" and subsequently falling in love, the couple broke up their respective marriages and tied the knot for the first time in 1964. They collaborated on more projects together, but divorced in 1974. Taylor and Burton secretly remarried a year later in 1975, but this time, the vows lasted for only a year and the couple divorced again in 1976. It is said that the couple remained fast friends till Burton died of a brain hemorrhage in 1984. "From those first moments in Rome, we were always madly and powerfully in love," said Taylor in "Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century".
