BURTON & TAYLOR (2014) TV Movie Trailer: Liv Taylor’s Private Lives

Burton & Taylor Trailer. Richard Laxton‘s Burton & Taylor (2014) TV movie trailer stars Helena Bonham Carter, Dominic West, Lenora Crichlow, Michael Jibson, and William Hope. Burton & Taylor‘s plot synopsis: “Legendary acting duo and husband and wife, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor prepare for a 1983 theatrical production of the play, ‘Private Lives.'”

On Private Lives:

Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for each other. Its second act love scene was nearly censored in Britain as too risqué. Coward wrote one of his most popular songs, “Some Day I’ll Find You”, for the play.

After touring the British provinces, the play opened the new Phoenix Theatre in London in 1930, starring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Adrianne Allen and Laurence Olivier. A Broadway production followed in 1931, and the play has been revived at least a half dozen times each in the West End and on Broadway. The leading roles have attracted a wide range of actors; among those who have succeeded Coward as Elyot are Robert Stephens, Richard Burton, Alan Rickman and Matthew Macfadyen, and successors to Lawrence as Amanda have included Tallulah Bankhead, Elizabeth Taylor, Maggie Smith and Kim Cattrall. Directors of new productions have included John Gielgud, Howard Davies and Richard Eyre. The play was made into a 1931 film and has been adapted several times for television and radio.

On Elizabeth Taylor:

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond “Liz” Taylor, DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age. As one of the world’s most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty, and distinctive violet eyes.

National Velvet (1944) was Taylor’s first success, and she starred in Father of the Bride (1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for BUtterfield 8 (1960), played the title role in Cleopatra (1963), and married her co-star Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), for which Taylor won a second Academy Award. From the mid-1970s, she appeared less frequently in film, and made occasional appearances in television and theatre.

Her much-publicized personal life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. From the mid-1980s, Taylor championed HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, who named her seventh on their list of the “Greatest American Screen Legends”. Taylor died of congestive heart failure in March 2011 at the age of 79, having suffered many years of ill health.

Burton & Taylor also stars Trevor White, Chris Cowlin, Lucille Sharp, Jeff Mash, and Martin Sherman.

Watch the Burton & Taylor TV movie trailer and leave your thoughts on it below in the comments section. For more Burton & Taylor photos, videos, and information, visit our Burton & Taylor Page, subscribe to us by Email, “follow” us on Twitter, Tumblr, or “like” us on Facebook. Burton & Taylor will be released in US theaters through BBC America on April 1, 2014.

Source: Imdb, Wikipedia (1, 2), Deadline