BBC has announced that the Elizabeth Taylor (The Nanny, North and South, Malice and Wonderland) documentary series will be executive produced by Kim Kardashian (Keeping Up With the Kardashians, The Kardashians, American Horror Story), The Hollywood Reporter reports. BBC Arts has permitted the production company Passion Pictures to create documentary split into three parts about Taylor which will be titled Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar. BBC has stated, via The Hollywood Reporter, that Taylor always will be “one of Hollywood’s most famous names.”
The show, as stated beforehand, will be executive produced by Kardashian, Hamish Fergusson (Genderquake, Inside Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Generation Gifted), and Kari Lia (Break Point, Day Zero, DNA Family Secrets). It has been promised, via The Hollywood Reporter, that the series will give viewers “privileged access to those who knew her best, including members of Elizabeth Taylor’s family, friends, and colleagues from throughout her stellar career.” And will give the well-deserved focus on “a superstar who transformed not just Hollywood but fame itself, as she went from child star to highest-paid actress in the world.”
The description of the show, via The Hollywood Reporter, states that: “For too long the story of Elizabeth Taylor has been told as a soap opera. The eight marriages, the diamonds, the addictions. This series gives Elizabeth Taylor the significance she richly deserves, in all her incarnations: as an actor, rebel, business mogul, and activist — to reveal how Taylor created the blueprint for modern celebrity.”
The series is described as a careful and detailed background story on the star’s career and fame as is described, via The Hollywood Reporter, “how she reinvented the nature of fame, even as she smashed the glass ceiling in Hollywood, before going on to become a billion-dollar businesswoman, activist and advocate.” The international production is done by Fremantle.
The series, via The Hollywood Reporter, will “draw on never-before-heard audio tapes, interviews, and unseen TV footage, alongside rich archive of her movies.” The show will include never-seen-before interviews with the stars, including Kardashian, “who conducted the last interview with her before she died, Dame Joan Collins (The Stud, Land of the Pharaohs, Empire of the Ants), a friend and Hollywood contemporary who competed with Elizabeth for the role of Cleopatra, Margaret O’Brien (Meet Me in St. Louis, Little Women, The Secret Garden), who went to school with her on the MGM backlot, close friend Carole Bayer Sager, leading scientist Dr. Anthony Fauci (Harrison’s Rheumatology, Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, Harrison’s Manual of Medicine) who worked alongside Elizabeth in the fight against AIDS, and others.”
“Elizabeth Taylor was unapologetically herself, a fighter. She is proof that you can keep evolving and changing and have different chapters in your life,” Kardashian stated, via The Hollywood Reporter, “and she paved the way for all of us who came after her with that blueprint.”
Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar is in production right now and will be released in the U.K. via BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.