What if Elizabeth Taylor had been cast as Scarlett O'hara in GWTW?

Watch Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County, she wasn't horrible but she was no where as resplendent as Vivian Leigh in GWTW.

She was seven at the time.

Exactly, R1.

R2, read my post.

What if I had been Scarlett, and an secret hermaphrodite with a 10 cock, and a Vanderbilt heir, and a polymath, and I had become a huge star in Hollywood, then been injured working in the Resistance during WWII, but became Givenchy's muse, and a baseball coach, and married a famous black star of the Chitlin' circuit. What then, OP?

Taylor wasn’t half he actress that Vivian Leigh was. If they’d been competing at the same time, Taylor wouldn’t have gotten any of the roles that Leigh played.

Shelley Winters stated in her memoir that she really had the acting bug and as only a teenager she went to an audition to try out for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. She was wearing a makeshift, awful Southern costume and was talking in an even worse Southern accent. She said that the secretary ushered her into the audition room with the men right away, probably to give them their laugh for the day. She did her bit for them as Scarlett and needless to say they were not impressed. However the director George Cukor took her aside, was very kind to her and told her that while she was not ready for acting yet, to keep on trying and she just might make it in the business - and the rest is history.

Elizabeth Taylor was a lousy actress. She wasn't even good in Who's Afraid of V. Wolf, the one role that she got some critical acclaim for. Vivien Leigh was a very good actress and at the time was even more beautiful than Liz IMO. Too bad VL was crazy and aged so fast.

R8, put the crack pipe down. Leigh could never hold a candle to Taylor's rare beauty.

Liz was great as Helena Cassadine

That shrill, shrieky voice of hers would've caused the audience to yell at the screen, "Forget Atlanta, burn that bitch!"

R11 Imagine that voice and Butterfly McQueen's in the same film.

Who’s Afraid of Scarlett O’Hara?

I believe this is known as "Idle Speculation." Is this all you have to do on New Year's Eve, OP? Can't you take a pill? Make some Ovaltine? Beat off?

Idle speculation is a good excuse to talk about figures from a bygone era. What if Vivien Leigh had been cast as Cathy Holly in Suddenly Last Summer, which came out in 1939 instead of 1959?

One only has to witness Miss Taylor's performance in "The Mirror Crack'd" to bear witness to the true lack of talent she had. She was one of those actors who could only put in a good performance if she had a great director who would coach her every step of the way, and do retake after retake until she got it right.

Forgot the link.

One of the most boneheaded threads in a long time.

You guys just made me picture Vivian Leigh in Virginia Woolf. She would have been great. Although, the Burton/Taylor backstory really added to the film.

Okay, say Liz Taylor was the same age as Vivien Leigh, and not a generation younger.

Vivien Leigh STILL would have beat her for the part, if the filmmakers had any sense! Because Vivien brought a liveliness and cleverness to the role that Liz never displayed in her life, Liz could occasionally be good as a vulgar bitch but not as a clever bitch. It's that intelligence, the sense of cleverness and manipulation that the role of Scarlett required, and Leigh had that and Taylor did not.

The catfight with Kim was fun and effective though. Besides not even Vivien can rise completely above the material, which explained why the deep blue sea flopped at the box office.

r21 Taylor had been able to exude a clever manipulative vibe since A Date with Judy. Later films like Place In the Sun Girl Who had Everything just reinforced that fact.

She was the right age for Bonnie, not Scarlett.

Vivien Leigh was perfection at Scarlett. Taylor would have ruined the movie.

Tallulah Banghead had the right accent (she was from Alabama, Leigh was English), attractive enough perhaps, a quick learner of lines, and her sassiness was natural. Whether all that would satisfy what the casting crew were seeking, is another matter.

Scarlett has to age from a teenager to a mature woman through the course of the story— I can’t see Tallulah pulling off the first part at all.

Tallulah auditioned. So did Lana Turner that had some later extraordinary roles in film.

Paulette Goddard was a front-runner, but availability and contractual issues were a problem. She was working with Chaplin at the time.

So, the great Made For TV movie "The Scarlett O'Hara Wars" from 1980 is finally up on Youtube.

Great fun.

Previously only bits and pieces were availab.e

Talent aside, Taylor would have eclipsed Leigh, by virtue of her unparalleled beauty.

According to her biographer, the unstable Leigh was a homewrecker who liked to intimidate other women with her attractiveness. Had she had to compete against Taylor, it may very well have driven her over the brink.

wow

astonishing beauty

Elizabeth was the curvier, higher color contrast model. They even shared the same impossibly small waist.

The epitome of 50s glamour, Elizabeth was.

Imagine Taylor & Leigh pulling each other's hair over Richard Burton.

Or over Sir Olivier

Like Viv, ET stuns in period wardrobe.