Elizabeth Taylor remains one of the most iconic actresses to ever grace the silver screen. And she knew it, coming out of a partial retirement to play the role of Pearl Slaghoople – the mother to Elizabeth Perkins’ Wilma and mother-in-law to John Goodman’s Fred – in 1994’s The Flintstones, an adaptation of the Hanna-Barbera production. But getting such prestige comes at a high cost. Like, a present every day she was on set-level of cost.
While Elizabeth Taylor isn’t in much of The Flintstones, her sheer stature put her in a position to demand just about anything she wanted, to which producer Bruce Cohen was happy to oblige. Kyle MacLachlan – who played Slate & Co.’s VP Cliff Vandercave in The Flintstones – remembered, “The cast was crazy. Bruce got Elizabeth Taylor to do that movie. It was amazing. She had to have a gift every day. A gift every day. And she had to have, in the dressing room trailers, everything was green, she had to have greenery around her…Jewelry. This is secondhand now. Bruce probably told me and said, ‘Don’t ever tell anybody that.’ Too late. It’s too late.” Cohen had actually previously mentioned Elizabeth Taylor’s The Flintstones gifts on the occasion of the legend’s 2011 death, at one point recruiting executive producer Steven Spielberg (who went credited as Steven Spielrock…) to write a personal check so the gifts didn’t show up in the movie’s budget.
Others reportedly considered for the role were Bewitched’s Elizabeth Montgomery and The Honeymooners’ Audrey Meadows, although we’d imagine the latter would be sent straight to the moon if she demanded such lavish items.
The Flintstones would end up being Elizabeth Taylor’s final role on the big screen in a career that found her winning two Best Actress Oscars. And to cap it all off, she received a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actress, “losing” to Rosie O’Donnell’s triple whopper of Car 54, Where Are You?, Exit to Eden and, yes, The Flintstones. The movie was also nominated for Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Screenplay, winning that one.
What are your memories of watching the live-action adaptation of The Flintstones? Is it as bad as most of us remember?
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