Her vivid, colorful life went on for decades longer than Taylor had expected it to, given her history of life-threatening injuries and illnesses – not to mention five dozen movies and seven marriages that ended in death or divorce. Along the way, she acquired a lot of spectacular jewelry to soften the blows.

Personally, I love Liz in the simple, fifties-style white-metal hoops and bracelets she wore in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (left), worth watching just to see the sizzlingly beautiful Taylor and Paul Newman at their physical peak.

But that wasn’t the kind of jewelry Elizabeth Taylor became famous for. That would be the gem-laden, over-the-top variety. You can find a few of her famous jewels at the Cooper-Hewitt right now in Set in Style: the Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels exhibit, including this lovely bracelet.

Lamartine bracelet of gold, platinum, diamonds, coral and amethyst by Van Cleef & Arpels, 1970, owned by Elizabeth Taylor (courtesy Dame Elizabeth Taylor, photo John Bigelow Taylor)

Taylor loved to flaunt her jewels but also used them to do good works over the years. For a 2002 Christie’s auction to benefit the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, founded in 1991, she donated this emerald ring, a gift from her fourth husband Richard Burton in 1962.

Elizabeth Taylor raised $80k for her AIDS foundation by selling this ring at Christie's

The ring sold for $80,000 – twice its value minus Hollywood legend. Thirty pieces from her personal collection went on exhibit in conjunction with the sale, including the Krupp and Taj Mahal diamonds and La Peregrina Pearl given to her by Burton.

Purchased by Burton at Sotheby’s in 1969, that historic pearl was once given to Queen Mary Tudor by King Phillip II of Spain. It was set in a pearl, diamond and ruby necklace by Cartier (below), which Taylor later lost, then famously found – in her dog’s mouth.

The Christie’s sale coincided with the publication of the book Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry, filled with dishy stories of being showered in world-class jewels by her famous lovers, including Burton. “I used to get so excited, I would jump on top of him and practically make love to him in Bulgari,” Taylor said.

La Peregrina pearl, once owned by Queen Mary Tudor, in Cartier necklace

“My memories are the real jewels of the book,” Taylor said at the time. “Looking at these beautiful pieces has invariably stirred up many moving memories and reminded me of some truly outrageous times. I mean, how many young women get a set of rubies just for doing something wholesome like swimming laps? Or win a diamond ring at ping-pong with their husband?”

Hmm, I’d say not many.

Taylor did just as much for Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier as she did for Bulgari. She also acquired some of the finest diamonds in the world, thanks mainly to Burton.

Most famously, he gave her the Krupp diamond (on her finger at right), a 33.19-carat white diamond. Taylor wore it every day.

Burton also gave her a 69.4-carat pear-shaped, internally flawless diamond. Burton was outbid by Cartier on that one, at a 1969 Sotheby’s auction, then bought it from them for more than $1 million, a record at the time. It was renamed the Taylor-Burton Diamond and mounted in a necklace by Harry Winston, which Taylor sold in 1978 to raise funds for a new hospital in Botswana.

Yes, Elizabeth Taylor was that rare creature: unapologetically greedy and incredibly generous at the same time. I mean, how many show-stopping jewels does one woman need? Well, in Taylor’s case, very many. “Each one tells me a story,” she once said of her jewels.

Related posts:

Van Cleef & Arpels: celebrity style

Van Cleef & Arpels: glamour and invention

In celebration of really expensive tiaras

Sex & the City: the jewelry

JAR: designer jewelry as calling card

Related product:

                          

Elizabeth Taylor wearing a diadem of her own and VC&A-loaned jewels to the Proust Ball in Paris, 1972

Curator Sarah Coffin talks about the “Bejeweled Lives” section of Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels, the exhibit opening this Friday at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum.

Van Cleef & Arpels decamped from Paris to New York City at the onset of WWII. Is that when Hollywood became a big influence?

SC: The move to the U.S. coincided with the growth of Hollywood, which certainly provided a new venue for very visible women to be seen wearing Van Cleef & Arpels and other famous jewelry makers’ designs.

But some of the famous collectors – Doris Duke, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Daisy Fellowes – were women of means, not necessarily movie stars. They were moving in fashionable circles and patronizing the firm.

That was before houses like Van Cleef began lending pieces for the red carpet, right? Stars were buying their own jewels.

Jarretière bracelet of diamonds, rubies and platinum by Van Cleef & Arpels, Paris, c. 1937, owned by Marlene Dietrich (photo Patrick Gries/VC&A)

SC: Yes, you had this wonderful situation of Marlene Dietrich buying that ruby bracelet and then wearing it in Stage Fright, the 1950 Hitchcock movie. Of course, that is hugely classy, connected to the persona of the character Dietrich was playing in the movie. But Marlene Dietrich did really own that; it isn’t something they put on her for the movie. Later, it was Catherine Deneuve wearing the Belle Hélène necklace in The Last Metro.

Princess Grace is another class act often photographed wearing Van Cleef & Arpels. Was that orchestrated?

SC: Then it was just a happy coincidence. Grace Kelly didn’t go out and buy Van Cleef & Arpels as Grace Kelly, the actress. It was when Prince Rainier started giving it to her that you begin to see her photographed in it. Upon their wedding, Van Cleef & Arpels were appointed the jewelers to the court of the Principality of Monaco, as they are to this day. They sill supply fair amount of jewelry to the Principality of Monaco.

Early on, Van Cleef & Arpels had a director of publicity who was very involved in promoting and presentations, taking jewelry to charity balls and putting it on people. Public relations directors and advertisers saw the benefit of this kind of thing early on and it developed as things became more about visibility and placement.

At the beginning, these were clearly pieces these actresses wanted to own, perhaps to place themselves as women of fashion, to be alongside royalty and the big-name wealthy collectors like Florence Gould and Barbara Hutton.

Manchette bracelet/necklace of platinum, emeralds and diamonds by VC&A, Paris, 1926, owned by Daisy Fellowes (photo Patrick Gries/VC&A)

Somewhere along the line, they traded places and it was the actresses everyone else wanted to emulate.

SC: That really happened in the 1950s, when the movie star business became more important. Before that, actresses bought their own jewels. Greta Garbo clearly paid for that 10-carat diamond ring in the exhibit. Marlene Dietrich really owned that fabulous ruby bracelet. Paulette Goddard was also a collector.

Tiara of gold, platinum and diamonds by VC&A, Paris, 1976, worn by Princess Grace of Monaco (photo Patrick Gries/VC&A)

You have some beautiful pieces from Elizabeth Taylor in the exhibit, Hollywood’s most famous jewelry horse.

SC: Yes, she was another true collector. Obviously, she had a great collection and Richard Burton was giving her fabulous things.

It couldn’t have hurt VC&A to have her photographed in that wild diamond headdress (top left).

SC: That was for the famous Proust Ball in Paris where she went with Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor – who were, of course, the biggest collectors of them all. Elizabeth Taylor wore a headdress, apparently a combination of her own jewelry and  jewelry that Van Cleef & Arpels lent her. That’s kind of where I see this shift starting to happen, maybe in the late sixties, to celebrity usage.

At the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, 2 E. 91st St., New York NY (Feb. 18-June 5, 2011). UPDATE: This exhibit has been extended to July 7.

Related posts:

Van Cleef & Arpels: glamour and invention

JAR: designer jewelry as calling card

Jewelry heist movies

Nature of Diamonds in Chicago

                          

Samantha (Kim Cattrall) in the cocktail ring she bid on at a Christie's auction in the first Sex and the City movie

Sex and the City movie 2 hits theaters this month and I’ll be watching. Yes, I’m a fan. Sex and the City is always good for eye candy and a few laughs with girlfriends.

I’m curious what the big jewelry statement will be. So far I haven’t seen signs of a piece as influential – and central to the plot – as this ring Samantha bids on at a Christie’s auction during movie #1, released in 2008. She’s outbid it turns out, by her boyfriend, who buys the ring for her via phone.

Ellen Barkin's JAR-designed Gardenia ring on my hand before the 2006 Christie's sale (photo Cathleen McCarthy)

Unaware and increasingly flustered, Samantha bids furiously, as her girlfriends watch – everyone beautifully dressed, of course. As soon as I saw that scene, I had deja vu. It was filmed in the showroom at Christie’s Rockefeller Center, an obvious reference to the sale held there in October 2006 to auction off the jewelry of a newly-divorced Ellen Barkin – including the JAR-designed diamond Gardenia ring I’m wearing above. Looks familiar, right? (Another guilty pleasure: trying on jewelry before an auction. I also tried on Ellen’s spiky wedding ring, but that’s another story.)

Samantha (Kim Cattrall) bids for her ring inside Christie's showroom (photo Craig Blankenhorn, New Line Cinema)

While Samantha’s ring ends up selling for $50,000, Barkin’s went for $486,400, four times the estimate. I know because I was in the packed showroom that night. I was the one in the back row with a notepad instead of a paddle, reporting for a magazine on the mother lode of jewelry by Paris-based designer Joel Arthur Rosenthal (JAR). Those 17 JAR pieces brought nearly $8 million of the $20 million worth of jewels sold that night, twice what Christie’s was expecting. “Crazy prices for everything,” a Christie’s spokesperson noted when she sent the final, giddy results.

Christie's sale of Ellen Barkin's jewelry in October 2006 (photo Cathleen McCarthy)

Two-finger CZ ring by Emitations ($139, amazon.com)

Ah, yes, the crazy spending of 2006. Ellen Barkin must be patting herself on the back for her timing. As for Samantha, Carrie and the girls – just how conspicuous will the consumption be in the second movie, two years later?

Patricia Field, stylist behind the original series as well as the 80 costume changes of the first movie, has reported that she didn’t let the recession rein her in. Maybe that’s the right move. After all, we go to the movies to escape reality, right?

Meanwhile, you can still buy knockoffs of Samantha’s two-finger cocktail ring from the 2008 movie from several online merchants, including Amazon. What kind of jewelry will we be coveting after movie 2?

                          

Fred Astaire, the original dandy, accessorized with cufflinks, collar pin and studs, carnation, pocket hankerchief and boater.

Johnny Depp at a premiere playing bohemian dandy: three-piece suit with rings, necklaces, fedora, mussed hair, tinted specs

Cary Grant set the standard for the well-dressed man in Hollywood with cuff links, nice watch, sometimes a thin gold bracelet

A typical Adrian Brody look: carefully tousled, clean shaven, expensive jacket, pendant on cord (sometimes a cravat)

“I’m putting on my top hat,

Tying up my white tie,

Brushing off my tails.

I’m duding up my shirtfront,

Putting in the shirt studs,

Polishing my nails…”

Ah, for the days when a man could sing those words loud and proud, and then do the happy tap dance to celebrate. Fred Astaire was steppin’ out. Proper accessories were required.

Of course, it was all a big fantasy. When Astaire sang Irving Berlin’s lyrics in Top Hat, the second of his ten films with Ginger Rogers, the Depression was in full swing. Seventy-five years later, in the midst of what’s been called the “second Great Depression,” it’s impossible to watch him without feeling your spirits lift.

Stepping out Astaire-style required just about every accessory known to man – top hat in the evening, straw boater by day, studs, cufflinks, collar pin, you name it. His characters had great jewelry to choose from. Deco was probably the best era for men’s jewelry in the past century, and cuff links from that period work as well today as they did then.

These days, it takes a confident man – or at least, one who works in the arts – to wear jewelry with that kind of panache. Astaire personified the dandy, more a product of Broadway than serious Hollywood heartthrob. After all, he inhabited the world of musical theater: over the top.

Johnny Depp is probably his closest successor style-wise, a man who loves costume and views fashion as a chance to play with personas. Is there any man in show biz today who has more fun getting dressed?

Cary Grant toyed with a goofier persona in movies like Bringing Up Baby, but by 1950, he was projecting that debonair, cosmopolitan look we associate with him. While his fashion sense was more subdued, he always wore great cufflinks and the best watch, which he was known to pair with a thin gold bracelet and, sometimes, a discreet necklace.

Adrian Brody follows Grant’s footsteps in terms of style, a confident and adventurous dresser but always tasteful and elegant. Brad Pitt is another who fits this category. Both have been known to sport bracelets and pendants instead of ties, and they’re handsome and self-assured enough to pull it off.

                          

TO CATCH A THIEF (1955) In Hitchcock’s tongue-in-cheek fifties-era capers, crime never leads to profit but it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Most famous of jewelry heist flicks, To Catch a Thief gives you Cary Grant as the Cat, Frances’ most famous jewel thief, a sort of Spider Man in black. Grant, at his suave best, meets Grace Kelly, as the ultimate cool blonde who seduces him on the French Riviera. Grant turns out to be faking his return to crime, which means it’s okay for Grace to marry him in the end and move to his seaside villa with her mother, who couldn’t care less if her jewels are stolen, as long as she’s insured.

Classic love scene: Grace kissing Cary slowly while her diamond necklace glitters in the dark, reflecting the fireworks bursting over the Seine. “Look, John. Hold them,” she purrs. “Diamonds… the only thing in the world you can’t resist.” FYI, the diamonds in that necklace were paste.

Reel to real moment: Cary wiping the sweat off his hands as Grace speeds around hairpin on the cliffs of the French Riviera, a creepy foreshadowing of the accident that killed the actress thirty years later.

Crime pays: For everyone but the real criminal. Cary catches the impostor, Grace ends up with Cary and his hilltop villa on the Riviera.

LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970) An hour and a quarter goes by before you find out the heist in this movie has anything to do with jewelry. When the thieves finally reach the building they’re casing, the sign reads Mauboussin. This is a long movie entirely about men – don’t expect to see jewelry on the body here – but it moves right along. It’s the movie you’d end up with if the ultra-cool chain-smoking Bogart of the Maltese Falcon went to the ultra-cool sixties Paris of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. No one breaks a sweat or drops his repartee, no matter how many guns are pointed at his head. Exchange and lighting of cigarettes serves as a second language. Even Yves Montaud who plays a cop-turned-crook with a serious case of DTs can pull it together by lighting up.

Classic heist moment: Thief number one finds thief number two in the trunk of his car. They solidify their bond with an exchange of cigarettes.

Crime pays: I wouldn’t want to give away the ending. Let’s just say, this movie is in the cinéma verité tradition. No such thing as happy endings.

FLAWLESS (2008) opens with a demonstration of the unglamorous beginnings of a world-class diamond: a close-up of two hands sifting rough gems in muddy water, putting aside a pebble that looks like a chunk of common quartz. Cut to two more hands pressing the stone to a diamond wheel as water rushes over it, forming it into a faceted point. Final shot: the ring on a woman’s hand as she chats gaily with her girlfriends. You’re now in the heart of bustling, present-day downtown Manhattan.

The heist in Flawless revolves around a woman for a change, Demi Moore as an ambitious but frustrated manager in the London Diamond Corporation in 1960. A janitor, played by Michael Caine, convinces her to team up to steal a few diamonds on her way out. Turns out a ‘few’ means the entire inventory.

Classic heist moment: Surveillance systems have gotten pretty sophisticated by 2008 and dodging them involves taking advantage of a technological glitch in computer timing. It looks like Caine might have a heart attack trying to push that cart fast enough to beat that timing, but he pulls it off. Score one for the pudgy but determined middle-aged.

Crime pays: nicely. About a billion, inflation being what it is.