Liz Taylor, the nameless star
A young Elizabeth Taylor played Helen in the 1943 film version of Jane Eyre, but did not receive a credit. Why was this?
ELIZABETH Rosemond taylor was born on February 27, 1932, at heathwood, her family’s home on Wildwood Road in hampstead, North-West london.
her parents, art dealer Francis lenn taylor (1897–1968) and retired stage actress Sara Sothern (nee Sara Viola Warmbrodt, 1895– 1994), were from arkansas City, Kansas. they had moved to london in 1929 and opened an art gallery on bond Street.
taylor was a beautiful child with a natural poise and, in 1941, her actress mother, recognising her potential, arranged for the nine-year-old to have a screen test at Universal Studios.
as a result, taylor made her movie debut in 1942 in there’s One born Every Minute, co-starring with Carl ‘alfalfa’ Switzer from the Our Gang films.
this was a major flop and prompted Universal boss Cheever Cowden to drop taylor following an unflattering memo from Universal casting director Dan Kelly saying ‘the kid has nothing . . . her eyes are too old, she doesn’t have the face of a child.’
Elizabeth’s father knew MGM producer Sam Marx and from him learned that the studio was searching for a young English actress for a forthcoming lassie film.
taylor was given the role of Priscilla in lassie Come home in 1943, appearing with child star Roddy McDowall.
MGM signed taylor to a standard sevenyear contract and they nursed her into stardom. MGM immediately loaned the 11-year-old to Fox to play helen burns in Robert Stevenson’s film of Charlotte bronte’s 1847 classic, starring Joan Fontaine as Jane and Orson Welles as Edward Rochester.
helen was the impossibly lovely childhood friend of young Jane, played by Peggy ann Garner.
in her first scene, she descends the staircase of an exquisitely lit set like a little angel of mercy bringing comfort to the tortured Jane. tragic helen, battling a persistent cough, soon dies of tb.
taylor was only on screen for three minutes, but completely stole the scene from Garner. Despite the importance and quality of the role, her MGM contract saw her left off the billing.
taylor’s mother Sara was furious and complained to Robert Stevenson, which earned her a reprimand from louis b. Mayer, who made sure taylor was not credited on her next film, the White Cliffs Of Dover, either.
Shortly afterwards, taylor was given the role that made her a star, Velvet brown in National Velvet, playing a young English girl who trains a horse to win the Grand National.
Elizabeth Sharpe, Maidenhead, Berks.
Why is a blip on a radar screen known as a ‘bogey’?
BOGEY was World War ii aviator slang for ‘unidentified aircraft, presumably hostile’ and became part of the radar operator’s vernacular.
the term is derived from the sense of a ‘bogey’ as being a ghost — or bogeyman. the word comes from the Middle English word bugge or bogge, which meant a scarecrow or a scary thing.
One of the first iterations of the word came in John Wycliffe’s English translation of the bible (circa 1320-1382): ‘as a bugge either a man of raggis in a place where gourdis wexen kepith no thing, so ben her goddis of tree.’ (as a scarecrow or a man of rags in a place where gourds grow guards nothing, so are their gods of wood.) it is probably also the origin of the word bug, as in insect. the Scottish version of the word is
bogle, as in Robert burns’s tam o’ Shanter: ‘ Whiles glowring round wi’ prudent cares / lest bogles catch him unawares: / Kirk- alloway was drawing nigh, / Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.’
H. H. Martins, Ipswich, Suffolk.
Does a U.S. company own the patent to basmati rice?
IN THE late Nineties, the U.S government caused shockwaves in the global rice industry by granting a patent for basmati rice to texan rice company Ricetec, owned by Prince hans- adam of liechtenstein. in 1997 the company was awarded patent #5,663,484, entitled ‘basmati Rice lines and Grains’.
the product Ricetec had patented was a hybrid of basmati named basmati 867 and obtained from crossbreeding with a U.S. long rice variety. it was not the genome of basmati or even a genetically developed variety.
What was striking was the bluntness of the approach. Ricetec was granted the patent on the basis of aroma, elongation of the grain on cooking and chalkiness.
by including the word ‘basmati’ in the patent definition, Ricetec could claim wide-ranging rights over a traditional name that comes from the basmati region of india, for which it did not acknowledge the origin or the originality, let alone the copyright.
the impact of Ricetec’s patent would be to jeopardise the prospects of indian basmati rice suppliers seeking to export to Western countries.
the award of the rice patent rapidly triggered a wave of protests and judicial and political challenges.
in 2002, the U.S. Patent Office ordered that the title of the patent be changed to ‘Rice lines bas867, Rt 1117 and Rt1121’.
in response, Ricetec rebranded its basmati-based products as texmati, Jasmati and Kasmati.
L. B. Butterworth, London W4.
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