Liz Taylor as you’ve never seen her

She epitomised the glamour of old Hollywood but off-set the screen siren had fun being ‘good, bad, excited and playful’ as these intimate photograph’s from her good friend’s private album show

Ifirst met Elizabeth Taylor in 1976 while on a mission to find gay clubs and pot for her assistant. Elizabeth was separated from Richard Burton after their second marriage and was staying with my cousin, Ardeshir Zahedi, the Iranian ambassador to the US, at his Washington residence.

He was out of town and asked me to keep the star entertained. Having grown up watching her Hollywood extravaganzas I was thrilled at the prospect and arranged to take her on a tour of the city. Elizabeth insisted that I join her and Arthur, her hairdresser and assistant, in the back of the embassy car. Arthur wanted to know where to find gay clubs and drugs. I must have looked mortified because when Elizabeth, then aged 44, saw my face, she laughed and told Arthur to shut up.

‘Can’t you see he’s too young and innocent?’ she said, giving me a tender look. I was touched by this but turned to Arthur and rattled off a list of clubs and a couple of sources of pot. This took them by surprise and now they wanted to know more about their young guide. I told them that I’d upset my family by resigning from my post at the embassy, where I’d served as my cousin’s aide, and enrolling in art school. I was 27 and wanted to be a photographer.

‘You should do what you love to do if you want to be happy in life,’ said Elizabeth, leaning in towards me and looking into my eyes. I relaxed, feeling totally comfortable in her presence. We were friends from that moment on. She encouraged me to photograph her on a sightseeing tour of the nation’s capital. Later that month I had the rare chance to photograph Elizabeth in some incredibly exotic costumes, when we made an unforgettable journey to Iran.

We grew ever closer, and I continued to capture many private moments until her death in 2011, in addition to a good number of professional sittings. Some years ago I asked her permission to do a book of the photographs I had taken during our friendship, which spanned more than 30 years. She agreed. These images, Elizabeth wrote, ‘bring back so many memories of happy days with just Firooz and me being good, bad, excited, playful... all the components that go into making a thoroughly good time together.’

We had so many thoroughly good times together. I still miss her.

My Elizabeth by Firooz Zahedi is published on March 23, priced €69.95.

YES SHE CANNES Taylor napping on a friend’s yacht near Cannes in 1993 with her Maltese Terrier Sugar, her constant companion, who died in 2005

GETTING LIPPY WITH IT Taylor putting on lipstick in her dressing room on the set of A Little Night Music, Vienna, Austria, August 1976

PRINCESS OF PERSIA During her visit to Tehran, Taylor asked Zahedi to see ‘the real Iran’. Here she is at the ancient ruins of Persepolis, Shiraz

LIZ, MY CAMERA AND ME Taylor and Firooz Zahedi at a mosque en route to Isfahan, Iran, May 1976. Born in Iran in 1949, Zahedi moved to America after going to school in England. He began his career with Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine and has since...