There was nothing smooth about the making of Butterfield 8, which earned Elizabeth Taylor her first Academy Award. After starting as a child actress, Taylor landed an MGM contract and, in her 20s, began a stretch in which she was Oscar-nominated for Raintree County (1957), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).
At that time, 20th Century Fox offered Taylor a record $1 million salary to star in Cleopatra, but she needed to end her MGM deal. As her final MGM project, she committed to the adaptation of author John O’Hara’s 1935 novel Butterfield 8. With the title referring to NYC’s telephone exchange system, Daniel Mann’s movie starred Taylor as Gloria Wandrous, a model who enjoys flings until falling for a married man. The cast included Laurence Harvey and Taylor’s then husband, Eddie Fisher.
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