The First Engagement: Elizabeth Taylor and William D. Pawley Jr.
Before she married her first husband, Elizabeth Taylor was engaged to a man named William D. Pawley Jr. — a formative romance for her, captured forever in handwritten correspondence. Here, we take a look at the little-known (to many) early romance between Elizabeth and William, aka Bill, including how they met, their romance, their breakup, and what it all reveals about Taylor’s youth and early career.
In 1949, 17-year-old Elizabeth was already a rising star at MGM thanks to films like National Velvet. While on vacation in Florida, Elizabeth and her mother were invited to visit the Miami Beach mansion owned by the wealthy U.S. Ambassador William D. Pawley. There, Elizabeth met Ambassador Pawley’s son, the 22-year-old Bill Pawley, and the two fell hopelessly in love.
Much of what is known about the relationship was revealed in a collection of letters that came up for auction after Elizabeth’s death in 2011. The 60 handwritten letters from Elizabeth to Bill had been previously sold to an auction house by Bill, and subsequently sold at auction for $48,645. Elizabeth and Bill wrote to each other often, and in each letter, Elizabeth expressed a deep, yearning love for Bill. In one letter dated March 28, 1949, she wrote, “My heart aches & makes me want to cry when I think of you…I want our hearts to belong to each other throughout eternity—I want us to be ‘lovers’ always...even after we’ve been married seventy-five years and have at least a dozen great-great-grandchildren.”
In addition to her declarations of love, Elizabeth wrote about a wide range of personal thoughts and experiences, including insecurities about her body, her troubles with MGM, and experiences on the sets of A Place in the Sun and The Big Hangover. She also wrote about her short-lived relationship with football player Glenn Davis, who she publicly dated at the behest of the studio, in an attempt to control and maintain her girl-next-door image. Though already a star, she was still very much a teenager, and the letters revealed what she hoped for and what she struggled with through the transition from teenage stardom to womanhood.
Within months, the pair were engaged. Bill proposed with a cushion-cut diamond ring, the first of many white diamonds she would receive in her life. Having committed her heart to him, Elizabeth considered retiring from films to become a wife. “I am only too ready to say farewell to my career and everything connected with it—for I won’t be giving anything up—but I will be gaining the greatest gift that God bestows upon man—love, marriage, a family—and you,” she wrote to Bill.
Though this pairing was filled with promise, their romance ended before wedding plans took shape. By late 1949 their relationship began to unravel, tested by external and internal pressures, including Bill’s insecurity and Elizabeth’s career commitments. Elizabeth’s mother had also begun to disapprove, and had become skeptical of Pawley’s possessiveness; she reportedly wrote that he was “nervous” and had jealousy problems in correspondence directly with him. In September, Bill requested the return of the engagement ring, and Taylor wrote to him that month: “I have the ring on now — it is sparkling so beautifully in the sunshine — I suppose this will be the last time I have it on — for a while at least — take good care of it, Darling — for my heart is embeded [sic] right there in the centre of it.” With no choice but to do so, Elizabeth moved on, and by May of 1950 she was married to hotel heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton.
The romance between Elizabeth and Bill may not be the most famous chapter in her love life, but it serves as a snapshot of a pivotal time in her younger years. These letters capture Elizabeth as a teenage film star in the throes of first love and enduring the pressures of Hollywood, and offer a rare, intimate window into her emotions at such a formative moment.