William J. Mann, author of the bestselling Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, has now turned his attention to Elizabeth Taylor, the quintessential movie star, and uses her biography to reveal the machinations of stardom and fame, from the studio era of Hollywood through the 1970s. How to Be a Movie Star is a totally fresh, brilliantly researched, and reported portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, as she became our first superstar. It is also a fascinating revelation of cadre that got her there, from her mother to her managers, publicists, gossip columnists, and early paparazzi--and, not least of all, herself.

Swathed in mink, sailing aboard her yachts, discarding husbands nearly as frequently as she changed diamond earrings, Taylor dominated the headlines for three glittering decades, rewriting rules, defying conventions, laying down the yardstick by which celebrity has been measured ever since. Focusing on the most glamorous period in Taylor's career, Mann takes us inside her privileged childhood in England to her schooling on the MGM lot (alongside Judy Garland), through her work in National Velvet, Giant, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , among other films. Whether it is her studio-arranged first marriage to Nicky Hilton (timed to create publicity for her film father of the Bride) , the Eddie-Debbie-Liz scandal, or scandalous Italian romance with Richard Burton during the filming of Cleopatra , Mann offers the full, intimate account of how the actress turned into an icon. More unexpectedly is the emergence of Taylor not as the passionate, impulsive creature of circumstance depicted by previous bios, but instead a smart, shrewd player of the celebrity game who took the lessons taught by the incomparable MGM publicity masters and used them to craft her own public image in the post-studio world--a world she herself helped create, as the first female star to get a million dollars a picture and to work for a percentage of the gross.

With the help of major new interviews and never-before-tapped sources, How to Be a Movie Star tells us everything we need to know about fame and public life in the twentieth century dress in the irresistible guise of the last unrivalled star.