Furious Love

Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century

By: Sam Kashner, Nancy Schoenberger

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

The definitive story of Hollywood's most famous couple.

He was a tough-guy Welshman softened by the affections of a breathtakingly beautiful woman; she was a modern-day Cleopatra madly in love with her own Mark Antony. For nearly a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were Hollywood royalty, and their fiery romance - often called "the marriage of the century" - was the most notorious, publicized, and celebrated love affair of its day.

For the first time, Vanity Fair contributing editor Sam Kashner and acclaimed biographer Nancy Schoenberger tell the complete story of this larger-than-life couple, showing how their romance and two marriages commanded the attention of the world. And for the first time, in exclusive access given to the authors, Elizabeth Taylor herself gives never-revealed details and firsthand accounts of her life with Burton.

Drawing upon brand-new information and interviews and on Burton's private, passionate, and heartbreaking letters to Taylor, Furious Love sheds new light on the movies, the sex, the scandal, the fame, the brawls, the booze, the bitter separations, and, of course, the fabled jewels. It offers an intimate glimpse into Elizabeth and Richard's privileged world and their elite circle of friends, among them Princess Grace, Montgomery Clift, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Peter O'Toole, Michael Caine, Marlon Brando, Rex Harrison, Mike Nichols, Laurence Olivier, Robert Kennedy, Tennessee Williams, Noel Coward, John Huston, Ava Gardner, the Rothschilds, Maria Callas, and Aristotle Onassis. It provides an entertaining, eye-opening look at their films, their wildly lucrative reign in Europe and in Hollywood, and the price they paid for their extravagant lives.

©2010 Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers

Paul Boehmer needs more practice

Rarely am I dsappointed in a book AND the narrator (in this case Paul Boehmer).

The context of the book is only a step up - if that - from stuff we've read in 'D List' tabloids.

Paul Boehmer sounds like an inexperienced narrator (at least in delivering documentary) who is reading this book as practice. Perhaps with a few more tries he could have managed to get the job done well. He pays little or no regard to accentuating a quoted piece of text so that I could decipher that it's different from the rest. His tone of voice fluctuates at all the wrong times -leading me to believe something's going to be said, when indeed, he's already said it. This results in me feeling like I wasn't listening or paying close enough attention. But, alas, that is not the case. He's simply doing a poor job. I don't think I'll be able to listen to this book to its finish.

Listener, beware!