2011.03.23
Roanoke College remembers Elizabeth Taylor’s 1978 visit
Elizabeth Taylor at Roanoke College in 1978.
The Roanoke College community was saddened to hear of the passing today of legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor.
Taylor – then wife of John Warner, who was running for the U.S. Senate – visited the College campus in 1978 to conduct what was billed as a “theater workshop.” But the occasion, as the Roanoke Times & World-News reported then, was actually “just another thrill for us as a team going on campuses and talking with students,” John Warner said. The couple had been visiting college campuses across the state as Warner campaigned for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat.
John Warner and Elizabeth Taylor at Roanoke College in 1978.
Taylor and Warner attended a luncheon with then Roanoke College President Norman Fintel and his wife, Jo. Following the luncheon, Taylor – who at the time was nursing a dislocated hip – answered questions about her private life and long film career from an audience that packed the Olin Hall auditorium on campus. The Salem Times-Register reported that the audience “was more interested in Elizabeth Taylor the movie star, than Elizabeth Warner, the farmer’s wife.”
Asked to compare her life as film star to life as a Virginia politician’s wife, she said she had a “normal” side, the Times Register reported. “When we’re not politicking, we just go to the farm and lead the happiest, most ordinary life. You never saw anyone more content.”
Submitted by Roanoke College
We have more photos of Elizabeth Taylor during her Virginia days on our Blue Ridge Caucus politics blog.
The Salem Museum:
