Show Business: The Long Way to Broadway

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So is Taylor. "A lot of people thought that I wouldn't actually go through with this play," she says. "But once I make up my mind to do something, I do it. I go in the direction that I point myself toward. I don't let circumstances do it for me."

There is pride and an odd kind of defiance in her voice, and at such moments those famous violet eyes look as blue and forbidding as arctic ice. Much has been written about those eyes, but it has not been noted how quickly they can move up and down the Fahrenheit scale, from a sultry 85 or so to a frigid ten below zero. Some of the chill is shyness. When she was younger she used to go to parties and hide in the shadow of her second husband, Michael Wilding. One night Humphrey Bogart told her to sit by herself and make people come to her. She did—and people now hover around her—but a trace of that early reticence remains nonetheless. Part of her reserve is a learned, animal response to prying reporters. "I have a great respect for my privacy," she says, "and the only way I can keep myself private is by not being too open. I once opened up to Hedda Hopper, and she stuck a knife in my ribs. That taught me."

But when the eyes are flashing violet —which in her case means go—she could melt an igloo. During the three weeks in Fort Lauderdale, the loud, rollicking laughter from her dressing room backstage almost brought down the roof. "I know," she says, somewhat abashed when it is mentioned to her. "Noël Coward told me once that my laugh is like a drunken sailor's on leave. But when I get to know somebody and can let my hair down, I am a boisterous, raucous, down-to-earth, no-nonsense lady. I live life with a zest. It has never been dull for me, and I don't anticipate that it ever will be." —By Gerald Clarke/Fort Lauderdale