Elizabeth Taylor’s Granddaughter Gives Rare Interview About the Hollywood Legend

Julie Miller


Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor

Three years after Elizabeth Taylor's death, one of her ten grandchildren has granted a rare interview about her personal memories of the legendary beauty, actress, and activist. Naomi deLuce Wilding, a 39-year-old gallerist and fashion stylist living in Los Angeles, tells Glamour about her "granny," with whom she lived for three years in L.A. Specifically, she shares how Taylor inspired her interest in fashion, encouraged her to be more daring, and let her play with all of her fabulous jewels. Wilding remembers:


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"I grew up in the countryside of Wales with my mother, Johanna. (My father, Michael, moved to America when I was five.) We lived a practical existence, but twice a year my sister, Laela, and I would go to L.A. to stay at my grandmother's house, which was like a fairy tale. I spent hours in her closet. She had all the designers-Valentino, Versace-and things she'd picked up in the market in Mexico too. We'd sit on her bed. She'd open her jewelry closet, bring out drawer after drawer, and tell us stories of her life through each piece-like her "Ping-Pong diamond rings," which she won in a game of Ping-Pong with Richard Burton. We lapped it up. She always said she was a custodian of her jewelry: It didn't belong to her; she was just a part of its journey.

"If you were a woman in Elizabeth Taylor's life, she'd likely dress you up. She knew she was lucky to have the things she had, and a big part of how she enjoyed them was by sharing them. In my grandmother's house in Switzerland, she had a bomb shelter that she'd turned into her wardrobe. Everybody would go down to pick out something to wear. If it looked good on you, chances are, she'd let you keep it."


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Wilding also reveals how Taylor flirted with her husband like crazy-age difference be damned!-and let Wilding borrow her clothes for early styling shoots. In the most sweetly amusing passage though, Wilding suggests that her grandmother was determined to pass down the sexpot appeal to her progeny. "Most grandmothers would say, 'You can't leave the house wearing that!'" Wilding explains. "Mine would see my bra strap showing, and say, 'Just take your bra off.'"

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