Stunning Unseen Photos of Elizabeth Taylor

Dozing on a yacht. Cooking fried chicken. Sightseeing in Iran: Stunning unseen photos of Elizabeth Taylor

• By Firooz Zahedi, www.dailymail.co.uk
• March 12th, 2016

Nobody got closer to the Hollywood legend than Firooz Zahedi, her friend – and off-duty photographer – for 40 years. He opens up his very private album for Event...

YES SHE CANNES Elizabeth Taylor napping on a friend’s yacht near Cannes in 1993 with her Maltese Terrier Sugar, her constant companion, who died in 2005

I first met Elizabeth Taylor in 1976 while on a mission to find gay clubs and pot for her assistant. 

Elizabeth was separated from Richard Burton after their second marriage and was staying with my cousin, Ardeshir Zahedi, the Iranian ambassador to the U.S., at his Washington residence.

He was out of town on business and asked me to make sure the star was kept entertained. 

Having grown up watching her Hollywood extravaganzas I was thrilled at the prospect and arranged to take her on a tour of the city.

Elizabeth insisted that I join her and Arthur, her hairdresser and assistant, in the back of the embassy car. Arthur wanted to know where to find gay clubs and drugs. 

I must have looked mortified because when Elizabeth, who was then aged 44, saw my face, she laughed and told Arthur to shut up.

‘Can’t you see he’s too young and innocent?’ she said, giving me a tender look. 

PRINCESS OF PERSIA During her visit to Tehran, Taylor asked Zahedi to see ‘the real Iran’. Here she is at the ancient ruins of Persepolis, Shiraz

I was touched by this but turned to Arthur and rattled off a list of clubs and a couple of sources of pot. This took them by surprise and now they wanted to know more about their young guide.

I told them that I’d upset my family by resigning from my post at the embassy, where I’d served as my cousin’s aide, and enrolling in art school. I was 27 and wanted to be a photographer.

‘You should do what you love to do if you want to be happy in life,’ said Elizabeth, leaning in towards me and looking into my eyes. 

I relaxed, feeling totally comfortable in her presence. We were friends from that moment on. 

She encouraged me to photograph her as we went on a sightseeing tour of the nation’s capital. 

Later that month I had the rare chance to photograph Elizabeth in some incredibly exotic costumes, when we made an unforgettable journey to Iran.

LIZ, MY CAMERA AND ME Taylor and Firooz Zahedi at a mosque en route to Isfahan, Iran, May 1976. Born in Iran in 1949, Zahedi moved to America after going to secondary school in England. He began his career with Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine and has since worked for Vanity Fair, Vogue and GQ among many others, and has photographed some of the biggest stars in the world, including Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez and Leonardo Di Caprio. He took the iconic shot of a black-bobbed Uma Thurman lying on a bed, smoking, which was used as the poster for Pulp Fiction

We grew ever closer, and I continued to capture many private moments until her death in 2011, in addition to a good number of professional sittings.

Some years ago I asked her permission to do a book of the photographs I had taken of her during the course of our friendship, which spanned more than 30 years. 

She agreed and so I proceeded to compile the images with the intention of publishing a simple book of photographs. 

Time passed, and the project ended up on the back burner, but now the book is being published and you can see some of those pictures here.

These images, Elizabeth wrote, ‘bring back so many memories of happy days with just Firooz and me being good, bad, excited, playful... all the components that go into making a thoroughly good time together.’

We had so many thoroughly good times together. I still miss her. 

LIZ TAYLOR'S CLOSE UP

EASTERN PROMISE In Iran, Taylor asked Zahedi to take some photos of her in the outfits she’d purchased at the bazaar. She was dressed in a tribal costume, accessorised by a headdress created by Arthur from a scarf. On her forehead is the famous Taj Mahal diamond pendant, bought in 1972 from Cartier for £350,000 by Richard Burton, as a gift on her 40th birthday. It was sold at auction for $8.8m in 2011

GETTING LIPPY WITH IT Taylor putting on lipstick in her dressing room on the set of A Little Night Music, Vienna, Austria, August 1976

DRIVING MISS TAYLOR Behind the wheel at Atoka farm

STRIKE! Playing softball at Andy Warhol’s home in Montauk, in June 1976. Says Zahedi: ‘Many presumed Elizabeth would not want to play, thinking it could be too strenuous for her. She proved them wrong by picking up a bat, and to everyone’s amazement, whacking the ball really hard and racing to first base with a triumphant smile on her flushed face’

FLYING SOLO Taylor on a flight to Tehran in May 1976

GRUB’S UP! Taylor cooking fried chicken at Atoka farm, Middleburg, Virginia, 1977, where she lived after marrying her sixth husband, lawyer John Warner. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes were Taylor’s favourite food, after caviar

FUNNY GIRL Taylor enjoying time off from work, Cannes, 1993