Elizabeth Taylor Rejected Roman Holiday. Audrey Got The Oscar. Taylor Regretted It For 40 Years 

March 25th, 1954, RKO Pantages Theater, Hollywood. The 26th Academy Awards Ceremony. Audrey Hepern sits in the audience. She’s 24 years old. She’s been nominated for best actress for Roman Holiday, her first major film role, her first Oscar nomination. She’s terrified. The other nominees are legends. Deborah Kerr, Leslie Keron, Ava Gardner, Maggie McNamera.

Women with years of experience, women who’ve paid their dues. Audrey is the newcomer, the unknown, the girl nobody expected. When Frederick March opens the envelope and says Audrey Hepburn, she gasps. Actually gasps like she can’t believe it. She walks to the stage in her white floral gavanchi gown.

 She accepts the Oscar. She gives a brief breathless speech. She thanks William Wiler, her director. She thanks Gregory Peek, her co-star. She thanks Paramount Pictures. What she doesn’t say, what she doesn’t know to say, what nobody in that room knows except a handful of executives. this Oscar, this career, this entire future she’s about to have.

It was meant for someone else. The role of Princess Anne in Roman Holiday was never supposed to go to Audrey Heppern. The studio wanted a star, a name, a bankable actress who could guarantee box office success. They wanted Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor was 20 years old in 1952 when Paramount began casting Roman Holiday.

She was already a star. She’d been acting since childhood. She’d been in National Velvet at 12, Father of the Bride at 17, A Place in the Sun at 18, opposite Montgomery Clif. She was beautiful. Violet eyes, perfect features, the kind of face that cameras loved, the kind of star power that sold tickets. She was exactly what Paramount wanted for Princess Anne.

So, they offered her the role first before anyone else. Before they even considered Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor said no. And that decision changed everything. This is the story of the role that wasn’t meant for Audrey. The Oscar that should have belonged to someone else. The career that started because another actress turned it down.

This is the story of how Elizabeth Taylor’s rejection created Audrey Heburn. Early 1952. Paramount Pictures has a script, a romantic comedy called Roman Holiday, written by Dalton Trumbo. though his name won’t appear in the credits because he’s blacklisted. The story is simple. A princess on a diplomatic tour of Rome escapes her handlers for one day of freedom.

 She meets an American journalist who doesn’t recognize her. They spend 24 hours exploring the city. They fall in love. Then she has to return to her royal duties. They say goodbye forever. It’s a perfect vehicle for a star. The role of Princess Anne requires someone who can be both regal and relatable. Someone who can play comedy and drama.

Someone who can make audiences fall in love with her in 90 minutes. Director William Wiler knows this. He’s already won two Oscars for Mrs. Minver and The Best Years of Our Lives. He knows how to make a hit. He knows how to make stars. and he knows he needs the right actress. Paramount executives tell him, “Get Elizabeth Taylor.

” Taylor is under contract with MGM, but MGM loans out their stars regularly. If Paramount wants her badly enough, MGM will negotiate. Wiler sends the script to Taylor, waits for her response. The response comes back. No. Not interested or unavailable or committed to another film. The exact reason varies depending on who tells the story.

 Some sources say Taylor turned it down because she didn’t want to do another romantic comedy. She’d just done Father’s Little Dividend and The Girl Who had everything. She wanted dramatic roles, serious roles, Oscar roles. Other sources say MGM wouldn’t loan her out. They had their own projects planned for her.

 They wouldn’t let their biggest star help Paramount make a hit. Still, other sources say Taylor was never actually offered the role. That Paramount wanted her, but MGM shut down negotiations before an official offer was made. The truth is lost to Hollywood politics and conflicting accounts, but the result is clear. Elizabeth Taylor is not available for Roman Holiday.

Paramount needs a plan B. William Wiler starts looking at other actresses. Jean Simmons, Deborah Kerr, Pier Angelie, all established names, all bankable. Then someone mentions Audrey Hepburn. Who’s Audrey Hepburn? She’s a 22-year-old actress nobody’s heard of. She’s done some theater in London, a few small film roles, nothing major, nothing that suggests star quality.

She’s in a movie called Secret People that just came out in England. The film is a flop, but the director, Thorald Dickinson, thinks Audrey has something special. Dickinson sends Wiler a screen test he directed of Audrey, not for secret people. A separate test specifically for Roman Holiday, shot before Paramount even knew who she was.

Wiler watches the test and he’s not impressed. If you want more untold stories like this, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a like. Your support means everything to us. April 1952. William Wiler is in his office at Paramount. He’s just watched Audrey Hepburn’s screen test for the third time. He writes a letter to Thoral Dickinson, the director who sent him the test.

The letter is now archived at the British Film Institute. It’s brutally honest. Wiler writes, “I can’t say at the moment whether or not we will use Miss Heppern in Roman Holiday. Not she’s perfect. Not we found our princess. Not even she’s interesting. I can’t say whether or not we will use her.

” Translation: She’s not what we wanted. She’s not Elizabeth Taylor, and I’m not convinced she can carry a major motion picture. But Wiler also writes something else, something important. A number of the producers at Paramount have expressed interest in casting her. Interest, not commitment, not excitement. Interest. The studio is desperate.

 They’ve lost Elizabeth Taylor. Jean Simmons is too expensive. Deborah Kerr is unavailable. They need someone. anyone who can pull off this role. Audrey Hepburn is cheap. She’s unknown. She’ll work for scale. And if the movie flops, they can blame the unknown actress instead of the director or the script. It’s not a ringing endorsement.

It’s a calculated risk. Paramount makes Audrey an offer. Lead role in Roman Holiday. Filming in Rome opposite Gregory Peek. Audrey is shocked. She’s been doing small theater roles in London. She’s nobody. And they’re offering her a starring role opposite one of Hollywood’s biggest actors. She says yes immediately before they can change their minds.

But there’s a catch. Paramount has no faith in her. The original contracts list Gregory Peek as the sole star. Audrey’s name appears in small print below. and introducing Audrey Hepburn like she’s an afterthought, which she is. Gregory Peek reads the contract, reads the billing, and makes a decision that changes Audrey’s life.

 He calls his agent. I want Audrey’s name above the title with mine. Equal billing. His agent is shocked. Greg, you’re the star. She’s nobody. Why would you give away top billing? PC’s response. Because she’s going to win an Oscar for this role, and I don’t want to look like a fool when that happens. How does PC know this? He’s seen the screen tests.

 The same tests Wiler wasn’t sure about, but PC sees something Wiler missed. He sees star quality. He sees something indefinable, something magic. He sees what Elizabeth Taylor would have brought to the role, except different, unique, special. PC demands equal billing. Paramount agrees. They think he’s crazy. They think he’s being generous to a nobody.

But Peek knows. This nobody is about to become somebody. June 1952. Filming begins in Rome. The entire production shoots on location. Revolutionary for Hollywood at the time. Audrey arrives in Rome terrified. She’s never carried a film before. She’s never worked with a director like Wiler. She’s never been the lead opposite a major star.

She knows she’s the second choice, the third choice, the last choice. She knows Elizabeth Taylor was supposed to be here instead of her. That knowledge terrifies her and motivates her. June 23rd, 1952, first day of shooting. The famous Spanish Step scene in Rome. Audrey sits on the steps eating gelato. She has to look like a princess experiencing freedom for the first time.

Joyful, uninhibited, alive. William Wiler calls action. Audrey does the scene. She’s stiff, nervous, self-conscious. Wiler cuts. Let’s try again. Second take. Still stiff. Third take. Fourth take. Fifth take. By the 10th take, Wiler is frustrated. This is what he was afraid of. She’s not a natural movie actress.

 She’s a stage performer who doesn’t know how to work with cameras. Gregory Peek walks over, sits next to Audrey between takes. You’re thinking too much, he tells her. Stop trying to act. Just be. I don’t know how to just be. Audrey admits. Elizabeth Taylor would know how to do this. She’s been doing this since she was a child.

Peeks at her. Elizabeth Taylor isn’t here. You are. And you know why? Because you have something she doesn’t. You have vulnerability. You have authenticity. You look like someone who’s never been free before. Elizabeth would look like a star playing a princess. You look like an actual princess. Audrey starts crying right there on the Spanish steps. Wiler sees this.

 Sees the tears. Sees the genuine emotion. Keep the cameras rolling,” he tells a cinematographer. They film Audrey crying, wiping her tears, smiling through them. That footage ends up in the movie, that moment of genuine emotion. That’s the moment when Audrey stops trying to be Elizabeth Taylor and starts being herself.

The rest of filming, everything changes. Wiler stops comparing her to what Taylor would have done. Starts directing her for who she actually is. The Vespa scene. Audrey and Peek riding through Rome. She’s laughing genuinely. The chemistry is real. The dance scene. Audrey dancing in a white dress on a boat. Carefree, joyful.

Nothing like Taylor’s sultry sophistication. Something entirely different. Something new. The mouth of truth scene. Pec’s hand in the stone mouth. Audrey’s scream of fear. Her laugh of relief. All genuine. All Audrey. And the final scene, the embassy press conference. Princess Anne saying goodbye to Joe Bradley without saying goodbye.

The look between them. The unspoken love, the impossible ending. Wiler films it in one take because Audrey’s heartbreak is real. She’s thinking about her own father who abandoned her. She’s channeling genuine loss. That’s what Elizabeth Taylor couldn’t have given them. Taylor was too glamorous, too confident, too in control.

Audrey is fragile, uncertain, human, and it works perfectly. August 1952, filming wraps. Wiler has a rough cut. He screens it for Paramount executives. They watch in silence. When the lights come up, nobody speaks. Then one executive says, “Who the hell is this girl?” Audrey Heburn. Wa reminds them.

 The nobody you didn’t want to hire. She’s a star. The executive says we need to start promoting her immediately. Wiler smiles. He knows. Gregory Peek knows. Even Audrey is starting to believe it. But Elizabeth Taylor doesn’t know yet. She’s filming in California. She hasn’t heard about Roman Holiday. Doesn’t know what she turned down. She’s about to find out.

August 27th, 1953. Radio City Music Hall, New York. The Roman Holiday premiere. The film opens to massive crowds. The reviews the next day are ecstatic. The New York Times. Audrey Hepburn is a new star who shines with such luminosity that it is difficult to believe this is her first major role. Variety Heepburn gives a performance that is a delight from start to finish.

Time magazine Heepburn is the biggest news in pictures this year. Not Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn. The box office confirms it. Roman Holiday is a massive hit. One of the highest grossing films of 1953. Paramount executives who were skeptical are now celebrating. They found a star. A new kind of star. Different from the bombshells dominating Hollywood.

Audrey isn’t Marilyn Monroe. Isn’t Ava Gardner? Isn’t Elizabeth Taylor. She’s something Hollywood hasn’t seen before. Elegant without being untouchable, beautiful without being intimidating, sophisticated without being cold. She’s accessible, relatable, the kind of woman other women want to be and men want to be with.

The kind of star you build a studio around. Elizabeth Taylor hears about Roman Holiday success. She’s on the MGM lot filming The Last Time I Saw Paris. Someone mentions that Paramount’s new picture is doing huge numbers. That unknown girl is apparently a phenomenon. Taylor watches Roman Holiday that weekend, sits in a theater anonymously, watches Audrey play Princess Anne.

After the film, Taylor’s friend asks what she thought. “She’s good,” Taylor admits. “Really good?” “That could have been you,” the friend says. Taylor shrugs. I didn’t want it. But the truth is more complicated. Taylor sees immediately what she missed. This isn’t just a good role. This is a career-defining role.

 The kind of role that wins Oscars and she turned it down. November 1953, Oscar buzz begins. Audrey Hepburn is the front runner for best actress. Elizabeth Taylor is also nominated that year for Moambo. It’s not a lead role, it’s supporting, but MGM pushes her into the best actress category anyway. So, the two of them, the woman who got the role and the woman who turned it down, compete for the same Oscar.

Taylor is gracious publicly. Audrey is wonderful in Roman Holiday. She deserves all the success. Privately, Taylor is less charitable. Her friends later report she felt foolish for turning down Roman Holiday, that she didn’t understand what the role would become, but it’s too late. The role belongs to Audrey now.

 In the public’s mind, Princess Anne is Audrey Hepburn. Nobody can imagine Elizabeth Taylor in that part anymore. March 25th, 1954. Oscar night. Audrey wins. Elizabeth Taylor loses. Not just the Oscar. The chance to be in Roman Holiday. The chance to work with William Wiler. The chance to define a different kind of Hollywood glamour.

All because she said no. After the Oscars, Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor’s careers take very different paths. Audrey becomes the face of elegance. She works with the best directors. Wiler again for the children’s hour. Billy Wilder for Sabrina and Love in the Afternoon. Stanley Donan for Funny Face and Charade.

 Blake Edwards for Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She becomes a fashion icon. Her collaboration with Hubert de Givveni defines 1950s and60s style. The little black dress, the pixie cut, the oversized sunglasses. She represents a new kind of femininity. Not the bombshell, not the sex symbol, the gamine, the sophisticate, the woman with style and substance.

 Elizabeth Taylor becomes something else. She leans into her beauty, her curves, her violet eyes, her sex appeal. She does Giant with James Dean, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman, Suddenly Last Summer with Montgomery Clif. She’s brilliant in these roles. Powerful, sexy, commanding, but she’s not Princess Anne.

 She’s not Holly Go Lightly. She’s not Sabrina. Those roles go to Audrey. the roles Taylor might have had if she’d said yes to Roman Holiday. 1963 Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor’s defining role, the most expensive film ever made. Taylor’s performance is iconic. She wins every award except the Oscar, but Cleopatra nearly bankrupts 20th Century Fox. The budget spirals out of control.

The production is a disaster. Taylor’s off-screen affair with Richard Burton dominates headlines. Taylor becomes tabloid fodder. Fascinating, scandalous, larger than life. Meanwhile, Audrey is making charade, elegant, sophisticated, controlled, the opposite of Taylor’s chaos. Critics compare them constantly.

Elizabeth Taylor, the bombshell, the scandal, the tempestuous star. Audrey Hepburn, the icon, the class act, the fairy tale princess. It’s not fair to either of them. Both are brilliant actresses. Both are stars. Both deserve respect. But the comparison is inevitable because it all started with Roman Holiday, with Elizabeth Taylor saying no.

With Audrey Hepburn saying yes. The question Hollywood asks for decades. What if Elizabeth Taylor had said yes to Roman Holiday? Would she have won the Oscar? Probably. The role was Oscar bait. The performance would have been different from Audrey’s, but Taylor could have pulled it off. Would she have become the same kind of star? Maybe not.

Taylor’s beauty was too mature, too knowing. Princess Anne required innocence, vulnerability, not Taylor’s strengths. Would Roman Holiday have been as successful? Hard to say. Taylor’s name would have guaranteed box office. But would the film have had the same magic, the same charm? Unlikely. Because what made Roman Holiday special wasn’t just the script or the direction? It was Audrey.

Her specific qualities, her unique presence. Elizabeth Taylor would have made it a different film. Maybe still good, maybe even great. but not the same. And what about Audrey? What if Taylor had taken the role? Audrey would still be in London doing theater or doing small film roles, background parts, character roles.

 She might have had a career, but not this career. Not Princess Anne, not the Oscar, not the icon status. Her entire life trajectory changed because Elizabeth Taylor said no. One decision, one rejection, one actress turning down one role, and an entirely different Hollywood history unfolds. Years later, in interviews, Elizabeth Taylor is asked about Roman Holiday.

“Do you regret turning it down?” reporters ask. Taylor’s answer varies depending on her mood and who’s asking. Sometimes she says, “Not at all. Audrey was perfect for it. I wouldn’t have been right. Sometimes she says, “I didn’t turn it down. I was never actually offered it.” Sometimes she’s honest. Of course, I regret it.

 Who wouldn’t? Audrey won an Oscar for that role. But the most revealing answer comes in a 1983 interview with Barbara Walters. Walters asks, “If you could go back and do one film you passed on, what would it be?” Taylor doesn’t hesitate. Roman Holiday. Because I was too young to understand what I was turning down.

 I thought I was choosing better roles. But sometimes the best role is the one that defines you. Roman Holiday defined Audrey. It could have defined me differently. 1993, Yudri Heppern dies. Elizabeth Taylor attends the funeral. Reporters notice Taylor crying more than other attendees, more than seems appropriate for a professional colleague.

One reporter asks, “Were you and Audrey close?” Taylor shakes her head. “Not really. But I always felt connected to her because of Roman Holiday. Because that role could have been mine. Because she became who she was partly because I said no. It’s the closest Taylor ever comes to admitting the full weight of that decision.

 1952, two actresses, one role, one decision. Elizabeth Taylor says no to Roman Holiday. She’s 20 years old. She’s already a star. She doesn’t need another romantic comedy. She wants serious roles, Oscar roles, important films. She doesn’t understand that Roman Holiday is all of those things. Audrey Hepburn says yes. She’s 22 years old. She’s nobody.

 She’ll take any role they offer her, especially a lead opposite Gregory Peek. She doesn’t understand she’s getting Elizabeth Taylor’s reject. June 1952, filming begins. Audrey is terrified. She knows she’s the second choice, the backup plan, the nobody they settled for when they couldn’t get the star they wanted.

 That knowledge makes her work harder, fight harder, prove herself harder. by August filming raps. William Wiler has a masterpiece. Not because of what Elizabeth Taylor would have done, because of what Audrey Hepburn actually did. March 1954, Oscar night. Audrey wins for a role that was meant for someone else. She walks to the stage, accepts the trophy, thanks everyone, never mentions Elizabeth Taylor, never says I was the second choice, never acknowledges she’s holding an Oscar for a role she wasn’t supposed to get.

But she knows. Wiler knows. Gregory Peek knows. The Paramount executives who didn’t want to hire her know this Oscar. this career, this entire future she’s about to have. It started because Elizabeth Taylor said no. And that’s the beautiful irony of Hollywood. The greatest performances sometimes come from the greatest rejections.

Elizabeth Taylor turned down Roman Holiday and became Elizabeth Taylor. Cleopatra, National Velvet, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? A different kind of icon, a different kind of career. Eight marriages, scandalous affairs, tabloid drama, Oscars, BAFTAs, two Oscars, massive fame.

 Audrey Hepburn got the role Elizabeth Taylor rejected and became Audrey Hepburn. Princess Anne, Holly Go Lightly, Eliza Doolittle, Sabrina, Elegance, Grace, Sophistication, Humanitarian Work, UNICEF, Ambassador, Kennedy Center Honors. Both became legends. Both had incredible careers. Both are remembered decades after their deaths.

 But their paths diverged at Roman Holiday. at that one decision, that one rejection, and the question remains, did Elizabeth Taylor make a mistake? Ask her in 1952, she says no. She made the right choice. Roman Holiday wasn’t her kind of role. Ask her in 1954, after Audrey wins the Oscar, she might hesitate, might wonder.

 Ask her in 1983, she admits. Of course I regret it. Ask her. In 1993 at Audrey’s funeral, she cries because Elizabeth Taylor spent 40 years watching Audrey Hepburn live the career that could have been hers. And Audrey Hepburn spent 40 years being grateful that Elizabeth Taylor said no. Two women, one role, two completely different destinies.

 All because of one decision in 1952. Roman Holiday, Audrey’s breakout role, her Oscar win, her career launcher. It was meant for Elizabeth Taylor. She said no and changed Hollywood history forever. This is Audrey Hepburn. The hidden truth. From wartime horrors to Hollywood secrets, we uncover what they’ve been hiding for decades.

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