Elizabeth Taylor, during the filming of the movie “The V.I.P.s” in London, 1963. She wears a convertible brooch-pendant in platinum with emerald and diamonds, 1958, from the Bvlgari Heritage Collection, formerly in the collection of Elizabeth Taylor.Photo: Grazia Neri
Cleopatra
The story began in 1962, when Taylor arrived in Rome to film Cleopatra—the most expensive movie ever attempted, and the one that would change both her life and Bulgari’s forever. Between scenes at Cinecittà Studios, she slipped into the maison’s Via Condotti boutique. “Undeniably one of the biggest advantages to filming Cleopatra in Rome was Bulgari’s shop,” she later wrote.
There, then husband Eddie Fisher presented her with a lavish en tremblant brooch of emeralds and diamonds and a pair of pendant earrings—his extravagant, if futile, attempt to hold her attention. Around the same period, she acquired a Serpenti Tubogas watch, likely from Fisher, whose coiled bracelet wrapped the wrist like an asp. It was photographed off-set, gleaming against her violet eyes and Cleopatra’s eyeliner.
