8: Father of the Groom of Elizabeth Taylor

Throughout the spring and summer of 1949, members of the Pawley household had more than politics, China and William’s abdominal surgery on their minds. Hollywood’s famous 17-year- old, Elizabeth Taylor, who achieved stardom five years earlier as a steeplechase horse rider in “National Velvet” was on the lips of Pawley’s son William Douglas Pawley, Jr.

In March, while visiting Miami, Elizabeth and her mother, Sara, met 28-year-old William D. Pawley, Jr., as they celebrated the child-star’s 17th birthday on Star Island, Miami, Florida on March 3, 1949. Eleven years older, with dark hair the strikingly handsome--"profoundly conservative"--Bill Pawley had been a wartime Burma Hump flyer and now headed the family's bus operations in Miami. Bill taught Elizabeth how to drive a car; play golf; took her to parties and dances; and further bonded with her during a $145 long-distance phone call to Hollywood.1 

At Easter, the Taylors stayed and swam at Pawley’s Miami Beach home with views of palm trees and boats traversing the bay. Elizabeth soon broke off her engagement to former West Point football star Glenn Davis, a Heisman Trophy winner All-American known as “Mr. Outside.” She had been wearing his gold football ring as “‘part of growing up.’” In early June, again as house guests of William and Edna, Sara Taylor announced that the raven-haired beauty with jewel-like eyes was engaged to the young Bill Pawley, and she was sporting a three-and-a-half carat, emerald- cut “‘nice piece of ice’” as Bill termed the diamond engagement ring. The wedding was scheduled for the following spring when Elizabeth would be 18.

Coincidentally when the Taylor-Pawley engagement announcement appeared in Time, it was just above a blurb about a friend of the elder Pawley—T.V. Soong, 55, the onetime Premier of China now considered a war criminal by the Chinese communists, had arrived in New York for a three-month stay to see his three daughters attending U.S. schools. Soong told reporters he would also visit his sister, Mme. Chiang Kai-shek.2

The early passion between Taylor and Pawley, soon subsided as Bill let her know he had his own version of marriage which came with a variety of misogynistic controls: The movie star would have to give up her career, live in Miami not Hollywood, and become known as Elizabeth Pawley not Taylor.3

As the summer unfolded, Elizabeth became increasingly disenchanted with her autocratic lover’s pressure to cut her ties with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio and set a wedding date. Days before summer ended, Pawley flew back from Hollywood to Florida, and the press learned that the engagement was off.

Time and The Washington Post reported that the couple parted ways, and that Elizabeth kept the 3 1⁄2 carat diamond.4 Ironically, the following year, she made her first successful movie as an adult, Father of the Bride. In May 1951, Elizabeth and hotel-heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton were briefly married.”5

The younger Pawley turned his attention back to his first passion, sailing. A year before he met Elizabeth, he had received a patent for a sailboat enhancement that would make it lift out of the water like a speedboat. Fifty years later, it was still his love, and he applied for an enhancement to his patent and in his application wrote: “My original U.S. Pat. No. 2,444,526 was granted on Jul. 6, 1948. The test boat built in about 1948 was sailed only three times before it was wrecked against a seawall in a thunder storm. I know of no other boat ever having been built, because it wasn’t very practical the way the sails and rigging were built.” He explained, “I am now applying for a New Patent based upon an improvement in the design of the Sails and Rigging. These improvements were learned from the test boat that was lost. The patent application is not for the boat, but rather for the design of the Sails and Rigging.”6

The Elizabeth Taylor publicity had made the Pawleys society celebrities, worthy of social as well as political and business columns. A month after the engagement was broken off, The New York Times mentioned the family while declaring President Truman’s speech on plans to expand the economy was well received;7 and two weeks later when a young Pawley got a German-bred stallion at auction for $20,000.8

FOOTNOTES:

1 “Big Dig.” Time, August 22, 1949.

“The Old Gang.” Time, September 26, 1949.

2 “Family Circles.” Time, June 20, 1949.

3 The Guardian (London), Weekend Page, February 11, 1995. Page 12.

4 “Family Circles.” Time, June 20, 1949.

“Big Dig.” Time, August 22, 1949.

“The Old Gang.” Time, September 26, 1949.

“W.D. Pawley, Jr., Elizabeth Taylor Break Engagement.” The Washington Post, September 20, 1949.

5 The Independent (London), April 16, 2000. Pages 2 and 21-4.

6 United States Patent, U.S. 6,435,118 B1, August 20, 2002, Pawley Sailboat and Rigging Design, Inventor: William Douglas Pawley, Jr., 9830 SW. 158th St. Miami, FL (U.S.) 33157.

7 “President Flies Back to Capital: Pleased by Reaction to Speech—He Promises the Moon, Says GOP Chairman.” By Anthony Leviero. The New York Times, October 1, 1949. Page 23.

8 “Stallion Brings $20,300: Young Pawley Gets German-Bred Nordlicht at Auction.” The New York Times, October 19, 1949. Page 42.