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.

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