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arranged by Hanley and headed to Paris, where the star told waiting reporters that she planned on buying a few "goodies." Her first stop was the salon of Yves Saint Laurent, who hid behind a curtain while the star selected several "vapourous" (his word) mousseline dresses. Next up was "a famous furrier" not far from the Elysée Palace, where Elizabeth checked out some "light" furs—chinchilla and pastel mink. Then on to Chanel, where a fashion show had just ended. But the models reapplied their war paint and stalked down the runway one more time for their illustrious guest. It was worth it. The grateful customer ordered three suits, two overcoats, and a couple of cocktail dresses. The buying spree concluded at Dior, where for $6,000 Elizabeth walked off with a fur coat described as Somali panther. All total, the afternoon cost twenty grand.
    Though Eddie was depicted as the "checkbook-swinging husband" trailing after his wife, the money they spent was largely Elizabeth's. But what mattered was the absence of Burton from the picture. Although the Fishers made a point of ignoring reporters after they'd landed in Paris, they knew they were making headlines, and Dick Hanley was very happy to confirm all of their purchases to the press the next day. This wasn't simply a spoiled wife being coddled by a husband desperate to regain her affections. It was a movie star behaving as a movie star, upholding her end of the bargain with the public. Hedda Hopper could carp, lecture, and direct Miss Taylor to a pastor, but housewives swooned when they read about Elizabeth's shopping expedition. At least there was someone who wasn't stuck at home. Stories about impending divorce and scandal disappeared for a week or so, making the lives of everyone at Cinecitta Studios a little easier, if a little less interesting. For now the public was content with photos of Elizabeth in her Somali panther coat.
     
     
    News always traveled fast along the Via Veneto. Sleeping during the day and living by night, the paparazzi heard everything before anyone else. On the night of Saturday, February 17, hours before the AP or UPI reporters got the word, the street photographers learned that Elizabeth Taylor, unhappy on the set, had attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Shopping, it seemed, hadn't quite done the trick.
    Hopping on his Vespa, Gilberto Petrucci hightailed it across town. Buzzing in and out of traffic, the photographer zipped along the Appian Way and under the Porta San Sebastiano, arriving at Salvator Mundi International Hospital only minutes after Elizabeth had been carried inside on a stretcher. Crowds were gathering as the ambulance driver, Paolo Renzini, snatched a few minutes of fame by recounting in detail how he'd carried an unconscious Elizabeth from her villa. A few minutes later Joe Mankiewicz was spotted hurrying into the hospital, and the newshounds took off in hot pursuit, cameras flashing. Questions flew. Would Richard Burton make an appearance? Where was Eddie Fisher? And would all this be wrapped up so that the film could finally be finished?
    How different from the days at MGM, where studio publicity chief Howard Strickling would never have allowed such scandalous news to leak to the press. And stars and their publicists had not yet mastered the art of using scandal to their own advantage—although they were learning fast. The problem on the night of February 17 was that no one in Elizabeth's camp could get the story straight. For an organization known for its efficiency and for being on message and on time, this was a moment of panic. Awakened at 3 A.M. by a call from Reynolds Packard of the New York Daily News, Fox publicist Jack Brodsky offered no denials when asked if Taylor had suffered a throat hemorrhage related to her pneumonia and tracheotomy earlier in the year. Several news outlets ran with that story, which was apparently a wholesale invention of Packard's. News editors may have recalled how many