By Samara O'Shea

A young, bathing-suit clad Elizabeth Taylor graces the cover of July’s Vanity Fair, and the story inside is just as breathtaking. It is the tabloid-savvy tale of Liz and her longtime love Richard Burton. The pair met on the set of the movie Cleopatra (1963), and began an affair while both were married. They would go on to marry and divorce each other. Twice.

What interested me most in this epic love story were the excerpts from the never-before-seen letters written back and forth between Liz’n’Dick (the paparazzi name that existed long before Brangelina). These letters exhibit passion at its best—passion meaning both anger and erotica. Take this passage from a Richard to Liz letter: “I don't mean, for a second, that you are in any way comparable with a pen. And yet you are, like this divine pen, heavy and light at the same time . . .  And since we're talking of pens and you, how to watch the ink splurge out of the pen . . . reaching out from the inner depth of the divine body. Will you, incidentally, permit me to fuck you this afternoon? Yours truly (you just have to come into the room), R.B."