Taylor Swift has surprised fans by releasing a new music video for her song Elizabeth Taylor, assembled from hours of footage of the late screen goddess.
Swift does not appear in the video, instead compiling a “supercut” of scenes from the late actress’s films, alongside archive clips and newsreels showing the star being hounded by paparazzi.
The clips include shots from films such as Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the cult classic Boom!, in which Taylor plays a six-times-divorcee who is visited by the angel of death.
Swift previously spoke of her admiration for the star, saying: “Role models are pretty hard to come by, but I would say she is one of mine.”
Born in London in 1932, Taylor was one of the 20th Century’s biggest movie stars, noted for her unique beauty and her portrayals of volatile and strong-willed characters.
At one time the highest-paid actress in the world, she also garnered attention for her tangled love life.
Speaking to the Elvis Duran show last year, Swift explained how she was inspired to write about Taylor on her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl.
“She is always someone that I’ve looked up to as being this very glamorous, very beloved, but for some reason a polarising figure [and] I found myself in that place, too.
“She was under a microscope so, so intense and she handled it with humour and she got along with her life,” she added in a separate interview with Amazon Music.
“She continued to make incredible art and so this is a love song kind of through the lens of the motif of what she had to go through in her life and sort of the parallels that I feel in my own life.”
