West Texas woman remembers young Elizabeth Taylor

EL PASO — Wally Cech will never forget the close encounters she had with a young Elizabeth Taylor.

"She was very down-to-earth, a little bit on the shy side," Cech said. "She was treated like a goddess."

Cech rubbed elbows with Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean and various other Hollywood actors when the cast spent six weeks in Marfa and far West Texas filming "Giant," the George Stevens Western epic about Texas.

Cech, 82, was a 26-year-old waitress for Gillespie's Steakhouse, the El Paso restaurant that sent a crew to Marfa to help feed the "Giant" cast and crew in the summer of 1955.

Taylor died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at the age of 79.

Her death rekindled fond memories for Cech.

The East El Paso resident and former owner of The Bavarian restaurant recalled Taylor as an attractive but shy violet-blue-eyed starlet who kept to herself and was not as outgoing as some of the other actors who mingled with the locals in the small cattle town on the edge of the Big Bend.

Cech collected three Taylor autographs that summer in Marfa and on the "Giant" film set. The young actress did not complain about signing her autograph but never inscribed messages with her signature like Dean and the other actors.

"She gave me her autograph with a big smile," Cech said.

Taylor married singer-actor Eddie Fisher, who had been married to actress Debbie Reynolds, an El Paso native.

Taylor stayed at the Hilton Hotel, the downtown El Paso hotel built by hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, just before she married Conrad's son Nicholas "Nick" Hilton. She later stayed at the El Paso Hilton near the end of a four-month honeymoon trip.

Cynthia Haines, a former El Paso film critic now living in Kansas, said Taylor matured in an era when movie magazines focused less on her talent and more on Hollywood scandals and her various health scares.

"People of my generation kind of remember the scandals and not so much her acting talent," Haines said. "The only movie that showed her skills as an actress was 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.' With so many other films, she wasn't that good of an actress or she just didn't wind up with a good director or good scripts."

Haines noticed that much of the television coverage of Taylor's death so far has focused more on her contributions to AIDS research.

"That's nice to remember her in a positive way. The scandals and all are what another generation will remember," she said.

For Cech, the precious memories of a 23-year-old Taylor on a movie set in far West Texas matter most.

Cech bought a $4 camera and shot various photographs of Taylor relaxing on the set, walking with a food tray and in front of the Reata mansion set on a ranch near Marfa.

When the "Giant" cast left Marfa, actress Jane Withers escorted Cech to the train to say goodbye to Taylor, Hudson and all the other actors.

Cech, a devout Catholic, promised she would pray for them every day.

"I still pray for those people, even if they're dead because they were kind and not high-faluting," Cech said.