Old-age makeups: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

The movie

George and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) are a bitter middle-aged couple whose highly-charged relationship is defined by vitriolic verbal battles and the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol.

He is an associate professor at the university where her father is the President. After a faculty event they add an extra dimension to their relationship by involving a young couple in their games of needing to hurt each other and everyone around them.

Elizabeth Taylor deservedly won an Oscar for her performance. Gordon Bau was responsible for Elizabeth’s makeup.

The makeup

Gordon Bau had the task of transforming the thirty-two-year-old Elizabeth Taylor into the frumpy, foul-mouthed, middle-aged Martha for this 1966 production.

Just pause and register that this movie was made only three years after Cleopatra, only a year after The Sandpiper, and a year before The Comedians: the ‘before’ images are taken from The Sandpiper and The Comedians.