Book Review: 'Liz'

It was Max Lerner, the political columnist who looked like Albert Einstein and caroused in Hollywood like Hugh Hefner, who once wrote an article calling Elizabeth Taylor a legend and Marilyn Monroe a myth. That legend thing Taylor projects — the ability, still, to command attention even though she's now a lacquered, hypochondriacal 63-year-old grandma corseted into the kind of sequined shmattes Fran Drescher's on-screen mother might covet — is evidently the reason there's room on the shelf for Liz. C. David Heymann's biography arrives hard on the heels of Donald Spoto's analysis-prone Taylor study, A Passion for Life; and the question you're probably asking is, Do I really need one more accounting of the star's illnesses, addictions, lovers, and husbands, not to mention problems with excessive body hair? The answer is, you need Heymann's bio (billed in the subtitle as ''intimate,'' which explains the stuff about the body hair), if only to understand what Hollywood stardom used to be, what it is now, and how journalism like Heymann's reflects everything that has coarsened, in celebrity and in journalism, in our time.

The author's talent is to get other people to gossip while he maintains a neutral, professional face. And it is indeed a talent, tirelessly pursuing people who have known the subject, or who knew someone who knew the subject, in the hope of getting some of them to supply something thrilling. ''Perhaps because she was small in stature,'' says Miguel Ferreras, a fashion designer who created a maternity wardrobe for Taylor when she was pregnant with daughter Liza, ''Liz gave the impression of spilling over: she had gargantuan breasts, a mammoth ass, and lumpy, shapeless legs.''

''I had heard Elizabeth's father was homosexual,'' says Ashton Greathouse, identified as ''a pal'' of Montgomery Clift's, ''which may explain her attraction to and interest in gay men — Monty, Rock Hudson, James Dean, and others. Her father's sexual bent may also shed light on her overriding concern for the present-day AIDS movement, her great desire to raise funds for the cause and help those afflicted with the disease.''

Did Heymann say these things? Oh, no, he's just dutifully reporting what others have told him. Do Ferreras and Greathouse have any axes to grind? Oh, well, that's not Heymann's concern. (The author also reports allegations that first husband Nicky Hilton beat her, and that third husband Mike Todd once knocked Taylor unconscious — among other claims she's threatening to answer with a lawsuit.)