The Time Alan Cumming Tickled Liz Taylor

I was leaving Julius's bar in the West Village of New York City the night after Elizabeth Taylor died and I saw this copy of the New York Times lying on a table among the empty beer bottles. I just snapped it.

Every month there is a party at Julius's called Mattachine, which John Cameron Mitchell throws. It's full of fun, counterculturey, queer people -- the kind of night I think Liz would have loved.

Everyone was talking about her that evening. Above all, it felt as though we'd lost an ally, a really long-term and loyal ally.

I met her once in LA. I was invited to Carrie Fisher's birthday party and was uncharacteristically early. Like really early. I was the first to arrive. Next was Liz.

She was helped in by her driver, and she plopped down in a comfy seat in the entrance hall, I presume so she could have a good look at everyone as they arrived. I was hovering nearby, totally awestruck. I introduced myself and we made some banal small talk about the weather and such, and then I totally clammed up. There was an embarrassing pause. She started to shuffle things around in her handbag and I excused myself and went into one of the main rooms and asked the barman for a stiff drink.

Suddenly Carrie appeared. She'd been running around doing hostesy finishing touches, expecting her one-time stepmother to be kept entertained by yours truly, so when she saw me she wasted no time in chastising me for reneging on my duties.

"What are you doing here?" she asked like a disappointed schoolma'am. "Do you know how many homosexuals would like to be in your position right now?"

I opened my mouth to speak but before I could utter a syllable, she continued, "Get back in there and flank that legend!"

And so I did.

I grabbed my drink and walked back into the hall and blurted out, like the errant ingrate I was, "Elizabeth, I am here to flank you!" She let loose the first of many cackles, patted the cushion next to her, and I sat down beside her.

We began to chitchat. She told me she had recently fallen and I asked her the circumstances. Apparently she had been eating dinner at home and stood up to leave the table but, having left something, made to sit down again to retrieve it. Not realizing her maid had already pulled away the chair, she fell to the ground and injured herself.

"Was there much pain?" I asked in concern.

The screen siren looked straight at me for a moment then rolled her violet eyes back into her head, took in a breath, and clutched one bejeweled hand to her chest. She grabbed my hand with her other, as though she were reliving the pain of the fall at that very moment. It was riveting.

There was silence for a few seconds. She opened her eyes and stared at me, her face a blank mask. She was still clutching my hand and I wasn't sure if I should release myself from her grip. I suppose I wasn't sure if the performance was over or not. It wasn't.

"Alan," she growled like the Cat on the Hot Tin Roof she still was. "You have never seen such a black ass."

My mouth gaped open in an involuntary gasp. I waited just a beat longer, then with the most saucy twinkle in my eye I had ever mustered, threw down my slam dunk. "Oh, Elizabeth," I said. "I bet I have!"

Suddenly her hand unlocked from mine and slapped me across the chest. She cackled like a trucker who'd just heard a good fart joke.

Excerpted from You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams: My Life in Stories and Pictures by Alan Cumming. Courtesy Rizzoli USA.