Secret Ceremony (1968)

Elizabeth Taylor: Leonora

Photos 

Quotes 

• Leonora : They're just little boys that need to have their bottoms wiped.

• Leonora : There were two mice fell in a bucket of milk, one yelled for help and drowned, the other kept pedaling around until, in the morning, he found himself on top of butter.

• Cenci : You let nanny and the cook go.

  Leonora : I did?

  Cenci : Fired them ruthlessly.

• Leonora : Dear God, by whose mercy...

  Cenci : Dear God, by whose mercy...

  Leonora : ...I am shielded for a few hours...

  Cenci : ...I am shielded for a few hours...

  Leonora : ...let no-one snatch me from this heaven.

  Cenci : ...let no-one snatch me from this heaven.

• Leonora : That's disgusting. You're all disgusting!

• Leonora : Shall we order now?

  Cenci : I think I'd like an enormous piece of red meat.

• Leonora : I had a daughter once, a very unusual child.

  Albert : What happened to her?

  Leonora : She vanished.

  [snaps her fingers] 

• Leonora : [song]  Oh that I were where I would be, / There would I be where I am not; / But where I am there I must be, / And where I would be I can not.

• Albert : [Confronting Leonora on the beach]  You don't look like my late wife at all. She was well-bred and rather frail... except for her famous mammalia - oh, excuse me, that's a private joke in questionable taste. Still, sometimes one has to choose between good taste and being a human being. You look more like a cow than my late wife. Oh, no offense, I'm very fond of cows. "Moooo..." Also, she had no cousins - - I beg your pardon, she had one: James. Obviously, you're not James. What do you want of my daughter?

  Leonora : You have no right to ask me ANY questions!

  Albert : "NO" right? You must be out of your mind! I'm her legal guardian.

  Leonora : No, you're not!

  Albert : Very well, I'm not... not yet. Not *legally.* I've had no time to make the necessary arrangements. I've been away. But I can assure you, I intend to take every step to insure my rights. Warner and Swazey are my attorneys. Who are yours?

• Cenci : You missed a fabulous dinner, mummy!

  Leonora : You bet your sweet ass.

• Leonora : Get off my back, you little bitch!

• Leonora : [Describing her attempted suicide, to Cenci]  "You'll be sorry when I'm dead, Bernard," I said to myself. "It may be a mortal sin, but it'll break your lousy heart, Bernard," I said to myself. I dressed up in all my finery, I even had my hair done up in curls. I set the table for two, with candles... and I swallowed every goddamned thing I could lay my hands on: aspirin, disprin, veganin, codeine, the lot. I lay down on the sofa, the music was playing, I drifted off down a cool river toward the sea... if ya' gotta' go, that's the way to do it. Like in a poem. Except, I became violently sick. I staggered out to the loo. I could hardly make it. I started to go blind. I was puking like a drunken sailor. I slipped and fell and I broke my bloody hip. And that's how he found me. Do you know what Bernard said to me?

  Leonora : [Chuckles ruefully, then mockingly imitates Bernard with a silly voice]  You could have killed yourself, honey.

• Leonora : [singing]  Hush little baby, cry no more. Father's gone fishing, mother's a whore. Back in the morning, to guard your life, with two short prayers, and a carving knife.