Liz Taylor’s iconic costume was in Dior Paris vaults in PLASTIC SUITCASE

Having been nominated for a ‘Best Actress’ Oscar in 1961, Elizabeth Taylor wasted no time in flying to Paris to fee a costume from Christian Dior for the ceremony.

For the earlier three years, the 29-year-old starlet had narrowly missed out on the coveted gong, a dropping streak largely attributed to her scandalous affair with, and subsequent marriage to, Nineteen Fifties music idol Eddie Fisher who had been married to American sweetheart Debbie Reynolds once they met.

Finally declared the winner on the thirty third Academy Awards for her function within the movie Butterfield 8, Taylor henceforth believed that the beautiful ‘Soirée à Rio’ night robe she wore that evening was her ‘fortunate allure’.

But what occurred to it subsequent is itself a saga worthy of any Hollywood film. For whereas French vogue home Dior claimed for years that Taylor’s Oscar costume was sitting in its Paris archive, an e-mail to a London public sale home final yr lastly revealed the astonishing fact about its whereabouts.

About to go underneath the hammer and anticipated to fetch as much as £100,000, the Mail can now inform the story of how Taylor’s robe ended up stashed away within the wardrobe of a window cleaner’s daughter from London.

‘I could not consider it after I took it out of the suitcase and noticed it for the primary time,’ says Kerry Taylor of Kerry Taylor Auctions in London, who will public sale the costume, which is embroidered with delicate flowers and bugs, on December 12.

‘It’s one of the vital superstar clothes to return in the marketplace in current occasions, and is in great situation.

‘It has an incredible story behind it and a water-tight provenance backed up by telegrams and household pictures.’

Believing the silk and taffeta creation introduced her success – it’s thought Taylor selected the demure, scoop-necked model due to her ‘scarlet lady’ repute – she carted it all over the world for years as a part of an unlimited trousseau of 40 suitcases.

But within the early Seventies, after deciding to filter out the wardrobe within the rooftop suite she and her fifth husband Richard Burton stored for years at London’s Dorchester Hotel, it was amongst a number of objects Taylor gave to her private assistant, Anne Sanz.

Anne, who was married to Taylor and Burton’s French chauffeur and minder, Gaston Sanz, was allowed to fill two massive suitcases with numerous robes by Dior and Karl Lagerfeld.

For the subsequent half a century the objects had been fastidiously saved in a big plastic suitcase on the couple’s flat in Hammersmith, West London. While Gaston, who was 18 years his spouse’s senior, died in 2003, Anne – who continues to be alive – has by no means spoken publicly about her friendship with Taylor.

But the couple’s daughter, who was named Elizabeth after the Hollywood star, this week shared her recollections solely with the Mail. ‘The clothes had been a part of my childhood. I simply all the time knew they had been there,’ she says.

So shut had been her mom and father to Taylor and Burton that when she was born in 1970, the celebs had been her godparents.

‘She was essentially the most participating and loving godmother,’ recollects Elizabeth who, as a younger woman, travelled all over the world together with her dad and mom and Taylor and Burton. ‘And that carried on even after my father stopped working for them. She despatched me little notes and presents up till her dying. I’ve very fond recollections of her.’

As a toddler, Elizabeth was even often allowed to attempt on the well-known Oscar costume by her mom, however provided that she promised to face completely nonetheless.

‘I used to consider it as a princess costume,’ she says. ‘It’s completely beautiful and makes an exquisite rustling noise when it strikes. But it is tiny and never one thing I may ever put on now.’

Fearing that the situation of the garment would possibly deteriorate in the event that they continued to retailer it at dwelling, the household sought knowledgeable recommendation and had been astonished to be taught its worth.

‘It deserves to be seen and appreciated by individuals who respect the talent that goes into creating couture garments,’ provides Elizabeth. ‘The costume is a part of vogue historical past.’

The Sanz household’s shut relationship with Taylor and Burton stretches again to Nineteen Fifties Paris, the place Gaston, a adorned World War II hero who had fought underneath Charles de Gaulle, was working as a bodyguard for the fabulously rich Rothschild household.

He had been a crew member on the legendary French submarine, Rubis, which, after France fell to Nazi Germany, operated out of Dundee in Scotland, planting mines within the Norwegian fjords.

After the struggle, he educated in martial arts and have become a French karate champion. Taylor, who met him on the Rothschilds’ dwelling, swiftly poached him to work for her, which he did for the subsequent two-and-a-half many years.

While she turned one of the well-known ladies on the planet, Gaston was certainly one of her closest, most trusted staff, which was evident when tragedy struck in 1965.

In late February that yr, when Gaston’s son by his first, French spouse died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Taylor leapt into motion, chartering a non-public airplane from Dublin the place Burton was filming The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

According to letters uncovered final yr by biographer Kate Andersen Brower for her e-book Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit And Glamour Of An Icon, the actress flew to France and made the preparations for the funeral. She additionally attended the inquest and visited Sanz’s household of their Paris council flat.

The letters had been written by Rock Brynner, son of actor Yul Brynner, who had been staying with Taylor and Burton in Dublin on the time.

‘Gaston himself was on the point of suicide, and now Elizabeth centered all her care upon him,’ he wrote. ‘She crammed her purse with French francs, able to bribe each official if obligatory, to keep away from a verdict of suicide, which might rule out a funeral within the Catholic ceremony.’

It was Elizabeth, too, who provided to take a look at the useless boy’s face to see if he may have an open-casket funeral, and she or he walked with Sanz for the procession within the village and for the church ceremony and burial.

Landing in London afterwards, she was pictured clutching grieving Gaston’s hand. He instructed reporters: ‘In all that we’ve gone by means of, Miss Taylor has helped us by being such a human particular person. I would like the world to know what an exquisite lady she is.’

Just a few years later, divorcé Gaston met his second spouse, Anne, at a post-production get together for the 1968 movie Where Eagles Dare, which Burton had filmed with Clint Eastwood.

Born in London, Anne got here from roots simply as outstanding and as humble as Gaston’s.

During World War II, her father fought within the Burma Campaign and, after being demobbed, labored as a window cleaner.

Her mom, a fuel meter reader, served as a fireplace watcher on prime of Battersea energy station, looking for German bombs.

‘My mom was working for a financial institution which had lent cash for the manufacturing, and she or he met my father there,’ says Elizabeth.

‘She was very putting, and continues to be very glamorous. It was a bit scandalous for my grandparents as a result of he was virtually the identical age as them and divorced, however all of them got here to like one another dearly.’

The couple married in Paris in 1968 and, from then on, traversed the world with Taylor and Burton.

‘Wherever Elizabeth and Richard travelled they had been all the time accompanied by an enormous entourage, shifting from movie set to movie set and metropolis to metropolis,’ explains Elizabeth. ‘And wherever my dad went, my mum and I went. We had been typically within the suite subsequent to theirs.’

The superstar couple additionally frolicked with Gaston’s wider household within the South of France.

‘They beloved checking in on regular life,’ provides Elizabeth.

Biographer Brower says the couple’s shut relationship with the Sanz household revealed one other facet to them. ‘Elizabeth was drawn to common individuals who weren’t intimidated by her,’ she says. ‘She was searching for one thing extra grounded in her life as a result of she’d been a toddler star and had by no means actually had that.’

Off display, Taylor was a faithful mom and Anne was often requested to thoughts the couple’s 5 youngsters – Burton’s daughter, Kate, from his first marriage; Michael and Christopher, Taylor’s sons by second husband, Michael Wilding; Liza, her daughter with theatre impresario Mike Todd, who died in a airplane crash in 1958; and Maria, the daughter she and Burton adopted in 1964.

‘My dad and mom had a detailed relationship with their youngsters as effectively as a result of my mum and pop had been all the time there and for my dad, having misplaced a son, having different youngsters round meant loads to him,’ says Elizabeth, who was a lot youthful than the Taylor-Burton brood.

The Sanz household travelled to Paris, Mexico, Italy and Gstaad in Switzerland, the place the couple stored a number of houses, together with one simply to deal with Taylor’s huge clothes assortment.

They sailed across the Adriatic on their non-public yacht, the Kalizma. {A photograph} taken off the coast of what was then Yugoslavia exhibits Taylor kissing toddler Elizabeth, who’s in her mom’s arms.

In his diaries, Burton wrote that ‘Gaston works like a canine. He fees round, buying, answering telephones, emptying Thermoses, making ready salad, defleaing the canines and watching us wherever we go, and all with the best humour. He actually is indispensable’.

Anne, who helped Taylor together with her packing and as soon as knitted Burton a jumper which he wore till it fell aside on the seams, was additionally a lot beloved by the celebs. Taylor even gave her a white cocktail costume and bolero for her wedding ceremony to Gaston. It can be up for public sale, with an estimate value of £400-600.

Among the opposite clothes given to Anne is a blue silk crepe costume by Christian Dior, which Taylor famously wore to the June 1968 wedding ceremony of the daughter of the Queen Mother’s racehorse coach, Peter Cazalet. It is predicted to promote for between £10,000-£15,000. A 1967 Karl Lagerfeld kaftan Taylor wore for the movie Boom! has been given an estimate of £1,000-£1,500.

When Taylor and Burton divorced for the second time in 1976, each stars needed Gaston to work for them. Unable to decide on, he diplomatically introduced he and Anne had been going to settle in London in order that Elizabeth may attend college. Gaston took a desk job as a finance officer at what was then West London Hospital in Hammersmith.

But the households stored in contact, with Taylor and Burton sending telegrams on birthdays and at Christmas. Throughout her childhood, Elizabeth acquired common letters and presents, together with an inscribed Tiffany watch from Taylor when she turned 18.

After Burton died, aged 58, in 1984, Taylor invited the Sanz household to a memorial dinner at The Dorchester in London. ‘There had been so many well-known faces and all Richard’s siblings got here as effectively,’ Elizabeth recollects. ‘I used to be 14 and I keep in mind I sat subsequent to actor Edward Fox, who was charming.’

For the remainder of his life, Gaston refused to talk about his time on the coronary heart of the Taylor-Burton entourage, regardless of approaches from journalists and biographers.

‘My dad was trusted and would by no means have betrayed that,’ says his daughter. ‘They supported one another by means of some tough private stuff.’

In 2003, the French authorities awarded Gaston the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest award, for his wartime service. He died in October of the identical yr.

When Elizabeth Taylor died in 2011, aged 79, Elizabeth and Anne had been amongst 400 friends invited to her memorial in Los Angeles, mingling with stars together with Michael Caine and Elton John. But what meant essentially the most, says Elizabeth, was seeing Taylor’s youngsters once more.

‘It was so shifting to listen to a few of their recollections about my dad and mom, particularly my dad,’ she says.

While Anne has vowed by no means to talk about her time with the well-known couple, the forthcoming sale of the ‘Soirée à Rio’ costume has given a treasured and shifting behind-the-scenes glimpse of the lives of two of Hollywood’s most legendary stars.

Auctioneer Kerry Taylor says: ‘It’s such an vital costume and never simply by way of Oscar historical past. I’d love for it return to America in order that it may be within the nation the place it was first worn.’

The different risk, in fact, is that Dior will quietly bid for it. The vogue home didn’t reply to requests for a remark this week.

‘Who is aware of if they will purchase it,’ says Ms Taylor. ‘It’s the funniest scenario. They assume they have it in Paris, however we all know they have not. We have it proper right here.’