2 minute read
Double Dating With Elizabeth Taylor
Double Dating With Elizabeth Taylor
By Jimmy Hatcher
When Elizabeth Taylor started dating then former Secretary of the Navy John Warner in the mid-1970s, she was not new to the Middleburg area.
She had come here years before to date William Douglas Pawley Jr., whose family owned Belvoir Farm in partnership with Jay Adams’ family. The Pawleys were building something in Cuba and owned land in Florida, so the Virginia piece was eventually sold.
William Pawley Jr. was 28 when he proposed to the then 17-year-old actress in 1949. She turned him down, and headed to Hollywood instead. Meanwhile, In Florida, Helen Hance Rathbun had dated another of the Pawley brothers, and occasionally the two couples had double dated.
Fast forward to 1976, when Elizabeth Taylor had married future Senator John Warner and Helen Hance had married Dean Rathbun. By chance, the two couples lived right across the Atoka Road from each other.
The Piedmont Hunt met one day at Dean Rathbun’s farm, and John Warner had said he and Elizabeth would attend as soon as John had completed a few phone calls.
In any case, Helen and Dean’s hunt breakfast was in full swing when Helen began to worry about seeing Elizabeth Taylor again after so many years.
At one point, she walked over to Dody Iselin Vehr as Dody sat in the front bay window and confessed to her about how she once used to double date with Elizabeth when they both were going out with the Pawley brothers many years ago, and long before Elizabeth had married any one of her seven husbands.
Dody, who was always everyone’s best friend, said to her, “Well make up your mind what you’re going to say because here come the Warners now.” In through the front door walked the Warners, and as Helen approached to welcome them, Elizabeth called out for all to hear, “Well Helen Hance, I never thought I would see you again!”
