from Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002:
"A year or two ago, Michael [Jackson] and I and a couple other friends decided to go to Las Vegas for my birthday. We stayed at the incredibly beautiful Bellagio, where we had dinner and watched the fountains....At one point, I turned to Michael and said,
'All right, where's my present?'
Well, he looked at the ground, he looked around the room, he looked at our friend Arnie Klein, but he didn't really say anything. So I said, "Michael, I know they have great jewelry shops in the lobby, I can't believe you haven't noticed....'
You know, I was really hamming it up. Finally, Michael and Arnie excused themselves and returned to the table some time later with a perfectly interesting-size box. Any box can be interesting to me! I opened it and inside was some weird padded black wrapping, protecting the most exquisite titanium elephant evening bag. A saddle of rubies and pearls was dangling from its backside, and the dear little creature had huge diamond eyes.
'Michael! Michael! I was just kidding around! ....I was...a little embarrassed that he had actually gone and gotten me something this amazing.
When I got home, there in my front hall was a huge box, tied with a red ribbon. It was my birthday present from Michael, the one he had planned to give me all along - one of those superflt TV sets. Truly, the biggest one I've ever seen."
