Liz Taylor ‘Romance’ With 23-Year-Old a Hoax

Elizabeth Taylor’s spokeswoman said today that news stories about a romance between the actress and a 23-year-old Detroit man were a hoax engineered by a woman who intercepted messages from the publicist’s answering service.

Chen Sam, Taylor’s publicist in New York, said the Oscar-winning actress is not “romantically linked” to Julian Lee Hobbs.

“The whole thing is a hoax and a sick one to boot,” Sam said. “It’s sick people doing this.”

“Ms. Taylor has never heard of him,” Sam said. “Nobody seems to know who this Julian Lee Hobbs is; he seems to have appeared out of nowhere.”

Sam said a woman identifying herself as Lisa Flowers had gained access to the publicist’s telephone answering service, using a secret code, and returned telephone calls, giving out the false information to reporters, including those from United Press International and the Associated Press.

The woman told reporters that Hobbs flew in from Detroit and spent the weekend at Taylor’s side, helping with the depression that had hindered her recovery. She said the couple planned to go to Taylor’s Switzerland home when she was released from the hospital.

“There’s a lady by the name of Lisa Flowers who is going around to all the media and stating that she works for my office,” Sam said. “I don’t have such a person in my office. She’s going to such lengths to give out this information that she is even using my answering service exchange number.”

Sam said the woman apparently called the service to pick up messages, saying she worked for the publicist’s company, Chen Sam Associates Inc., and used a numerical code to identify herself as an employee.

“She’s saying she’s Lisa Flowers and works for Chen Sam Associates and giving them my answering service exchange number so she can get my answering service to take messages from the media,” Sam said.

“They thought she worked for me; I do have a Lisa Del Favero,” Sam said. “What we’re trying to find out is how she found out the (code) number.”

Sam said an investigation is under way through Taylor’s attorneys to track down the woman.

Sam said the report that Taylor, 58, underwent an abdominal biopsy also was false.

“They also stated yesterday that she had another biopsy, which is also untrue,” Sam said. “She’s doing extremely well and going home in two weeks’ time.”

Asked about the actress’s reaction to the story, Sam she was nonplussed.

“Ms. Taylor doesn’t even listen to all this,” said Sam, who said her office was deluged with telephone calls from news organizations.

Taylor was admitted to St. John’s Hospital and Health Center April 16 after being transferred from another hospital where she had been undergoing treatment since April 9 for a sinus infection and high fever.

Taylor’s health problems date to her childhood, when she was injured in a fall from a horse while filming the 1945 movie “National Velvet.” She nearly died of pneumonia in the early 1960s and has admitted to a long dependence on alcohol and such drugs as Demerol and Valium.

She won best-actress Oscars for “Butterfield 8” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and has been married seven times, twice to the late actor Richard Burton. She was linked to publishing magnate Malcolm Forbes, who died recently, and Sam said she has been seeing Larry Fortensky, 35, who works in the construction industry in Los Angeles, for a year and a half.