Liz Makes a Spellbinding Entrance : Trial: Prospective jurors are questioned as the actress and a former boyfriend prepare to do legal battle over ‘Passion’ perfume.

It was a grand entrance.

Oscar-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor--looking thin and rich--walked regally across the width of the Los Angeles Superior Court hearing room to her seat at the counsel table as spellbound prospective jurors looked on.

Her brilliant purple suede suit with matching purple handbag and purple reptilian high-heel shoes contrasted sharply with the subdued business suits worn by two legal teams gathered to do battle in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit involving rights to her perfume Passion. She wore four tiers of chunky pearls around a neckline that plunged.

At the opposite end of the counsel table sat her adversary, former used-car salesman Henry Wynberg, a former jet-set boyfriend who was photographered with Taylor in many exotic locations during their two-year relationship in the mid-1970s.

The former lovers did not look at one another.

But the 50 potential jurors did a lot of looking. Some ventured only polite sideways glances at the woman they had seen in movie theaters and on television. Others stared boldly. Taylor, in turn, turned around in her seat and looked directly at the jury pool with her violet eyes.

At stake in the trial is more than $70 million a year in profits from the highly popular line of Passion fragrances and cosmetics that Taylor launched with Chesbrough-Ponds in 1987, and which has been a spectacular seller.

Taylor sued Wynberg in 1986, just as she was ready to launch a $30-million advertising campaign for Passion. She had signed a cosmetics contract with him in 1975 and wanted out of the agreement.

The agreement gave Wynberg perpetual rights to 30% of the net profits to any cosmetics marketed under her name. She also alleged that Wynberg did not live up to his end of the contract.

Wynberg, in turn, sued Taylor for breach of contract, fraud and misappropriation, contending that Passion was a copycat of a fragrance that he had developed years earlier. The potential jurors were questioned in detail as to whether they “had any experience with Passion perfume, whether they approved of Taylor’s fund-raising efforts for AIDS-related causes, and whether they had known anyone who had alcohol abuse problems. Taylor’s attorney, Neil Papiano, told the jurors that Taylor had had alcohol problems and had been rehabilitated at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage.

Only two women said they regularly splashed on Passion.

The question about AIDS was asked by Papiano because Taylor donates a portion of her profits from Passion perfume to the AIDS charities.

Earlier in the day, Judge Coleman Swart refused to bar Wynberg’s past criminal record from being introduced at the trial.

Wynberg’s attorney, state Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), sought to prevent jurors from hearing about Wynberg’s 1977 misdemeanor conviction and 90-day jail sentence for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Wynberg had been arrested on suspicion of fondling a 16-year-old girl during a photography session with another man and four Beverly Hills High School girls at his home.

Lawyers for Taylor argued that those issues were crucial to proving that she was justified in breaking off her business relationship with Wynberg “because any reputable cosmetics company would refuse to deal with Wynberg.”

Both Wynberg and Taylor are expected to testify at the three-week trial, as will a host of chemical and perfume experts who will provide a glimpse of the $4 billion-a-year cosmetics industry.

As Taylor left the courtroom through a side door, Irwin Meyer, a Los Angeles attorney who was in court on another matter, asked one of Taylor’s lawyers to get him an autograph. Papiano returned with the postcard signed by the star.

“Not everyone can carry out an outfit like that,” said an enthused Meyer. “It brings out the star in her. The shoes were just perfect.”