Hollywood and Jewelry: A Many-Faceted Thing : Exhibition: The show at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tells a history of Hollywood through precious minerals.

Elizabeth Taylor’s jewelry box is a little emptier these days. She’s loaned a pearl, diamond and ruby necklace of epic proportions to the exhibit “Hollywood Jewels,” now at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills through Dec. 18. (Admission is by appointment only and is $3.)

The show of two dozen spectacular jewels with well-known pedigrees tells a history of Hollywood through precious minerals--and an extinct sense of glamour. Not surprisingly, though, the story pretty much ends with Taylor, the last of the big-time stars with a weakness for serious sparklers.

Perhaps as a sign of these unbejeweled times, Taylor and Stephanie Wanger Guest, daughter of the late Joan Bennett and producer Walter Wanger, are the only individuals with direct Hollywood lineage to loan pieces to the show. From Taylor, there is her remarkable “La Peregrina” pearl necklace (set by Cartier in 1969), a gift from Richard Burton; in a more casual mood, there’s Bennett’s whimsical “Hand of God” gold and pave diamond necklace designed by Paul Flato, a Hollywood favorite who had shops in New York and L.A.’s Sunset Plaza.

The remainder of the pieces are on loan primarily from anonymous owners most of whom purchased the jewels from stars’ estates.

The show coincides with the publication of “Hollywood Jewels” (Abrams: $49.50) by Penny Proddow, Marion Fasel and Debra Healy. Proddow and Fasel, who curated the show, are both jewelry historians and curators of a private jewelry collection in New York City. They were able to track down the jewels on display “through our connections in the precious jewelry world,” says Proddow. “We’re privy to the movements of the jewels as they left family ownership and were sold either privately or at auction.”

Starting with one of Mary Pickford’s monogrammed gold compacts (1930, Cartier-Paris), the exhibit reminds how Hollywood’s golden-age stars--and golden-age wives--helped set a standard for American jewelry style. “They were adventurous. They didn’t want the flawless 34-carat emerald. They wanted something they could wear with abandon,” says Proddow. “They didn’t want to look like Mrs. Astor.”

As a result, Gloria Swanson’s bangle bracelets of rock crystal encrusted with diamonds, Linda (Mrs. Cole) Porter’s colorful “fruit salad” bracelets and clip brooch made of emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds (1929), Merle Oberon’s rock-emerald necklace, and Marlene Dietrich’s 128-carat cabochon emerald and diamond bracelet were all trendy for their time. And because the stars frequently wore their own jewelry in their films, in their publicity stills and on their much-photographed jaunts to Hollywood nightspots, the styles became enduring.

“When Dietrich acquired her bracelet, cabochons (stones that were polished but not cut into facets) were not the desired precious jewels,” says Proddow. “It was Hollywood actresses who made cabochons a status symbol of the ‘30s. Anne Warner (wife of movie mogul Jack Warner) had a fabulous collection of cabochons.”

To be sure, male stars weren’t left out when it came to bijoux. Jewelry-lover Ruldolph Valentino helped popularize the now familiar Cartier “Tank” wristwatch, which he wore on and off screen, including during his star turn as an Arab chieftain in “The Son of the Sheik.”

During the days when the studio systems were in place, stars received jewelry from spouses, lovers, jewelers and their bosses--or their would-be bosses. Paulette Goddard received a large gold monkey pin whose tail supports a five-carat diamond from Jock Whitney, a backer of “Gone With the Wind,” as a consolation prize when she lost the role of Scarlett O’Hara. “Sometimes the gifts were written into contracts,” maintains Proddow.

Although nothing can match Hollywood’s jewelry heyday of the ‘30s, the authors say the gem age has not been completely iced over. “Maybe today a star will buy a gold heart mounted with pave diamonds or a beautiful watch,” says co-author Fasel. “At the Academy Awards last year, Geena Davis wore pearls, and Mercedes Ruehl and Annette Bening wore lovely ear clips. They’re setting a ‘90s conservative trend. They want small dainty things.”