Elizabeth Taylor Once Guest-Starred on Four CBS Sitcoms in a Continuous Storyline...

[TMC]

...for This Creative Reason

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...205640960.html

The back-to-back appearances were billed as a “Taylor-Made Monday”

Angela Andaloro
Fri, July 17, 2026 at 1:56 PM PDT

NEED TO KNOW

• Elizabeth Taylor debuted a new fragrance in February 1996 called Black Pearls
  
• The screen icon and the Elizabeth Arden Co., which carried her fragrances, teamed up with CBS for an unusual promotional plan that saw the then-64-year-old actress guest star on four sitcoms, back-to-back
  
• Taylor acted out a continuous storyline about her missing string of black pearls that carried across The Nanny, Can't Hurry Love, Murphy Brown and High Society

Elizabeth Taylor was undeniably creative in promoting her fragrances.

In February 1996, the actress agreed to an unusual campaign to promote her latest fragrance at the time, Black Pearls. She appeared in all four of CBS' sitcoms in the 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. block in a series that was dubbed "Taylor-Made Monday."

The appearances weren't just random, however. The shows featured a continuous storyline surrounding her string of black pearls being lost and found, sending her on a goose chase that began with The Nanny and continued into Can't Hurry Love, Murphy Brown and High Society.



In The Nanny, Taylor wound up at the Sheffield residence because Maxwell (Charles Shaughnessy) wanted to work with her on a play. Despite his best attempts to get Fran (Fran Drescher) out of the house in time for the women to miss each other, Taylor gave Fran a $300,000 string of black pearls with an instruction for how to courier them to their destination.

Fran decided to take them herself in a cab driven by an old acquaintance from high school (Rosie O'Donnell). The cab wound up getting into an accident, and Fran bumped her head. When she woke up, she discovered the pearls had been lost in the action.

The pearls were still lost in Can't Hurry Love, when Annie (Nancy McKeon) found them in the cab and decided to take them to wear on a date. She also lost the them, though, when they were snatched by a thief.

Taylor next appeared in the early moments of Murphy Brown, on FYI, to make a plea to get the jewelry back in an interview with Brown (Candice Bergen). With all of New York City on alert, the story finally came together in High Society as stars learned there's a thief — the one from Can't Hurry Love — who was targeting the area's rich and famous.

Ellie Walker (Jean Smart) and her best friend, Dorothy "Dott" Emerson (Mary McDonnell), also fell victim. Later, they got their stolen items back, with Taylor's treasured piece mixed in. She came to pick them up, but didn't actually appear on-screen in the episode.

Instead, Taylor did a voice-over as an arm double was used to show her reaching to grab her pearls back.

The conclusion of the arc didn't appear in the show, however. When the episodes aired, everything was wrapped up with a return to The Nanny. During the episode, Maxwell shared his jubilation that the star got her prized jewelry back and that their business deal survived the ordeal. Fran jokingly mused about the pearls being fake, causing Maxwell to panic before she reassured him that it couldn't be the case.

The scene ended with O'Donnell driving away in her cab, laughing and hollering out, "Thanks, Liz, wherever you are!"

For the shows, the collaboration was a success, boosting viewership by an average of 15 to 20%, per AdAge.