Elizabeth was so shy and nervous behind the camera there is no doubt in my mind that Macho basically kind of convinced her to get started in the business, and also coached her and continued to try to keep her interested. She might have loved doing it, but she never seemed to comfortable to me. I think Macho could see what she brought to the table, so he basically created her character and the idea. Even though her character was just her being herself, it was still Macho's idea in the beginning. It was also Macho's acting that made it work.
It is definitely possible that Macho Man would have never been as much of a baby face without Elizabeth. When Macho won the belt at Wrestlemania 4, it was definitely fun watching the unsure crowd slowly turn to his favor. It helped that his last match was against the best heel of all time Ted Debiase, but having Elizabeth to hoist on his shoulders after the match definitely helps the baby face value. At the same time, having Hulkster there to save you from Andre, Debiase, and Virgil is about as much as a push you need to get over on the crowd.
There is no doubt that he used her to his advantage in all of his story lines, but Macho was so brilliant inside the ring and out, he would have been as big without her.
Macho deserves the credit of basically coming up with the all of the story lines she was in, though a lot of the time they weren't incredibly deep, it is never easy to make a good WWF story line.
