The phase behavior of cholesteryl esters with triglyceride has been characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), light microscopy, and polarizing light microscopy (PLM). Temperature-dependent molecular motions determined by 13C NMR spectroscopy were correlated with thermotropic phase behavior. Two systems, cholesteryl oleate (CO) and a 3/1 w/w mixture of cholesteryl linoleate (CL) and CO, were examined in the presence of small amounts of triolein (TO). Both systems exhibited metastable cholesteric and smectic (or only smectic) phases. Increasing amounts of TO progressively lowered the liquid-crystalline phase transition temperatures and eventually abolished the cholesteric phase, but at differing amounts of TO for the two systems (between 4% and 5% with CL/CO and between 7% and 10% with CO). DSC and PLM showed a progressive broadening of the phase transitions as well as an overlapping of the temperature ranges of the cholesteric and smectic phases. At greater than or equal to 4% TO, a separate isotropic liquid phase coexisted with liquid-crystalline phases. 13C NMR spectroscopy was used to monitor the molecular motions of the cholesteryl ester steroid ring and acyl chain in liquid and liquid-crystalline phases. In the liquid phase, no significant changes in fatty acyl motions, as reflected in spin-lattice relaxation time (T1) and nuclear Overhauser enhancement (NOE) values, were found on addition of TO. The line width (v 1/2) of the steroid ring resonances increased markedly near (1-5 degrees C above) the isotropic liquid----liquid-crystal phase transition temperature (TLC). However, the C3/C6 v 1/2 ratio at 1 degree C above TLC was greater for mixtures exhibiting an isotropic----cholesteric transition than for mixtures exhibiting an isotropic----smectic transition. Rotational correlation times calculated for motions about the long molecular axis and the nonunique axis showed (i) that the ring motions became more anisotropic as TLC was approached and (ii) that the motions were more anisotropic at TLC + 1 degree C for systems exhibiting a cholesteric phase than for systems exhibiting only a smectic phase. 13C line widths in spectra of the cholesteryl ester liquid-crystalline phases suggested that TO perturbed the cholesteryl ester intermolecular interactions and increased the rates of cholesteryl ester molecular motions relative to neat esters.