Elizabeth Taylor, R.I.P.
Miss Taylor was one of the last of a breed of Hollywood Stars who had presence – that ability to draw your attention to her by merely walking in a room or in a scene. Not very many actors and actresses have that today. In fact, only elderly actors like Clint Eastwood come to mind.
She was a lovely looking woman, as many like Paco have commented:
She was one of the most beautiful women ever to emerge on the Hollywood scene, the dark hair and violet eyes a stunning combination….
Personally, I did not find her beautiful [she has never been featured in a TCOTS Rule 5 posting and I have no plans to remedy that situation] and she was a fair actress who, like so many, could rise to the occasion if given the right role and direction. Her performance as Maggie The Cat in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is wonderful, as is her great performance in the eminently unwatchable Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf [Richard Burton's work in that one is top-notch].
In many ways, she was more known for the way she conducted her personal life than for her work as an actress. And what a life.
Her affair and subsequent marriages to the great Richard Burton brought out a side of her that earned her a place as a Great Broad in my book. She showed that she could be saucy and hold her own with the boys – an admirable quality in a woman.
That she did not stay the lilting flower she began as, which would have been very easy considering the constant physical problems she suffered from starting with her spinal injury during the making of National Velvet, speaks to a tenacity of the spirit that is admirable.
It also must be said that Miss Taylor was one of the last of the great Hollywood Beards [Nancy Reagan is another] who befriended many a closeted homosexual actor, showering them with a kindness and sympathy they rarely enjoyed, and a cover they could relax in, lest their dark secret be known and destroy their careers. Such behavior shows a simple human compassion that is rare in in the Narcissistic community of actors and actresses and has disappeared these days in the miasma of everything being political.
For Richard Burton, Elizabeth was ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’:
She was so extraordinarily beautiful that I nearly laughed out loud. She … [was] famine, fire, destruction and plague … the only true begetter. Her breasts were apocalyptic, they would topple empires before they withered … her body was a miracle of construction … She was unquestionably gorgeous. She was lavish. She was a dark, unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much … Those huge violet blue eyes… had an odd glint… Aeons passed, civilizations came and went while these cosmic headlights examined my flawed personality. Every pockmark on my face became a crater of the moon.
But, as Miss Taylor put it once: ‘I love Richard Burton with every fiber of my soul but we can’t be together’.
She was a trooper to the end – as we knew she would be.
This report speaks volumes about the woman: from The London Daily Telegraph…
The [funeral] service began 15 minutes after its announced start time in observance of Taylor’s parting wish that her funeral start late, her publicist Sally Morrison said.
Taylor had left instructions asking for the tardy start and had requested that someone announce, "She even wanted to be late for her own funeral," Morrison said.
Requiescat in pace.
I think that was the best write-up I’ve read about Elizabeth Taylor’s passing.
Well done, Bob.
In the boozy party of the afterlife, Richard Burton has been reunited with his second and third wives.
Linked @ Corndog
Linking at ORPO and Among The Joshua Trees.
This is a really good one, there, buddy!
Your Majesty: Thank you.
GN6: And St. Peter has to keep sending St. Michael over to ‘keep it down’.
Red: Thank you, Miss WOOT.
ORPO1: Thank you for the kind words and the link.
Quoting someone: she wasn’t the best actress, but she was the best Movie STAR. She had the most startling, beautiful, and unusual violet eyes. I think of her as a Grand Old Broad. Her great tribute throughout all her flamboyant life is that her children loved her to the last. Very nice tribute Bob.
Dame Maggie: Thank you. She was a Grand Old Broad.