Elizabeth Taylor - RIP

http://www.thefancarpet.com/uploaded_assets/images/gallery/829/The_Flintstones_9688_Medium.jpg

End of an era, this is. RIP

Holy shit! RIP.

can't think of a single decent film she was in

guess I should see Virginia Woolf tho

Virginia Woolf is awesome. RIP

No argument, but you know it was the F'stones '90s movie starring John Goodman she was in, right?

I know, joeks, etc. (e.g., "That's not writing, it's typing.")

"can't think of a single decent film she was in"

national velvet
little women
father of the bride
a place in the sun
giant
raintree county
cat on a hot tin roof
butterfield 8
who's afraid of virginia woolf?
the taming of the shrew
reflections in a golden eye
secret ceremony
night watch
the driver's seat
winter kills

yeah well of those I've seen on that list (which is, I dunno, half of them?) can't say I liked any of 'em

Trying to give my grade 6s an idea of the scope of her celebrity this morning...best I could come up with was that it exceeded Lady Gaga's. That seems woefully short of the mark.

found Cat on a Hot Tin Roof really painful to sit through, altho Burl Ives was entertaining

when you say grade 6 you make me think about trailer park boys and i love trailer park boys!

x-post

so, thanks.

Can't believe anyone could dislike Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Such a good movie.

Sort of the (an?) Angelina Jolie of her time. Her stardom transcended the quality of her films.

ugh, no

Movies actually mattered when Taylor became a star. They stopped being central to the culture at least 55 years ago.

Actually, I think it's pretty apt. Just as (Oscar winner!) Jolie has been great in some films, she's also been in a bunch of dreck, and the reason most know here is not for her acting but for her tabloid stuff. Same with Taylor. Sure, once movies "mattered" more, but Taylor was a tabloid fixture for reasons beyond her roles.

uh uh Suddenly Last Summer should be on the good films list there.

Never change, Shakey.

A friend noted on Facebook that he asked the editor of the National Enquirer 14 or so years ago what their biggest stories tended to be, and he cited "deaths" and "Elizabeth Taylor." So by my friend's measure, this is the biggest tabloid story of all time!

at least we don't have to hear what michael jackson thinks about the whole thing. cuz that would have been a whole thing right there.

And by never change I mean please take it to the Rachel Ray thread. xp

It is strange how she outlived Michael.

It is strange how Keith Richards outlived them both.

I think all her co-stars are dead except Mickey Rooney.

Anyway, she did herself credit with her AIDS activism, and seemed to have a sense of humor about herself.

And by never change I mean please take it to the Rachel Ray thread. xp

RIP quality joeks

she had to live with richard burton! she paid for any sins she might have committed.

http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2011/03/23/fait-diver-a-friend-of-vitos-passed-away/

http://fashionbride.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/19911021-750-01.jpg

http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/m/mzQd8XREHUluZ99TV15yfnw/140.jpg

Don't forget: voice of Maggie Simpson.

I used to pretend she was my real mom growing up. She was a real gem.

whole lotta links:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/3027

"can't think of a single decent film she was in"

If you mean what you wrote in that sentence -- that she was often better than the movies in which she starred or costarred -- then I agree. I know the ILX Film Crew loves Suddenly Last Summer, and it's been 20 years, but it's unfunny camp to me. Hepburn is literally unwatchable.

anyway rest in peace big diamond bitch goddess icon drag queen violet eye rage machine. luv ya.

― scott seward, Wednesday, March 23, 2011 9:31 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

rip

well, yes and no - I don't think she's a terrible actress or anything (she could be VERY campy/overwrought, but this is not always bad in my book) but the sort of films she chose to be in just really bore me for the most part. melodramas, etc. not interested.

xp

you're not gay enough

shakey no 'mo

guess I should see Virginia Woolf tho

Yes. Yes you should.
RIP

http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/4048021969/symbiotaxiplasm-r-i-p-l-i-z-elizabeth-taylor

I hope she dies very soon
― Mike Hanley

laughed hard at this

RIP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/23/elizabeth-taylor-obituary
brilliant obit for those (like me) who didn't really know the crazy-remarkable story of her life.

Sort of the (an?) Angelina Jolie of her time.

http://media.bigoo.ws/content/gif/music/music_139.gif

^ Ha, Snoop, always a pleasure! Anyway, I said that not as a particular fan of either party, but the parallels are undeniable. Jolie is even playing Cleopatra, FFS.

RIP Liz

But the real joke is the comparison between Jolie and Taylor. Jolie's fame rests entirely on her personal life, which can be summed up as "married Rachel from Friends' husband, fond of adopting". As Jolie has amply proved, one doesn't need to be a good actor, or even appear in any good films, to be an A-list celebrity these days: one just needs to be thin and have a fondness for being photographed. Taylor had the life, the looks, the movies, the smarts and the talent, and she – unlike Jolie – looked as if she not only enjoyed the occasional plate of pasta but my God, to watch her eat it would have been an experience in itself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/24/elizabeth-taylor-life-talent

yes.

Still I wish I could find the John Belushi and Catherine O'Hara impressions of Liz online to illustrate what a joke she was widely considered by the late '70s.

Camile Paglia:

To me, Elizabeth Taylor's importance as an actress was that she represented a kind of womanliness that is now completely impossible to find on the U.S. or U.K. screen. It was rooted in hormonal reality -- the vitality of nature. She was single-handedly a living rebuke to postmodernism and post-structuralism, which maintain that gender is merely a social construct. Let me give you an example. Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right" is a truly wonderful film, but Julianne Moore and Annette Bening -- who is fabulous in it and should have won the Oscar for her portrayal of a prototypical contemporary American career woman -- were painfully scrawny to look at on the screen. This is the standard starvation look that is now projected by Hollywood women stars -- a skeletal, Pilates-honed, anorexic silhouette, which has nothing to do with females as most of the world understands them. There's something almost android about the depictions of women currently being projected by Hollywood.

I said as much in my own little obit: she was a broad. Not a classy plate in her chassis.

But the 'broad' thing mostly got going full-bore w/ Virginia Woolf, which as David Edelstein points out stuck to her in all kinds of ways; her roles usually required her to fake class, except for some of the Tennessee Williams adaps.

http://theweddingtiara.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/elizabeth-taylor1.jpg