Elizabeth Taylor - RIP

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

Blimey

http://www.mimifroufrou.com/scentedsalamander/images/elizabeth-taylor-1957.jpg

http://www.twolia.com/blogs/heres-looking-like-you-kid/files/2009/07/elizabeth-taylor-sunning-herself-on-the-set-of-giant-1955-photo-by-sid-avery.jpg

love all the pictures from the giant set:

http://media.kickstatic.com/kickapps/images/66470/photos/PHOTO_9417186_66470_20752879_main.jpg

http://vintagestardust.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/fwc_dean4.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01467/jamesdean_1467951i.jpg

Guardian overlooks the fact the Jolie *can* act - she won an Oscar, FWIW - and to say her fame rests entirely on who she married is stupid. Her worst movies are no more shitty than many of Liz's, her love life no more the focus of tabloid attention than Liz's, her humanitarian work no less notable or laudable. Personally, I'm not a fan of either actor, but their parallels are manifest. To suggest, as the paper did, that Jolie is famous just for who she married is both a) terribly sexist and b) totally ignorant that she is a much bigger star than her husband.

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.

Like, this last point is basically just "Liz Taylor was sexy and fat."

Impressed with CBS last night. They led with her death at 6:30 (as they should have), and gave her a full eight or nine minutes. And there was more coverage later in the broadcast more specifically about her AIDs work.

OTM xposts

Angelina Jolie was famous before she met Brad Pitt (though I suspect fairly widely-known for tabloid tattle about her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton rather than her movies, Oscar or not). We were discussing Genuine Hollywood Stars last night following the news of Liz Taylor's death, and we reckoned Clooney and Jolie were the only contemporary stars who even come close (basing on talent, level of worldwide fame, and general indefinable Hollywoodness)

tom cruise ? julia roberts ?

Cruise is batshit insane and doesn't represent reasonable causes, just scientology. Roberts, maybe? idk

No way

Also both not remotely sexy

Rip Taylor is still alive

think the whole "they don't make them like they used to" thing has been talked about forever as far as hollywood goes. its a different place now. the people they prop up now are always gonna suffer by comparison. just cuzza the lighting.

Yeah, is separate thread (that we've probably done before), just musing that the Jolie comparison isn't a bad one.

Also, in many ways today's stars lead, ironically, more private lives. Just think of all the A-listers who don't even bother going to the Oscars, which 50 years ago would have been heretical.

doesn't represent reasonable causes

well, it wasn't one of the criteria

basing on talent, level of worldwide fame, and general indefinable Hollywoodness

also : di caprio ? will smith ?

Stars don't sell movies anymore – franchises like games and comic books do.