Elizabeth Taylor - RIP

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.

(Cruise discounted on batshittery, btw. Could make a case for diCaprio and Depp, would like to make a case for Blanchett on the glamour/star/interestingness front)

xp: that is not really true, not unless there is for example a "Limitless" videogame I don't know about

Shh! They'll hear you!

It's almost wholly true – the NYT published a story about Hollywood woes a couple of months ago in which studio execs made the same point. Of course a Sandra Bullock, Will Smith or DiCrapio film will draw their respective fans, but these films aren't automatic hits like they were even ten years ago.

ha actually that would be kind of an interesting game mechanic; your character is completely hopeless and useless unless you use these pills, of which you have a finite supply

how do you stretch the resource that makes you capable of playing the game long enough to actually beat the game...?

jolie comparison isn't bad and i'm not sure she could pull off some of liz taylor's epic performances but i think she's vv good at what she does, probably stemming from utter confidence w/what she can do in her particular (albeit limited) acting skill set.

friend of mine has some huge pic from the giant set

this one, no liz

http://www.jamesdean.com/images/photos/giant/pics/jd5.jpg

also, just for shakey

http://chzdailywhat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/80e40d51-01cf-4396-b3e8-56c211eaedb3.jpg

Jolie *can* act - she won an Oscar
Jolie *can* act - she won an Oscar
Jolie *can* act - she won an Oscar
Jolie *can* act - she won an Oscar
Jolie *can* act - she won an Oscar

Roberto Begnini to thread.

He was actually a good film comedian before the Holocaust hit him.

really, you hadda be there (or immersed in the history) to understand why the Liz-Jolie comparison is laughable, I guess.

it's sort of like comparing Clint Eastwood (now The Last Movie Star) in the mid/late '60s to Jason Statham

I'm kinda with Morbz on this one...don't see the comparison AT all. Compared to what Liz could do, Jolie's best performance has all the intensity of a dim refridgerator bulb. There's no child that's going to be as attached to her stupid roles in Tomb Raider as I was, or my mother was, to National Velvet.

there are several adults who will be, though

I phrased that badly but you know what I mean, hopefully.
Sorry!

girls my age (20s) use jolie as a Style Touchstone/insist that they want to fuck her pretty frequently, but they never cite any actual movies. meanwhile i can't even remember if i've actually seen her in a movie.

oh, i saw sky captain and the world of tomorrow. she was a prop but it was kind of hard not to be.

I have likely seen an unhealthy number of Angelina Jolie movies and am trying to think of one that I actively disliked. I don't think there is one.

pretty sure I've only seen AJ in Pushing Tin and The Good Shepherd

i liked the bizarro sexy alien boy look

http://webtvdeluxe.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/angelina.jpg

she was good in gia. um....i mean i'll watch anything. she doesn't approach ashley judd though as far as my i'll watch anything and like it hall of fame goes.

anytime someone says jolie is a good actress in something i always feel like its just a way of saying hey she was good in that for such a glamour puss.

Jolie is good in the Daniel Pearl movie. Regardless, Jolie is 35. I have a hunch she'll make another dozen or so movies before she's dead. Anyway, the comparison is just that: a comparison. Holding Taylor up as unique Hollywood royalty with no match is a conversation killer, but I'd be hard pressed to think of a current star *more* like Liz Taylor than Jolie. How about that?