Elizabeth Taylor - RIP

RIP

Awww RIP pretty lady.

She MJ and Liberace gonna have one hell of a reunion party in da sky.

The BBC website was clearly all ready to go on this: as well as the news story, they have magicked up Obituary, In Pictures, Filmography and Private Life in the Spotlight in a matter of minutes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12833100

i hate when fake ilx rip threads turn real.

For a few years the most beautiful woman in the world. I wish she'd done more comedy (Reflections in a Golden Eye, X Y & Zee).

yes that laff riot romp reflections in a golden eye

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

yes that laff riot romp reflections in a golden eye

She's hilarious in it! (Intentionally too)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nInE5TITzE8

i love reflections. i need it on dvd. almost a trance film in spots. you could write a book about that one. yes you could.

alfred have you seen this? so funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gR-vU44gd4

"Courageous" is thrown around a lot, but she really was in the eighties, fighting for AIDS research when no one else was – AND on behalf of gays.

So long, beautiful.

RIP

Most beautiful in A Place in the Sun and Father of the Bride, most whoa-talented-after-all in WAFoVWoolf.

RIP, Miss Tits (Burton's nickname for her).

morbs otm

damn

"only" 79!

Best in Virginia Woolf, but pretty damned memorable in Suddenly Last Summer, no more so than when she's in heels on a platform suspended over the snake pit.

Man, she was luminous in A Place in the Sun...

RIP, Liz.

haven't really seen any of her reputedly terrible post-prime vehicles except John Waters' fave, Boom!

A strike against talkies: that face, and then.... that voice.

was her last film appearance The Flintstones?

wikipedia says she did a TV movie, These Old Broads, in 2001

see, that's not film.

Neither is The Flintstones.

I thought she was terrific and believably old and slow in Giant.

Her child performances (National Velvet especially) are guileless.

RIP. She had the most beautiful eyes in the world.

One prominent and perhaps surprising dissenter about her looks was Richard Burton, who was twice her husband. The notion of his wife as “the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense,” he said.

“She has wonderful eyes,” he added, “but she has a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she’s rather short in the leg.”

RIP

My favourite real life Liz moment: at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert where she told a heckler to STFU

her and newman were about the hottest screen couple ever got imo

magma hot

RIP beautiful crazy lady
i always loved your teeth

her and newman were about the hottest screen couple ever got imo

― the '' key on my keybord is not working (darraghmac), Wednesday, 23 March 2011 14:56 (17 minutes ago)

otm

Mmmmmmmmmmmontgomery Clift?

so great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp1uMe4vdBg

(whose face she held together after a car wreck, btw)

xp

montgomery cleft

too soon...

My family claims we saw her picnicking with John Warner at a horse race in Virginia, but I have no memory of it whatsoever.

R.I.P.

Love this interview about A Place in the Sun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZv8HVkT3TY

from twitter

Slate Mel Gussow, author of the NYT's Taylor obit, died in 2005. http://bit.ly/ePzTdv

written by a ghost!

well, she won her Oscar for Butterfield 8 for almost dying. She also survived her career by about 35 years.

Until three weeks I had NO idea she was once Mrs. John Warner.

see, that's not film.

― Fuck bein' hard, Dr Morbz is complicated (Dr Morbius)

Neither is The Flintstones.

― Anti-mist K-Lo (Phil D.)

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

Farewell Liz. Damn she was a beautiful vibrant thing in her day. Grew up watching all of her films...National Velvet was a recurring favorite for a long long time.
Always loved her turn as Kate in Taming of the Shrew.

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

It's showing in 35mm at Lincoln Center tomw night.

http://filmlinc.com/page/-/uploads/films/Zee3.jpg

Liz is very funny in it, mostly intentionally and especially in the first half. There's a weird lesbophobic early '70s ending, no wonder Kael loved it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8GdEYIzP2k

NYC retro, lots on 35mm... i have still never seen Secret Ceremony and Ash Wednesday.

https://quadcinema.com/program/essential-liz/

Secret Ceremony is weird, good-bad but worthwhile. Only thing I remember about Ash Wednesday is plastic surgery.

The one I look forward to is The Driver's Seat, which I've seen a couple of times but on poor prints.

i don't remember even hearing of that one.

Liz was one of the many inspirations for my new name.

John Simon called Secret Ceremony "worse than bad, militantly loathsome," Pauline Kael called it "truly terrible" and Rex Reed called it "a piece of garbage." So definitely go see that one.

But I have seen all of Joseph Losey's 1962-71 films except for it! Also, there's the presence of Mitchum and Mia, and Fernando Croce finds it intentionally funny:

http://www.cinepassion.org/Reviews/s/SecretCeremony.html

Kael loved Ash Wednesday for her lurid performance

xp As he says there, it parallels Boom! in many ways. Same kind of borderline laughable provocation.

both Ash Wednesday and Secret Ceremony are kinda bad -- even tho Losey is a better filmmaker than Larry Peerce, Mia Farrow is particularly grating in SC, and the dialogue, oy. Still, it has a scene where Liz belches after chowing down on breakfast pastries and sausage.

Kael loved Ash Wednesday for her lurid performance

hmm, not so:

In a few scenes, Elizabeth Taylor is done up like Arletty playing Garance in CHILDREN OF PARADISE, and she's absolutely ravishing, in an unearthly, ageless way. But the film is a long-drawn-out ghoulish commercial for cosmetic surgery-made, apparently, for people who can't think of anything to do with their lives but go backward. Jean-Claude Tramont is credited with the script and Larry Peerce is credited with the direction, but there is no script and there is no direction. With Keith Baxter, Helmut Berger, and Henry Fonda giving a sour, dumb performance.

I disagree about it being a "commercial" and Fonda btw. Keith Baxter plays her gay fashion photographer confidante.

The Sandpiper is worth a look if you can deal with lush, hopelessly miscast turkeys. When the titular bird flies onto Liz's head in the middle of a romantic tete-a-tete with Dick...

Kael:

https://letterboxd.com/notpaulinekael/film/the-sandpiper/

Whenever I see that movie I just wonder about the real-world pricetag of that fabulous beachfront "shack" in Big Sur that Liz is slumming in

Kael:

https://letterboxd.com/notpaulinekael/film/the-sandpiper🕸/

It's Kael -- I remember the Taylor cupping-the-breasts line.

this movie is ridiculous and I have enjoyed it several times

It is the handle of someone on Letterboxd who has transcribed Kael's writing. xxp

Yes, Liz certainly has a nice wardrobe for a struggling artist and single parent. I could read Burton's mind: "Christ, these lines."

Charles Bronson stepped in as Cos the sculptor when Sammy Davis Jr had to bow out.

That link above is weird though, it's sort of cut-and-pasted from Kael's review in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but jumbled up and with new phrases added, such as "massive-headed Burton"

I think she reworked her old reviews for the mini-reviews that made up the 5001 Nights at the Movies compilation (per the Letterboxd tag).

Aug 12 71 the only time I get testy with E is when she has had a couple & has taken a pink pill..in conjunction with the booze gives her a kind of false euphoria & becomes sentimental & a reminiscent of her mother. Since her mother is the bore of all epochs this can be a bit hard

— Richard Burton (@BurtonDiaries) August 12, 2019

Have been quarantining with Liz Taylor movies I've missed.

Father of the Bride (1950): Spencer Tracy's film really, and I've never seen him better. Something very real about the dad who puts up with all kinds of craziness to make his daughter happy. Witty, satirical script. This and the sequel Father's Little Dividend were Joan Bennett's last big movies before her "scandal," and she is enjoyable as always. Liz was 17 playing 20 in this, which is kind of unusual.

A Place in the Sun (1951): More noir-ish than I expected. Liz really glows. Montgomery Clift's problem is he falls in love too quickly.

Ivanhoe (1952): Not sure why she felt she was miscast in this role because she's fine and convincing playing the Jewish girl Rebecca (years before she converted irl). Robert Taylor perhaps too old to play Ivanhoe, but this is classic old school MGM.

Elephant Walk (1954): Certainly nice to look at. Very 1950s psychology with Peter Finch driven to madness trying to live up to the greatness of his deceased father. Liz wears awesome clothes. The film is generally nutty but it only gets truly laughable at the climax when the elephants take more control of things. This is the Rebecca plot essentially.