Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Elizabeth Taylor
With the death of Elizabeth Taylor at age 79, I wondered if she had starred in any movie I really liked, beyond just looking at her - which was a pleasure even though in many of them she played against her personally elegant style. In her prime it was almost impossible to make her look bad. But there isn't a single film I'd list among my favorites. Several were "daring" for their time, but I cannot watch Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly, Last Summer, & Butterfield 8 without being annoyed by the sexual coyness of the Hollywood scripts. Cleopatra is outrageous. The Sandpiper is laughable - Liz as a proto-hippie, Richard as an Episcopal priest. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is unbearably ugly, although Liz & Richard may have tapped some truth about theit marriage that lent authenticity to the drunken insults. After Brando, Taylor was the biggest star to routinely waste her talent when she gained the power to do so, following her Academy Award. Brando did it more deliberately. Liz, I suspect, expected some of her worse movies to be good.
Elizabeth Taylor was a great female Pisces, all soft & dreamy on one side, neurotic & sickly on the other, generous yet stubbornly focused on self. She was born & she died near the cusps of the sign. When a lover lands one of those colorful fishes, it must remembered (but rarely is) that she will be intensely devoted until the moment she decides to swim away. Love, not wealth & power, is the ultimate addiction for them, & if it's not a drug they'd rather be alone. I found her immensely, mysteriously beautiful & sexy.
***
To enlarge upon Carrie's comment: Liz became such an icon that younger generations aren't aware of how she made her rep. She was competing at the box office (& for Oscars) with actresses like Deborah Kerr, Kathryn Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Anne Bancroft, Joanne Woodward, & with (or against) some out-sized male stars. The year she lost for Cat, probably my favorite role by her, & a film I wasn't old enough to see or understand (or criticize) until years after it was made, all five nominees had Oscar-worthy performances.
Liz's greatest moment came, I think, when she refused to avert her eyes from the growing AIDS tragedy. She was clear-eyed, realistic, brave, & completely without prejudice.
Elizabeth Taylor was a great female Pisces, all soft & dreamy on one side, neurotic & sickly on the other, generous yet stubbornly focused on self. She was born & she died near the cusps of the sign. When a lover lands one of those colorful fishes, it must remembered (but rarely is) that she will be intensely devoted until the moment she decides to swim away. Love, not wealth & power, is the ultimate addiction for them, & if it's not a drug they'd rather be alone. I found her immensely, mysteriously beautiful & sexy.***
To enlarge upon Carrie's comment: Liz became such an icon that younger generations aren't aware of how she made her rep. She was competing at the box office (& for Oscars) with actresses like Deborah Kerr, Kathryn Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Anne Bancroft, Joanne Woodward, & with (or against) some out-sized male stars. The year she lost for Cat, probably my favorite role by her, & a film I wasn't old enough to see or understand (or criticize) until years after it was made, all five nominees had Oscar-worthy performances.
Liz's greatest moment came, I think, when she refused to avert her eyes from the growing AIDS tragedy. She was clear-eyed, realistic, brave, & completely without prejudice.
Labels: culture, movies, obituary
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Wow, I am just the opposite of you with respect to watching Taylor movies. In fact, up there on the top of my list is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, especially since it stars my two favorites, Taylor and Newman. And as for Virginia Wolf, I even recently watched it on television and was amazed out the outlandish performances by all, and what I thought was a great script and great acting. No one thought she'd get the Oscar for Butterfield 8, but then again, that was another perfectly written script and her part (opposite Mr. Beatty) was great.
A sad day ... I thought Ms. Gabor was going to go before Liz ever did.
A sad day ... I thought Ms. Gabor was going to go before Liz ever did.
None of the movies I mentioned except The Sandpiper are bad movies. Not even Cleopatra, which is fun as spectacle. Her career, unfortunately, did not encompass the kinds of starring roles for older actresses that now routinely receive Oscar nominations.
Interesting to see the television doing all Elizabeth, all day. Oh, and a correction ... Beatty was in The Only Game In Town, not Butterfield 8.
I was a bit too young to appreciate Liz Taylor the actress. I was only aware of her through supermarket tabloids. As a kid, I thought she was like Jackie O: I knew she was famous, but I wasn't sure what for.
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