Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011
Affection for Taylor is a generational thing; by the time I started watching films with any seriousness, she had become less artist than icon. For my parents and especially my grandparents, though, Liz Taylor was a major cultural figure. I wouldn’t say that her work has aged particularly well, although I like Giant as much as the next guy. I find it just a bit remarkable that she was only 79 when she passed; compare the arc of her career to Clint Eastwood or William Shatner (both about a year older), and remember that at the intensity of her stardom considerably outshone either.
Rest in peace.
She was a great, great star, but not a great actor.
She was really, really good in a few films. You mentioned “Giant,” also “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and “Butterfield 8.” Also “Cleopatra,” though I’m not that big a fan of that movie.
What’s ironic to me is that today, when Liz died, there’s an appropriate amount of coverage – her death is mentioned on all of the channels (I assume FOX too, but I can’t turn to that channel), but when Anna Nicole Smith died, Holy Shit, on cable tv news it was all Anna 24x7x365 for about a week. All right in the middle of 2 occupations, and, if I remember right, the Senate Habeas Corpus debate/debacle.
Liz was a legitimately great star, and one of the last that came from the old Hollywood system. I could almost understand her death taking up a few days of cable tv news. But Anna Nicole Smith? Sure, she was fairly young, the widow of an ancient millionaire, and the issue’s with her son, etc.
I suspected the news corporations were instucted to give us a diversion from the clusterfuck at the time that was the Bush mis-administration. I think it came down to Anna, who the coverage seemed to warrant if it was Marlyn Monroe who had just died – not some chubby Marylin Monroe Ultra-Ultra-Ultra-Ultra-Ultra Lite look-alike.
Liz did a lot of charity work, and helped a lot of people.
RIP Liz!
You will be missed…
If all she did was Giant and Virginia Woolf, she would still have been hailed as a great actress. I can’t think of anyone today who’s such a star. RIP Ms. Taylor.
And violet eyes to die for!
I’m not part of that generation either but just go watch her in “A Place in the Sun” she was absolutetly stunning in her prime. Those eyes…
Not to sound like an old fart, because her peak was well before I reached puberty, but she and Grace Kelly, as contemporaries in the early 50′s were well beyond gorgeously stunning. Maybe Christie Brinkley and Jacklyn Smith compare for pure beauty but not for talent. Not to denigrate the current actresses but Liz and Grace were transcendent.
I was always impressed with confident Taylor & Kelly each seemed in their acting. They utilized their natural magnetism to great effect.
It is a tribute of sorts to survive the principal writer of your New York Times obituary by more than five years.
I think Anna Nicole Smith got the saturation coverage because her death was so unexpected and suspicious, not because she was considered such a great star.
Virginia Woolf is a phenomenal piece of acting that holds up today – along with equally stunning performances by Burton, George Segal (!), and Sandy Dennis
George Segal (!), and Sandy Dennis
True, as odd as it sounds in 2011.
How is it remarkable that she dies at “only” 79? That comment doesn’t make sense to me. Also, it is fairly typical for male career arcs to last longer. They bring a lot of assets to the table that do not decline with age so long career arcs are much more typical of male actors. You can blame Hollywood or our society for the reasons, but they’re hardly surprising.
Eastwood is pretty atypical even in that respect. Most male actors don’t have such a long career. 79 also isn’t that young. The true remarkable thing is someone like Shatner still has work. Lucky bastard.
Right; 79 isn’t an inappropriate age to die it. It was simply a reference to the distance between now and her period of stardom.
I was also surprised that she was only 79 mainly because for my entire life (I turn 64 next week) she has been a big star. Eastwood became known when I was a kid watching TV and a star when I was in college. Taylor was a star even before I was born and was never anything other than a star. She had a presence that many more talented actresses (and many more beautiful actresses although she was certainly beautiful) lacked.
I’d also say that the “only 79″ thing also comes down to the fact that she hasn’t really had a significant movie role since, well, more or less since The Taming of the Shrew in 1967, when she was 35.
As to the two actors, it is normal (if disappointing) for actresses to have shorter careers. It also is not like Shatner had any great works of art in recent years, other than a good role on Boston Legal.
Her AIDS work also is to be honored.
before my time (and I’m not that young), from the earliest that I became aware of Elizabeth Taylor, she was something of a camp joke, and the attention paid to her year after year by the supermarket check outline tabloids was and remains somewhat baffling.
But then again, not that long ago, my wife managed to see Peter Frampton perform- at a Borders bookstore… she referred to him as “some guy”, I said, what do you mean “some guy, that’s Peter Frampton, one upon a time he was HUGE, everyone had his effing album, and a t-shirt or two…”.
When Frampton comes alive was out she was living in China, when Michael Jackson was big she was in Singapore, and when Madonna was still big she as in Canada- she knows who MJ and Madonna were/are- Frampton? Just a middle aged guy playing a guitar in a Borders one afternoon.
I’ve now seen some of Taylor’s movies, and have seen for myself that once upon a time she was quite physically attractive, but so were and are a lot of young men and women. I just don’t “get” the whole Elizabeth Taylor megastar thing, I guess yo really had to actually be there for that one.
the attention paid to her year after year by the supermarket check outline tabloids was and remains somewhat baffling.
The messy personal life certainly helped with that. It’s what tabloids are all about.
Another point about V. Woolf: when before Taylor did a still attractive major star ugly herself up so thoroughly for a role?
Context matters
Monroe, Russell, Reynolds, Novak. The 50s were not good for women.
Taylor could not be denied respect. She commanded respect. A freaking goddess, she bestrode her world.
The 50s were not good for women who wanted to be in the workforce, that much is undeniably true.
For the not inconsiderable number of women who wanted to be mothers and homemakers, the 50s were a better and more stable time than any other before or since.
She was a better actress than she is getting credit for here. Check out her performances in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, for example, or Reflections in a Golden Eye. She could be in a scene with Newman or Brando and not only hold her own, but make you watch her. I’d argue that “Cat” works largely on the strength of her performance.
She was in a lot of rubbish, but the real pros from that period often were- work when you can get work was a guiding notion. She was the real deal.
I still remember a photo of her in a c. 1960 issue of Look magazine in a low-cut dress and staring at the camera. She was about 28. I remember it because I fell in love with that picture (I was 13).
I have the impression that older women actually bring just as many assets to the table that don’t decline with age.
Taylor wasn’t a great actress and she was rarely a good one. I would like to say she’s underrated but I can’t. It was primarily her dramatic private life that kept her an object of interest after her career faded as she hit her forties, as generally happens to female stars. She was a wonderful child star and I mean no disrespect when I say that “National Velvet” may contain her best performance. As an adolescent she had no awkward stage and with a face of almost eerie maturity she went quickly into adult roles, although her acting was mostly awful at that time.
She’s good enough in Virginia Woolf but not in Burton’s class even though he is plainly doing everything he can to help her out. She is also good in “Suddenly Last Summer.”
@ Bill Altreuter: I didn’t care for her as Maggie the Cat because the heart of the role is sexual insecurity, not something Liz Taylor could communicate very well. (Newman was also out of his depth at that stage of his career. But I don’t think even a better actor like Clift could have made the play work on the screen.)She looks delectable, though.
Yes. I know how many years it’s been since then, and I know her work after that ran the gamut, but when I think of Elizabeth Taylor, I think of her sweet, unearthly beauty, and her young girly exuberance when she said lines like, “Oooh, horses!”
I also admit a fondness for her movie Elephant Walk. Somebody tell me you like it too.
I don’t know Taylor as an actress. I’m not much of a movie person, and I’ve seen none of her films. I know she’s a larger than life celebrity, but that’s also secondary. To me, a gay man who came of age in the 1980s, Elizabeth Taylor is a heroine in the struggle against HIV/AIDS. That’s always been what I’ve associated her with, and when I heard the news today, that was the first thing that came to mind.
neither mr. eastwood or shatner have any work in their entire film/tv ography that compares to ms. taylor’s, none. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, “Virginia Woolf” & “Giant” by themselves, outshine anything, individually or collectively, that the two gentleman have accomplished.
both gentlemen have a decent body of work, some good, some bad, but mostly commercially successful, so this isn’t meant to bash them. that said, neither have the star charisma that ms. taylor had, and she could out act both of them together.
Are we including Eastwood’s career as a director here? If we’re talking purely about acting, I’d say he and Taylor are pretty comparable, although his career has lasted much, much longer and starred in many more movies. Most of Eastwood’s movie career happened after Taylor had stopped making relevant movies. But as far as acting talents, they seem reasonably comparable. Neither one can really be considered among the greatest actors of their generation, but both were or are serviceable, competent actors. I’d be willing to give Taylor the edge, if you like.
But obviously if we’re looking at their cinematic careers as a whole, we have to include Eastwood’s career as a director, as well, in which case his body of work dwarfs Taylor’s.
you’re kidding me, right? acting wise, ms. taylor was wayyyyyyyyyy beyond even eastwood at his best, because frankly, he basically played himself, in whatever it was he was doing. if you’ve seen “Dirty Harry”, you’ve seen the depth of his acting chops. the only thing missing in his comedies was a .357 magnum.
again, i don’t mean to disparage mr. eastwood, he’s a serviceable actor, and clearly commercially successful and entertaining. but then, so are 99% of all actors (serviceable, that is), it is that rare 1% who light up a stage or screen, and demand that you take notice. ms. taylor was part of that 1%.
i didn’t consider mr. eastwood’s directorial efforts, only his acting.
I think I’ve never actually seen a movie with Elizabeth Taylor, which suggests something about the less-than-timeless qualities of most of her films.
I have seen precisely one – Cleopatra, which is, I guess, serviceable. But it seems like there’s a fair number of her movies that are still watched – A Place in the Sun, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Giant. Maybe a few others (Cleopatra? Butterfield 8? Taming of the Shrew?). Not an enormous number, but not completely forgotten, either.
Maybe you’re just not trying hard enough. Her movies show up with reasonable frequency elsewhere, even an expensive turkey like “Raintree County.” True, she never appeared in a movie I’d call great, although that adjective has been applied to “A Place in the Sun.”
It must be a generational thing, but while I agree on Shatner I can’t agree on Eastwood — he has shaped generations, genres and culture; his influence has been so huge for so long that it is actually hard to see it is so uch a part of us — wait until he is gone and then it will hit. Taylor will be an asterisk by comparison.
And I am a Brit!
You gotta be kidding me.
Elizabeth Taylor was radiant, and did some amazing acting (Giant comes to mind), but for shaping the zeitgeist, Clint Eastwood runs rings around just about anyone. Not a particularly good actor, but compelling, and delivered a lot of memorable lines. Can anyone here quote a line delivered by Elizabeth Taylor? Conversely, is there anyone among us who cannot quote lines delivered by Blondie/ The Man With No Name or Harry Callahan?
Good acting is not the same thing as influential acting, for better or for worse.
I assume we’re just sticking to acting here, because Eastwood as a director…
So, because he was given good lines to speak, he’s influential?
Go ahead, make my day.
That sure changed my life.
I think her charity work had an influence on culture far beyond that of Eastwood:
In the 1980s, most people were afraid of AIDS as if it were contagious like the flu or a cold… not to mention the nasty homophobia that was tied to it in our culture. To bring Reagan to the public stance of treating AIDS as a disease to be fought the way we fight cancer was a tremendous victory for making America & Americans more progressive.
So…
Elizabeth Taylor is a progressive hero.