THE LAST STAR: Elizabeth Taylor--1932-2011

"Living Legend".  It's a term that is so overused--and rarely used deservedly. I remember vividly catching an interview with Lauren Bacall in 2004, in relation to a film she'd made with Nicole Kidman called Birth.  She was at a press conference at the Venice Film Festival, and a bubbly interviewer asked her about working with a "legend" like Nicole Kidman. Bacall quite properly, er, ripped the interviewer a new one, cutting her off mid-sentence and saying (with Kidman sitting beside her, too!), "She's not a legend! She's a beginner! What is this 'legend?' She can't be a legend at whatever age she is."  I can only guess being on the receiving end of a Bacall rebuke would be a trouser-filling experience.  Well, Bacall can certainly be called "legendary"; really one of the few great stars who are still with us from the "golden age" of film (true, she came in at the latter end of it...but still...).  Who else is there left?  The list gets ever shorter.  Luise Rainer, a 2-time "Best Actress" winner is still alive, aged 101.  Olivia de Havilland (94) and her sister, Joan Fontaine (93) are both still alive and, reportedly, quite well (the joke in Hollywood is that they hate each other so much, they each refuse to be the first one to die...expect to see them around for quite some time!).  The only others, really, are the still-living child stars of that era, several of whom have had remarkable longevity:  Mickey Rooney (91), Shirley Temple (83), Jackie Cooper (88), and a few others.  But for sheer star power, glamour, talent and just plain fascination, no one can trump Elizabeth Taylor, who, against all odds, will turn 79 on the 27th of this month. 

Dame Elizabeth (she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1999)  led a life of almost incomprehensible highs, as well as desperate lows and has lived to tell.

Today, it's sadly unlikely that many Americans under the age of 25 even know who she was (except for the ones that may know her, tragically, as 'Pearl Slaghoople' from the miserable film version of The Flintstones from 1994).  With the only possible exception being Angelina Jolie, there simply aren't any actresses today who can even approach Taylor for the incendiary heat she radiated when she was at the peak of her beauty and allure, roughly 1950-63.  After that, her personal life (and demons) rode shotgun as she careened from one scandal, one divorce, one life-threatening illness to the next. 

Her epic romance with tempestuous Welsh actor, Richard Burton, became a thing of legend.  They were known as "The Battling Burtons" (the marriage of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt seems pallid and mundane by comparison) and their romance is chronicled in an excellent and rapidly readable new(ish) biography called, "Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century" by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger.  What's most remarkable about this book is that it was created with Miss Taylor's cooperation, and includes long excerpts from forty of the passionate billets-doux the Burtons exchanged through the years, to which she gave the writers access. Taylor told the authors "I don't care what you write about me - as long as you honor Richard". 

 And that face!  Never mind her fine skills as one of the great actresses of her time (she took home the "Best Actress" Oscar twice in the 1960's)...her stunning beauty brought out every superlative in the book by all who gazed upon her and her legendary, luminous "violet-colored" eyes.  Was there ever a woman more beautiful than her in, say, 1951, as she was shot in extreme closeup with the equally beautiful, Montgomery Clift in A Place In the Sun? (perhaps her greatest film, and one of her first real "acting" roles).  Studying photos of her when she was in peak bloom is akin to studying a sublime work of art.  If there is/was a more beautiful woman, ever, point her out....I've never seen her...(with the possible exception of Vivien Leigh around 1940). Burton wrote eloquently of Taylor in his own diary: "She is beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography... she is an ache in the stomach when I am away from her ... I'll love her until the day I die!"

With Taylor's death, we'll never get the full, "unexpurgated" autobiography, so this tome will probably be the closest you'll ever get to knowing the "inside story".  And a fascinating story it is. 

It's available on Amazon.com, new copies are $13.00 plus postage, used copies, from $11.00 plus postage.  The Kindle version is available as well, for $12.99.   Click on the book's title in the Amazon box (below) for various purchase options,  if you'd like to get a copy:

Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton,

and the Marriage of the Century

Elizabeth Taylor:  You were one of the greats...the "last star".  Rest in peace...