I awoke this morning in San Francisco to a newsfeed overwhelmed with news of Elizabeth Taylor's passing. While not surprising news given her years of health complications, it's nevertheless sad to see an icon fade to black. For me, Elizabeth Taylor was ceaseless glamour and emblematic of an old world, aristocratic luxury. Monaco. Casinos. VIP lounges. Everything that's cheesy now that used to be "it".
She was a world class movie star, but also a great actress. It's easy to forget, as she invented tabloid fixation and the culture of celebrity heartbreak (Mike Todd! Tracheotomy! Oscar!). For me, she's the essential Maggie in Cat on the Hot Tin Roof. So hungry, so desperate, so smoldering (she was similarly well-matched with Tennessee Williams the following year in Suddenly Last Summer). I remember seeing Ashley Judd try to bring the same glamour and restlessness to a Broadway revival a few years ago, which of course didn't work. Too fussy, over-rehearsed, self-conscious.
She was also appropriately disgusting and billowy in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, however I prefer Kathleen Turner's star turn in that Broadway revival a few years ago.
In the 80s and 90s Taylor didn't do as much, showing up in her final theatrical release in The Flinstones as Wilma's mother. Eeep. Our icons should be better served. Of course there were those delicious perfume ads, which offered the soap opera intrigue of any 50s melodrama. I've always wanted to live out the fantasy or wearing diamonds, watching a poker game, and seeing men fight (presumably over me). Here's a choice 30-second spot:
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