Elizabeth Taylor – 1932 – 2011

When I saw that come across the television screen, I was shocked and saddened. I always felt I had grown up with Elizabeth. I didn’t see all of her films, but kept track of her through magazines, radio, television, etc. She was the most breathtakingly beautiful woman there ever was or ever will be as far as I’m concerned. I remember seeing her in “National Velvet” when she was so young and yet so beautiful. She fell off her horse in that movie and injured her back – an injury that would stay with her for the rest of her life. That was the movie that made her a star. From there she went on to make many movies for MGM and is considered the last major star to come out of the old Hollywood system where you’re stuck with one studio. MGM was the top one at that time.

I didn’t see all of her movies, but some stood out for me. “Suddenly Last Summer” with Montgomery Clift and “A Place in the Sun” with him again were a couple of the ones that really got to me. Also there were “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Butterfield 8” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” that were excellent. She won two academy awards for Butterfield and Virginia Woolf. She made many others but I didn’t see them all. She was a delight to watch. She was so gorgeous with those beautiful eyes and face; she could have made any type of movie and would have you enthralled from the moment she was on the screen.

Her personal life was a sort of mess. She had many love affairs, eight marriages and many medical emergencies. Her life was far more exciting and dramatic than any movie she ever made. She started AMFAR, the foundation for AIDS research and had been involved with that for years. She organized “A Commitment to Life”, a celebrity event to benefit AIDS research after her friend and co-star Rock Hudson became sick in 1985 which raised more than $1.3 million. Her AIDS organization AMFAR raised $83 million in the twelve years following its creation in 1985. She had bigger, more valuable diamonds than anyone else and wore them whenever she could. She created her own perfume, “White Diamonds” which she advertised on television. She said to Barbara Walters in an interview in 1990 that she’d still like to act but no one would insure her because of her medical problems. She had broken her back four times which made it painful to walk or even stand and she’d had a benign brain tumor removed. She also had pneumonia several times, congestive heart failure and a tracheotomy to save her life. As the story goes, some thought she was given the academy award for “Butterfield 8” because of her near fatal illness and tracheotomy. And some thought it was because she had lost out in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” with her portrayal of Maggie the Cat. Who knows?

Elizabeth kept acting and making appearances as long as she could. I didn’t think she would ever die; it wasn’t supposed to happen. I read that her obituary published in The New York Times was written by theater critic and cultural reporter Mel Gussow, who had died in 2005. The paper’s obituary editor said the piece was “too good to throw away.” How strange that famous people have obituaries already written for them, just waiting years until they can be published. And then to have the person who wrote it die before the person about whom he is writing.

Elizabeth will never be forgotten. I think there is already a movie in the works about her, but I hope it doesn’t come to fruition. No actress could do her justice. I don’t think there will ever be an actor as beautiful, exciting, talented and dramatic as Elizabeth Taylor.