Farewell Elizabeth Taylor
We all became voyeurs when she was in the headlines. We could not get enough of her, especially since she represented our suppressed secret desires. I was a little girl mad about movie magazines and I used to rush to the corner drugstore, in the suburbs where I was raised, to buy the new issues every month. When she was on the cover my friends and I gawked and swooned at the sight of that face. As we grew into awkward teenagers we began to carp - maybe she wasn't so perfect after all - her eyes weren't really violet, and she had a ski nose (which was not true). There were so many others who were beautiful, but she was the standard by which others were judged. Jean Simmons looked like her, Hedy Lamarr, Vivien Leigh and Ava Gardner were just as beautiful (I'm speaking of brunettes), but no one had the appeal and the magnetism she had. I disliked her voice - it sounded like a little girl and I felt anyone that beautiful should have a womanly voice like that of Susan Hayward, for example, whose deep husky voice and great diction made me melt, especially when she played Jane Froman in With a Song in My Heart. Still, every new movie with Elizabeth Taylor was an event.
Her earlier films were enchanting and she was the loveliest Rebecca any Ivanhoe ever met (though he had to choose Rowena, for she was of his own people). We were flabbergasted by her love life and in awe at her ability to find husbands (and her inability to live alone, even for a short while). We were also shocked at her behavior and at what seemed to be an absence of morals. But I never stopped being fascinated, since I believe we are all fascinated by the wickedness of celebrities, even as we condemn their acts, but those who are larger than life have certain privileges... I felt she was living authentically, searching for the Right One, taking a new man at each stage in her life. She was frantic for love, and when she lost love she was frantic to recapture it. Her beauty deepened until some point in her marriage to Richard Burton when the two of them began to appear bloated, haggard and even garish. She lost her charm and elegance as she drank life to the dregs, drowning herself in alcohol (as did Burton) and prescription drugs for her countless and predictable illnesses and accidents. Predictable, because from early on Elizabeth Taylor used illness as a way of punishing herself and purging herself of the misery and guilt she experienced whenever a marriage ended. In her relentless search for love she acquired seven husbands and eight marriages, but this is because, as she said, she was raised by a strict family who believed in marriage, not in love affairs. So whenever she had a meaningful love affair she had to marry the man. Was she immoral or too moral? I don't ask myself too many questions about her anymore. She was as deeply religious as she was beautiful. When Mike Todd was killed (a catastrophe for her and for us), they said she was devastated and very angry with God.
I think I will remember the younger woman, rapturously beautiful, and a natural born actress who needed no lessons, though it took me a long long time to appreciate her as an actress.
More important perhaps than husbands were her friends. She had the ability to make and to keep meaningful friendships with men and women. I think this is one thing that sets her apart - she was not just a siren, but almost a mother earth figure, a person who would never abandon a friend in need.
There are many gaudy, unpleasant aspects to her public life, but they don't matter right now. What matters is that Hollywood is definitively dead.
There is no specific French connection to Elizabeth Taylor, that I know of, but she filmed The Last Time I Saw Paris, with Van Johnson, in 1954. Loosely based on a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, she plays a beautiful but spoiled American girl who gets bored with her married life and seeks excitement elsewhere. The video above shows scenes from the film with Jerome Kern's song in the background. The last line says "No matter how they change her, I'll remember her that way." And so we shall.
Labels: Culture, Off-topic posts
posted by tiberge @ 1:03 AM
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4 Comments:
Certainly one of Hollywood's most glamourous stars. People say she is the last big one, but I think there are a few others like Mickey Rooney and some women stars that are probably still around though very elderly, but few that matched her glamour. I thought she was British, but evidently her parents were Americans living in the UK.
The Last Time I Saw Paris was a nice, nostalgic movie for the time and she was good in it. I thought she was very good in Taming of the Shrew with Burton and in Virginia Woolf. Also I remember her in Giant where she was well cast, and vaguely in Butterfield 8 (Oscar?), A Place in the Sun, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, National Velvet, and the Lassie movie. She definitely had talent as well as striking looks. Always sad to see the passing of an era, as many felt in France with the recent passing of Annie Girardot.
@ dauphin,
I too have been asking myself who is left. Mickey Rooney, as you say, also Doris Day, Julie Andrews, Jane Fonda, Shirley Maclaine, Lauren Bacall and Debbie Reynolds. Andy Griffith and Robert Redford are there as are Sophia Loren and Raquel Welch. The ages of these stars varies. Elizabeth Taylor was a little bit different. She was always there, from the time she was a little girl. She was always famous, without trying. She never "became" anything - she just WAS. She said she never planned anything, that life just happened. She was so famous that our own lives were often measured by hers. A similar phenomenon was Princess Diana... and Jackie Kennedy. I think we can include Marilyn Monroe. People start living through these women vicariously.
In France of couse, Bardot is THE ONE. Every girl in the world who was blond or who became blond wanted to look like her. And her life became public fodder. I was sorry about Annie Girardot, especially because she died of Alzheimer's which I think is the absolute worst. I thought she was attractive though they used to call her homely - why did they do that? Michèle Morgan is still with us - she is truly a French icon. Les Grandes Manoeuvres is a great movie about a woman who has to choose between love and honor (usually it's a man who has to make this choice), and chooses honor, though it pains her. Bardot is very impressive in that film too.
There are still a lot of good French actresses from years back who are with us from Jeanne Moreau to Isabelle Adjani. One problem with all these actors and actresses is the lack of good material. There are no great script writers and few great directors. No matter how good or beautiful you are, without a good role you are nothing.
I have not been able to "cotton up" to younger stars like Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Lopez. But I think Reese Witherspoon has talent and Catherine Zeta-Jones is beautiful. Nicole Kidman is beautiful in an old-fashioned way, like the platinmum blondes of yesteryear.
I love Elizabeth Taylor's earlier roles with Spencer Tracy in Father of the Bride and Father's Little Dividend. She was excellent in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Place in the Son and Cleopatra. Though some regard this film as a travesty, I take it very seriously, despite its flaws. The 4-hour version is vastly superior to the truncated 2-hour version. And two hours ended up on the cutting room floor. If they ever find them, the final 6-hour version would probably be superb.
P.S. Do you have an opinion of Meryl Streep? Some say she is great actress, others say she is a great mimic. I'm not familiar enough with her work to say. Is she also a victim of poor scripts?
@ tiberge
Yes, she was always there from childhood, like Mickey or Judy, and you are right that people lived vicariously through her, like BB, etc. As to the serial marriages, I guess it could mean she was trying; though what she did to Debbie Reynolds was not very admirable, especially with kids involved, and not a good example for the public to follow. But it became endemic of society, perhaps in imitation of Hollywood (or Paris) which can have so much influence for good or for bad.
Well, I would never call Annie Girardot homely, especially if you see her with longer hair which was more flattering. But she became I think like everyone's cousin or aunt or sister, so typical of the women in French families, very approachable, some said the "anti-vamp", so you can see why people, including BB, adored her. Here are a couple of videos I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47rvqj0BlLY
(yes, I don't know why it is always "de rigueur" for French actresses to unveil themselves, but...)
and this which was very touching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2srC0wOQYvQ
(It is hard for all of us to age, but for actresses it can be a death sentence.)
Yes, I love Michèle Morgan and glad she is still around. She was on Drucker last year I think and looked great. Loved her with Gérard Philipe in Les Orgueilleux too. She was also in an American film with Bogie, Passage to Marseilles, and of course Quai des brumes with Gabin, a classic.
Yes, Jeanne Moreau is still with us, a great actress, everything in the eyes. Adjani, I was mad about in college, wrote her letters that I never sent (lol), and she is the one BB admires of the younger generation.
Exactly right on the scripts. It was a golden age with many great opportunities for actors and actresses that I think we have now passed unfortunately, at least for now. Reese Witherspoon, yes, I saw her first film when she was 12 or so and I knew she would be a big star in America.
As to Cleopatra, I'm sure the full version makes a difference, though I would have pictured Sophia Loren in the role who was more exotic. Even BB was considered evidently. That would have been something! She actually looked great as a brunette as well, and with those incredible eyes... but I think her accent would have been too French.
Yes, I do have an opinion on Meryl Streep. Because she has been with us so long, people can get tired of her and forget her body of work. But she is not just a great mimic, she is a phenomenal actress, probably one of the best there ever was. I saw Sophie's Choice again recently and she is absolutely flawless, and I don't mean just the accent, or her Polish or German. She creates a real, multi-faceted woman with the whole gamut of human emotion and I am still mesmerized by her performance.
As to scripts, yes there is less choice unfortunately for women as they pass a certain age, so she is not immune either. Unfair, but part of the game I guess, and certainly worse for dancers and athletes.
Anyway, even though she was no longer in such demand as an actress, Elizabeth Taylor managed to do something positive with her later years, and she established her place in film history.
P.S. - I saw Streep in Julie & Julia last night at the recommendation of an American acquaintance. Probably more of a "chick flick" (not Terminator), but Streep was incredible as Julia Childs, and her "franglais" had me in stitches. She's still got it!
Also, it was so nice to see even an imaginary Paris of 1949 when France was still France--I wanted to jump through the screen and return there. (lol)
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