Elizabeth Taylor passed away today at the age of 79. Her first movie I saw when I was a child was National Velvet, which is probably the first movie that many kids saw with her and is one of the great “horse” movies. One of the last movies I saw with her in it was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which features one of her best acting performances. In her later life, she did some of her greatest work for humanitarian causes such as Aids research, an issue she embraced before many others did.
Although she was known for her glamor and beauty, one of her greatest roles played against those strengths, as seen in this scene from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Richard Burton. She gives a frightening performance that won her a second acting Oscar.
She won her other acting Oscar for Butterfield 8. Also, at the 1993 Academy Awards, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Although she will probably be more remembered for the above movies, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Cleopatra for different reasons, one movie that should not be overlooked is Giant, where she starred with Rock Hudson, James Dean, and young Dennis Hopper. While far from a perfect movie, there is a lot to love in the messy epic.
Although a CNN anchor just tried to describe Elizabeth Taylor as her day’s “Angelina Jolie,” it is not a very good comparison. For better or worse, stars were different back then. Either way, it is great that we still have her work to enjoy. Rest in peace.
What is your favorite Elizabeth Taylor movie or scene? Leave a comment.
(Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)
(2010) — released on DVD this month — are different but haunting in a similar way. So that after watching it, I felt like I had not breathed for the entire 88 minutes running time. Yael Hersonski’s documentary examines an unfinished Nazi propaganda film taken of the Warsaw Ghetto in May 1942, a few months before the people there started being sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. Although that uncompleted propaganda film, called “Das Ghetto,” was found soon after the end of World War II, another film of outtakes found in 1998 revealed how much of the propaganda film was staged. The Nazis made the Jewish people in the film participate in staged scenes to highlight a contrast between the poor and those who appeared to be more affluent.
, does an excellent job of showing all sides of the story, featuring interviews with Spitzer as well as with several of Spitzer’s enemies. The story gives one a new perspective on the major players. Among other revelations, one learns that the woman featured in multiple covers of New York tabloids and interviewed by Diane Sawyer had only one encounter with Spitzer. As a result of the media attention, she is now a 
