She was an enigmatic beauty as my son would say. The last of a generation of pure movie stars, glam and glitter, with an organic passion that just never quit. She died with her family around her, wealthy, and loved. As Joan Rivers said, "Where do I sign up?"
The world watched Elizabeth Taylor 
grow up in front of the camera
- from reserved ingénue to blowsy dame to earth Hollywood goddess
Married 8 times to about ever kind of man you can think of, she devoured a pop singer, a corporate titan, a great actor, accomplished politician, and construction worker. She married Richard Burton twice
and we watched as they burned each other out. Not in the way that reality and entertainment TV track Brittany Spears, but in a way that only a true queen of Hollywood could with a sense of humor about her self.
She graced the cover of LIFE magazine 14 times and, starred in 50 films. Her disturbing and riveting performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, made you crawl in your skin.
Who cares about the reviews for Cleopatraor the hoo-haw about her affair with Burton (they were both married to others at the time) or the astronomical budget spent on such a flop, that 5' 2" dame wore those costumes, make up and hair like nobody - talk about eye-candy. Seriously, who has touched her kind of glamour since?
I met her adopted daughter Maria Burton years ago when she was doing a bridal fashion shoot for a major magazine at Winterthur where I was head of public relations. It was just so intriguing to wonder what it was like growing up Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's daughter.
She suffer the pains of a passionate life -broken back, brain tumor, skin cancer, addictions, weight issues, and hip replacements. She was pronounced dead in 1960, and then wore the tracheotomy scar like one of her iconic necklaces from a jewelry collection that must rival QE.
Real life was as dramatic as screen life. She saved Montgomery Clift's life when he crashed his car after leaving her party. She pulled out teeth lodged in his throat. She grieved the death of husband Mike Todd in a plane crash, and pulled it together for a fierce portrayal of Maggie, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman. 
Talk about sizzle! And those violet eyes were mesmerizing when color pictures came out. As another writer eulogizing her death put it, Tennessee Williams, Maggie's creator, might have been thinking of Taylor when he observed that "high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace."
Her deep friendship with Rock Hudson who died of AIDS, spurred her philanthropic work in its research. She was one of the first celebrities to take up the cause and the Academy of Motion Pictures honored her with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1993. 
She saw beyond the patched and sad face of Michael Jackson whose dream was to look like her, and called him "son."
I imagine Elizabeth Taylor at some cocktail party on the other side with all the luminaries that preceded her. Champagne glass in one hand, cigarette in the other, jewels glittering, eyes flashing. Rock on Liz!
Comments(4)