We’ve lost many Hollywood legends in recent years but the death of Elizabeth Taylor really strikes a chord. It wasn’t that she was one of the acting greats; in fact only a handful of her 50-odd movies would make a desert island list (see below). It wasn’t that she was building new audiences with each passing generation; in fact her last movie appearance was a cameo in The Flintstones eighteen years ago. But there was something about Elizabeth Taylor that kept her in the public consciousness as the very epitome of a movie star.
Part of that legend was undoubtedly down to the litany of off-screen heart-aches, multiple marriages and multiple medical problems. Part of that legend was due to the tireless humanitarian crusades on which she embarked, notably in the cause of Aids research followed the death of her great friend, Rock Hudson. But mostly it was down to the fact she grew up in front of a camera that absolutely loved her. She made her first appearance on screen as a nine-year-old and was a fully fledged star by the age of 12 (National Velvet). She was a vision in monochrome in movies such as A Place in the Sun (1951), but when the Technicolor cameras got a hold of her violet eyes, her place in the Hollywood pantheon was assured.
If you want to remember Elizabeth Taylor in her prime, check out her dazzling, Oscar-winning performance opposite her legendary soul-mate Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). You’re looking at an actress at the very height of her powers; a woman of whom Paul Newman declared, "she has a sense of immediacy that is irresistible on the screen. She is a functioning voluptuory." In their classic movie together, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Newman famously asks what is the achievement of a cat on a hot tin roof? "Just staying on, I guess," she purrs.
Elizabeth Taylor stayed on for more than six decades, and for that we salute her.
Elizabeth Taylor’s Unmissable Movies
* Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
* Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
* Giant (1956)
* A Place in the Sun (1951)
* Father of the Bride (1950)
* Little Women (1949)
* National Velvet (1944)
The Elizabeth Taylor interview
Michael Doherty was lucky enough to secure a rare interview with Elizabeth Taylor, backstage at the 1993 Oscars, where the double-Oscar winner was being presented with a special award in honour of her humanitarian work. We reprint it below.
The first thing you notice is the eyes. Those extraordinary violet eyes have been staring off the silver screen for the past 50 years, yet nothing prepares you for the shock of seeing them up close. Like many before me, I fell in love with those eyes when, as a pimply youth, I first saw Ivanhoe.
Elizabeth Taylor has just received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at this year's Oscar ceremony and she proudly clutches her golden statuette. Dressed regally in a pale yellow medieval-cut dress, the only attention-grabbing rival to those eyes is a necklace of emeralds and diamonds, the sale of which would instantly eradicate the Bolivian national debt.
While many of tonight's illustrious attendees are sporting fake jewellery and keeping the originals under lock and key, one suspects only the real McCoy would be allowed to grace the Taylor neckline and ear lobes. Make no mistake, Elizabeth Taylor is the closest the Americans have to royalty since the day they booted out the Redcoats. And the lady has obliged by looking the part.
Previously famous for her fluctuating weight and the diversity of rings on the third finger of her left hand, Ms Taylor looks in perfect health. Her marriage to Larry Fortensky has been such a success that tabloid writers in America have had to re-open their files on Elvis sightings and Marilyn Monroe conspiracy theories.
The Hersholt Award recognises individuals in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry. This year marked the first occasion that two recipients have been so honoured. Sadly, the death of Audrey Hepburn denied us the opportunity of seeing two of the all-time greats taking their place on stage. "While my dearest, gentle Audrey is now in Heaven, forever guarding her beloved children," Elizabeth Taylor commented in her acceptance speech, "I will remain as rowdy an activist as I have to be and, God willing, for as long as I have to be."
Elizabeth Taylor began her "rowdy activism" in 1985 when she was invited to chair the Commitment To Life Dinner, one of the very first Aids benefits. She went on to found AmFar, the American Foundation for Aids Research, and quickly became the organisation’s leading fund-raiser. Not content with that, she established the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation which focused on Aids care as well as research. She still believes that governments are slow to take up the reins in this regard.
"No, governments are not doing enough. More money should be spent on research and on patient care. Medication costs too much money and it should be subsidised. There is just not enough being done."
On the subject of whether Hollywood itself is doing enough to highlight a problem which has taken many high profile lives in the community, Elizabeth Taylor is more optimistic. "I think the community itself, the people who live here, are every active and very supportive. It is very difficult and tricky to put the subject of Aids into films and still capture an audience, to get that audience in and educate them; because people don’t want to be educated. It is not an entertaining subject, so I can see why producers have a hard time making a film about a subject that is so serious. I wish producers would make more moving films about the dramas that do go on. I mean it is laden with drama."
In a year which, despite the theme of that Oscar ceremony, has been regraded as bad one for women in Hollywood, the actress, who previously scooped Oscars for Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), feels that the problem lies with the projects on offer: "I think writers have to write scripts specifically for the women who are around. There are some wonderful actresses out there and it is a shame that they are not working."
Though Elizabeth Taylor managed to convert five Oscar nominations into two gongs, she admits that this third statuette is a more significant achievement: "It is more special to me because it has to do, I guess with me as a person, rather than me as an actress interpreting somebody else’s words or work. This is based on what I do as a human being. I don’t think of myself as a humanitarian. I think of myself as fund-raiser and somebody who has a need and a passion to so something rather than just taking a back seat."
So will we see Queen Elizabeth getting back in the front seat and in front of the camera again?
"I’m very happy with my life right now,'' she tells me. ''If something fascinating came along I might be interested, but nothing fascinating has come along so I keep myself very busy."
Michael Doherty
