Elizabeth Taylor: Hollywood's Queen
As anyone who's turned on the computer or the TV set knows by now, the Queen (of the movies) is dead. Tonight, Broadway will dim its marquees for the woman who was known in both theater and cinema as "The Last Star" (a theatrical tragedy compounded by the loss of groundbreaking playwright Lanford Wilson, who died the same day). Her stormy life was as epic as any of the roles she played, from Maggie the Cat to Cleopatra herself, especially with the man she acknowledged as the love of her multi-married life, the late theatre and screen great Richard Burton (who died of a massive stroke in 1984).
Indeed, Taylor had an almost Kennedy-esque, almost Shakespearean catalogue of tragedy, including the tabloid-fodder deaths of her nearest and dearest – Burton, Mike Todd, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, Malcolm Forbes, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson, even a miscarriage caused by first husband Nicky Hilton – and her own innumerable health and addiction problems. Few people since Cleopatra herself ever lived a life of as much unparalleled, foot-to-the-floor self-indulgence and luxury as she, especially in her heyday with Burton. Yet she is one of the few people of her level for whom the phrase "She gave back as much as she took" rings true.
Despite the weekly tabloid photos and stories, each more grotesque than the next, despite the trips to the hospital and the wheelchair and the fat jokes ("Elizabeth Taylor is the kind of woman who stares at a microwave and goes, 'Hurry up!'"), Elizabeth Taylor never lost her glamour, or her sense of humor. She told Oprah that during one of her several near-death experiences, she read her obituaries, "and they were the best reviews I ever got." May this be one of them.
Some stars, like Joan, Bette, Lucy, Cary Grant – the people who went from broken homes or dirt poverty to years pounding the boards on Broadway or a chorus line – loved the studio system and the stability it provided, and were absolutely traumatized when it collapsed. Others, like Judy, Marilyn, and some of the unfairly blacklisted screenwriters, could well be counted as its victims. Elizabeth Taylor was both. Her insatiable, addiction-prone personality and romantic catastrophes made her fit perfectly with those who had suffered under the studio regime, but her graciousness even in the face of disaster, and her indomitably regal, yet friendly and caring manner came straight from the top of the MGM playbook. Taylor was younger and considerably more chic and modern than the "Old Hollywood" divas of the '30s and '40s she succeeded, yet she was also clearly reaching her expiration date by the time the Easy Riders and Raging Bulls took over. She was both the studio system's final victim and its greatest living ambassador.
Her last truly great film (and her own personal favorite) was made over 40 years ago, 1966's Oscar-winner Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (with Burton, of course), where "the most beautiful woman in the world" hagged herself up, in a shockingly unglamorous role, and had the time of her life as the neurotic, abusive wife of a cold-fish novelist and professor. While the roles had been played memorably onstage before and would be again, there can be no question that Burton and Taylor's performances were the definitive ones, as much of the film's magic and success came from being seen as an all-too-real metaphor for their gloriously tempestuous marriage.
She at least fared somewhat better in later years on the small screen, especially in her last movie, the 2001 dramedy These Old Broads (written by Carrie Fisher, and featuring best galpals and fellow divas like Joan Collins, Shirley MacLaine, and her old romantic "rival" and longtime friend, Debbie Reynolds). She gave the definitive performance as campy columnist Louella Parsons in 1985's stylish TV comedy Malice in Wonderland (although Parsons on her best day would've wished she looked as good as Taylor on her worst. It was said that Taylor called the producers and told them she'd be playing the part as soon as it was announced, to pay back the late gossip queen for what she'd written about Taylor in the '50s). And unlike many glamour queens for whom looks and style were all they had, Taylor held her own in several Broadway and Shakespeare plays until ill health forced her off the boards.
This being a political site, however, it bears mentioning that much of what Elizabeth Taylor did and stood for was quite political indeed. Of course there was her rather desultory 1976-82 "rebound" marriage from Burton, to Sen. John Warner of Virginia, during which she spent most of her time starring on stage or at Wolf Trap, or making guest shots on her favorite daytime show, General Hospital. But there was far more.
It may be hard to remember now in our era of AZT and cocktail therapy today just how full of disinformation and panic the first few years of AIDS were in 1983 to 1985. And ribbon-wearing "consciousness-raising" conceit has sadly reduced a lot of otherwise worthy appeals to unintentional comedy. But it must be noted that when Elizabeth Taylor began her crusade, it was acceptable (especially in evangelical-fundamentalist circles) to pour hellfire and brimstone on AIDS victims dying in excruciating pain (and their friends and lovers), to say straight out that it was "God's judgment on the gays" for their "sexual immorality." .
Thanks in large part to high-profile people like Ms. Taylor, and the hard-line awareness they raised, this very real "blood libel" joined the n-word on the ash heap of history. And while probably no amount of "big government" intervention could've headed off the first round of deaths, there might have been far less funding and far more deaths had it not been for her. The millions upon millions she also privately raised for research with her involvement in things like AMFAR, Broadway Cares, and massive donations from her cosmetics/perfume lines no doubt helped speed things along to today's world – where AIDS, if not cured, at least isn't an automatic death sentence.
Perhaps in some sense the greatest "performance" of this Oscar-winning, Tony-nominated legend came when she gave hugs and kisses to every AIDS patient in a terminal ward during one of her hospital visits – after a dying man, when she asked him what she could do for him, asked her merely to hug him, having been treated as an untouchable leper by even family and friends.
Elizabeth Taylor left behind a catalog of performances and memories in every medium, on stages and screens, large and small. I'd wish her to "rest in peace," except it's hard to imagine Elizabeth Taylor in peaceful repose, even in death, at least for very long. But I'm glad that after all that, cinema's queen did leave us peacefully, with her family and longtime boyfriend by her side. Just as a Hollywood classic of her heyday would have demanded, Elizabeth Taylor finally got what she very much earned and deserved. A happy ending.