Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Restaurants get off to a quick start thanks to game-changing policies
High service charges on event ticket refunds call for further regulation
Sunday
- Subscribe
LIZ: Living life to the fullest
By David Germain |
March 25, 2011, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ELIZABETH Taylor went from dazzling, violet-eyed beauty in her glory years to self-described ruin in old age.
She spent almost her entire life in the public eye, from tiny dancer performing at age 3 before the future queen of the UK, to child screen star to scandalous home-wrecker to three-time Academy Award winner for both acting and humanitarian AIDS work.
A diva, she made a spectacle of her private life - eight marriages, ravenous appetites for drugs, booze and food, ill health that sparked headlines constantly proclaiming her at death's door. All of it often overshadowed the fireworks she created on screen.
Yet for all her infamy and indulgences, Taylor died Wednesday a beloved idol, a woman who somehow held onto her status as one of old Hollywood's last larger-than-life legends, adored even as she waned to a tabloid figure.
She once told interviewer Barbara Walters that on her tombstone she wanted the epitaph: "Here lies Elizabeth. She lived."
Taylor, 79, died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. "We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts," said her son, Michael Wilding.
A star from her teen years in such films as "National Velvet," "Little Women" and "Father of the Bride," Taylor won best-actress Oscars as a high-end hooker in 1960s "Butterfield 8" and an alcoholic shrew in a savage marriage in 1966's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
In the latter, she starred with husband Richard Burton, their on-screen emotional tempest considered a glimpse of their stormy real lives (they divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975 and divorced again a year later).
For all the ferocity of her screen roles, Taylor was remembered for her gentler, life-affirming side.
"The shock of Elizabeth was not only her beauty," said "Virginia Woolf" director Mike Nichols. "It was her generosity, her giant laugh, her vitality, whether tackling a complex scene on film or deciding where we would all have dinner until dawn."
She called it quits on the big screen with 1994's "The Flintstones," playing caveman Fred's nagging mother-in-law. She bid farewell to the small screen with 2001's "These Old Broads," a geriatric diva romp co-starring Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins and one-time romantic rival Debbie Reynolds, whose husband, Eddie Fisher, left her for Taylor in the late 1950s.
She was remembered for her friendship, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends.
Collins called Taylor one of the last of the true Hollywood icons. "There will never be another star who will come close to her luminosity and generosity, particularly in her fight against AIDS," she said.
Taylor herself, however, suffered through the decades.
She fell from a horse while shooting 1944's "National Velvet," causing a back injury that plagued her for the rest of her life. Her third husband, producer Michael Todd, died in a plane crash after only a year of marriage. Taylor had life-threatening bouts with pneumonia, a brain tumor and congestive heart failure in her 60s and 70s; she suffered from drug and alcohol abuse, including a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and painkillers. She had at least 20 major operations, and also dealt with obesity, packing on as much as 60 pounds and later shedding it.
"Eating became one of the most pleasant activities I could find to fill the lonely hours and I ate and drank with abandon," she said.
Taylor said in a 2004 interview that "my body's a real mess ... Just completely convex and concave."
She was a child star and grew up quickly.
"I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman," she once said. "I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt."
As her Hollywood career was winding down and her first stint in rehab lay ahead, Taylor at 50 looked back at her life self-critically but unapologetically.
"I don't entirely approve some of the things I have done, am or have been," she said. "But I'm me. God knows, I'm me."
She spent almost her entire life in the public eye, from tiny dancer performing at age 3 before the future queen of the UK, to child screen star to scandalous home-wrecker to three-time Academy Award winner for both acting and humanitarian AIDS work.
A diva, she made a spectacle of her private life - eight marriages, ravenous appetites for drugs, booze and food, ill health that sparked headlines constantly proclaiming her at death's door. All of it often overshadowed the fireworks she created on screen.
Yet for all her infamy and indulgences, Taylor died Wednesday a beloved idol, a woman who somehow held onto her status as one of old Hollywood's last larger-than-life legends, adored even as she waned to a tabloid figure.
She once told interviewer Barbara Walters that on her tombstone she wanted the epitaph: "Here lies Elizabeth. She lived."
Taylor, 79, died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. "We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts," said her son, Michael Wilding.
A star from her teen years in such films as "National Velvet," "Little Women" and "Father of the Bride," Taylor won best-actress Oscars as a high-end hooker in 1960s "Butterfield 8" and an alcoholic shrew in a savage marriage in 1966's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
In the latter, she starred with husband Richard Burton, their on-screen emotional tempest considered a glimpse of their stormy real lives (they divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975 and divorced again a year later).
For all the ferocity of her screen roles, Taylor was remembered for her gentler, life-affirming side.
"The shock of Elizabeth was not only her beauty," said "Virginia Woolf" director Mike Nichols. "It was her generosity, her giant laugh, her vitality, whether tackling a complex scene on film or deciding where we would all have dinner until dawn."
She called it quits on the big screen with 1994's "The Flintstones," playing caveman Fred's nagging mother-in-law. She bid farewell to the small screen with 2001's "These Old Broads," a geriatric diva romp co-starring Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins and one-time romantic rival Debbie Reynolds, whose husband, Eddie Fisher, left her for Taylor in the late 1950s.
She was remembered for her friendship, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends.
Collins called Taylor one of the last of the true Hollywood icons. "There will never be another star who will come close to her luminosity and generosity, particularly in her fight against AIDS," she said.
Taylor herself, however, suffered through the decades.
She fell from a horse while shooting 1944's "National Velvet," causing a back injury that plagued her for the rest of her life. Her third husband, producer Michael Todd, died in a plane crash after only a year of marriage. Taylor had life-threatening bouts with pneumonia, a brain tumor and congestive heart failure in her 60s and 70s; she suffered from drug and alcohol abuse, including a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and painkillers. She had at least 20 major operations, and also dealt with obesity, packing on as much as 60 pounds and later shedding it.
"Eating became one of the most pleasant activities I could find to fill the lonely hours and I ate and drank with abandon," she said.
Taylor said in a 2004 interview that "my body's a real mess ... Just completely convex and concave."
She was a child star and grew up quickly.
"I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman," she once said. "I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt."
As her Hollywood career was winding down and her first stint in rehab lay ahead, Taylor at 50 looked back at her life self-critically but unapologetically.
"I don't entirely approve some of the things I have done, am or have been," she said. "But I'm me. God knows, I'm me."
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
