Elizabeth Taylor belonged to an elite group of women. Iconic, beautiful, talented, famous and difficult. Born in England to American parents her birth year, 1932, alone saw the arrivals of Johnny Cash, John Updike, Sylvia Plath, Halston, Jacques Chirac, Ellen Burstyn, Oscar de la Renta, Patsy Cline and Ted Kennedy to name but a few. With violet eyes to die for and a natural glamour even as a child she stood out among a huge pool of talent.
Elizabeth Taylor was one of the Good People. Her friendship with the wonderful Rock Hudson spawned hundreds of millions for AIDS research and charities. I love her for that. I love her for being a friend to a Gay man "back then" and when he died of AIDS in 1985 she made it her life's work to try and stop AIDS from taking other peoples' friends.
As late as 2006 well into her 70s she was on the ball and making huge donations to AIDS patients in the wake of hurricane Katrina. I think she was there before the president or FEMA but that's another post.
She was a mother of four, a wife of seven (married actually 8 times twice to Richard Burton, can you blame her? DREAMY) and lover of ummm quite a few. I adore that she married the men she loved most. She believed in love, that this one is forever. She never gave up hope.
I love Elizabeth Taylor because right after brain surgery she had her dog brought into her. I would so do that.
I love that her surviving friends keep saying they remember how giving she was, how beautiful, and how funny.
No matter how you remember her, as a young girl in Lassie Come Home, as a full grown and very beautiful woman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or as the Queen of the Nile herself Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor was one of the greats.
Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011 Friend, Humanitarian, Mother, Oscar Winner, Wife
"A tad overweight but with violet eyes to die for" Doonesbury, January 1979 by Gary Trudeau
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