Elizabeth Taylor's legacy

The caption to this photo is a doozy. Ultimate Liz.

Besides Virginia Woolf, I never thought of her as a great actress, but she seemed like a fascinating human being and I always enjoyed watching her even if the movie was a stinker. That's star power, baby.

Plus, there's all she did during the early years of AIDS when everyone else was too afraid to even mention the word.

[Quote] what movies are as an art

I love Liz but she was a movie star first and foremost. Her best role in Virgina Woolf is so lauded for two reasons; One, she deglamorized and gained weight in a time when these tactics just weren't done. Two, the incredibly hostile yet magnetic relationship between her and Burton in that movie which was art imitating life. It was a reflection of their real relationship.

She's wonderful also in National Velvet(which probably caused her intense pain for the rest of her life including being a drugged up mess at the end) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She's not a one role actress.

Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Crawford are the two that epitomizes "Movie Star" to me.

Can't really think of anyone else.

Shes forgotten now. MJ was maybe her last big stan. Probably was at her physical peak in Suddenly Last Summer?

Joanie would be totally lost too without Mommie Dearest.

The biggest stars are forgotten except for Marilyn and Audrey and how much more time will they have? Even Dean and Elvis have considerably faded in the last 10 years.

I'm shocked at how quickly Elvis has gone.

There's a lot of young people who know of these huge film Stars of the 20th century. TCM attracts way more youth then you oldies here on DL know.

Gay youths maybe

'TCM attracts way more youth then you oldies here on DL know.'

Need anybody say more?

[quote]TCM attracts way more youth then you oldies here on DL know.

Sure, Jan. Just like most teenagers go around streaming Judy Garland singing Swanee.

You guys must not see all the if the young millennials who are participating in TCM events the last few years?

You need to check out the various forums and Twitter pages and the film festivals etc. It's not just TCM, but it's also various other entities that are based in classic film culture. And check out the various TCM promos they have when young people talk about how they prefer older films to what's coming out today.

How do you think TCM is surviving? The audience is pretty diverse.

The demo for TMC has always skewed 55+.

But it doesn't really matter the ages of the viewers because there are so few of them compared to most channels.

I've been watching TCM since I was a kid. I'm 33 now. I'm not the traditional demo for the channel and yet I've been watching it for about three decades now. Again, I'm not the only young person who enjoys TCM.

I also wish they would expand their film library. It's time!

[quote] I'm shocked at how quickly Elvis has gone.

I'm not.

Popular culture is, and always has been, disposable. No one remembered Al Jolson when I was growing up in the 1970s, yet fifty years earlier he had been the biggest star in the USA.

I'm always amazed when DLers say they're sure their favorite pop culture divas will be remembered in 100 years. They absolutely will not be, except by a very few cultural historians at universities and colleges.

There's American presidents people never talk about, so a Hollywood Star unless they are truly an icone. Can definitely be forgotten about.

Sad, but it's true.

Classic rock crap like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd seems to be going strong. Elvis wasn't much older.

[quote]Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Crawford are the two that epitomizes "Movie Star" to me. Can't really think of anyone else.

Ahem.

She was no Vivien Leigh

Elizabeth Taylor's legacy = vulgar, tacky, manufactured floozy. Only interested in $$$. Fat and nose jobbed. Not one single good movie. A freak show. using AIDs to redeem herself after the Burton circus and capitalize on her "good gal" image. Same with the pedo frienship. opportunistically jewish. Her legacy is mainly the kardashian idea of celebrity. will be forgotten soon

R20 Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Crawford both had long careers that span decades and they both also had the money and the lifestyle to truly live like Movie Stars.

Marilyn was a Movie Star too, just not in the same way. Crawford and Taylor both put time and energy into perfecting idea of a Movie Star. Marilyn was glamorous and beautiful and definitely a huge screen Star. But Crawford and Taylor Taylor epitomized concept of Movie Stardom in a completely different way.

R23 they were no LANA

[quote]Marilyn was a Movie Star too, just not in the same way.

True. However, no one has paid $4.6 million for any of Taylor's or Crawford's film costumes. Several more of Monroe's go up for auction next week with a starting bid of $125,000 -150,000.

Liz was NOT tacky. The jewelry maybe was vulgar, but she wasn't all bad.

There should be Hollywood answer to the Smithsonian museum. All of this classic Hollywood memorabilia should all be kept together for history sake.

What about that new motion picture arts museum in LA? Don't they have a museum space there?

I've never been.

[quote] Liz was NOT tacky

not at all

R27 = ghost of Debbie Reynolds

[quote]Liz was NOT tacky.

Not '50s and early '60s Liz.

But late '60s and '70s Liz was VERY tacky. She was a fat, loud drunk better known for antics off-screen.

It was the height of the hotpants craze, R28.

Tacky? MOI????

R30 these Liz worshippers were not around in the 70's, when she became the symbol of old Hollywood tackiness and irrelevence

I dare you to watch that

or that

Leave Liz alone!!

Oh no no, R36, you opened pandora's box, now let's go into it

[quote]Not one single good movie.

I think National Velvet, A Date With Judy, A Place In The Sun, Father Of The Bride (and the sequel, Father's Little Dividend), Ivanhoe, Giant, and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf were good movies. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The VIPs, Julia Misbehaves and Little Women weren't bad.

campaining for her republican husband

[quote] A Date With Judy

had this beautiful thing in it

[quote] I think National Velvet, A Date With Judy, A Place In The Sun, Father Of The Bride (and the sequel, Father's Little Dividend), Ivanhoe, Giant, and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf were good movies. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The VIPs, Julia Misbehaves and Little Women weren't bad.

compared to

THE SEARCHERS

THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR

SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

WEST SIDE STORY

they're garbage

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Liz came from a time when the studios made larger than life stars and put them front and center in their movies. Liz worked exceptionally well under that strategy.

But by the 1970s, Hollywood didn't care about actors and put directors front and center. The best directors didn't want to compete with Liz Taylor. Therefore, the projects were not offered to her.

Also she sucked ass

when Losey tried, we all know the result

R41 Natalie Wooden played the lead in only 2 of those.

Tell, momma. Tell momma all. Especially where the chips and dip are.

She truly was a good egg…and a bit of a slut! A real broad.

She was so beautiful, but now when I look at a pic of her I just think of Richard Burton writing about how she had hemorrhoids dangling out of her hairy butt.

She was denounced by the Pope. It doesn't get any more fabulous than that.

Kitty Kelley wrote a book about her and Liz was NOT pleased!

La Liz! There was no one like her.

Fuck that bitch. I'll be remembered forever and she won't.

R52 You're famous for Lara Croft, your daddy and your latest husband. Elizabeth Taylor's husbands are famous because of her!

R45 completely untrue, she was the leading Lady in all of them, except THE GHOST. And I left out such classics like MIRACLE ON 34TH ST, GYPSY, B&C&T&A, THE GREAT RACE, and others. Liz Taylor would be a big deal compared to any other 60's starlet, but if you compare her filmo to Natalie 's she' s a garbage person

Are we on the "Liz Was a good actress" war path again ??? we just has a thread on that braindead zombie

She always came across as rather vulgar.

She looked like a Peruvian peasant suckling her young.

She had a tiny body and a HUGE head

So do all movie stars, R58

Nothing like bardot who was so perfectly built

R58 That's insane that that actually built those boats.

No wonder the film went so over budget.

all the smaller boats we tried...they sank the minute she went onboard

A lot of young people love “Some Like It Hot”, so Marilyn’s legacy will live on.

She's mostly known as MJ's enabler later in her life.

IMO Marilyn's legacy will survive as a model, rather than an actress. She probably was the most photogenic human being ever, and just a picture of her, with all the paraphernalia, says volumes about womanhood, and its place in society and spectacle. Audrey perhaps will remain a fashion icon. And Leigh, for GWTW. the rest will disappear.

Sometimes the opposite happens. People who were relatively obscure when they were still alive, only to become huge stars decades after their death. There are probably more college aged kids now who’ve heard of Sharon Tate or Nick Drake than in the 60s or 70s.

Jack Benny was HUGE. And no one currently alive remembers him. Johnny Carson faded quickly too.

Elizabeth was huge early on and even huger, literally, towards the end.

Elizabeth was the biggest star ever

R22 is an idiot.

To address one assertion: Elizabeth converted to Judaism for Mike Todd. Not out of "opportunism," unless you put love there.

Never heard of Nick Drake, r66. And I was "a college kid" in the 60s/70s.

R70 she had 25 husbands and only converted, very conveniently to that one's religion, like Monroe...not at all to appeal to the bigshots who were ALL jewish...pure coincidence...and love of course.

R65, Marilyn wasn't a model, not for any notable time and certainly not in the Kate Moss sense.

She was an actress. How major? Well, when you're imitated by another icon....

Nobody had heard of Nick Drake at the time, and he died. Pink Moon was in a car commercial, I believe. He's fairly well known now.

Millennial here who loves Liz. She’s downright brilliant in Virginia Woolf and quite good in Cat and Suddenly, Last Summer.

I even liked Butterfield 8, Cleopatra (the campy parts- NOW you are dismissed!), A Place in the Sun, Raintree County and Father of the Bride.

Boom! was abysmal though.

Liz isn’t in any danger of disappearing from the lives of gay millennials.

A Place in the Sun is magnificent. She embodied the most desirable girl in the world.

Mrs Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Burton Burton Warner Fortensky’s legacy will be the White Diamonds commercial aired at Christmastime in perpetuity.

Liz could be exquisitely beautiful at times, with her double lashes and violet eyes.

Everyone who hasn't already needs to go and watch Suddenly Last Summer.

I love her r77...

Yes, R79. "Suddenly Last Summer" is one of the greatest unintentional film comedies of all times.

With Monty as the brain surgeon or whatnot....

R81 thank you. anyone who says that la liz was GOOD in suddenly last summer (what a preposterous claim) is mentally challenged: " I'm gonna be lobotomized ?" -horrified eyes- "I shouldn't have bothered going to the hairdresser then"...LMAOROTFLOL

Nobody ever took that movie seriously. Seems like Alan Hollinghurst may have repurposed the ending of the movie in the end of his first book, but otherwise, it's always been camp???

She could be breathtaking (when young - early 50's) and she was an OK actress. She gave a couple of really TERRIFIC performances. SECRET CEREMONY and REFLECTION IN A GOLDEN EYE for instance. and a long line of terrible ones. Her biggest failure is CLEOPATRA; She was very good in CAT, but the movie is a bad soap opera. She wasn't very likeable as a person, would walk over anyone who stood between her and more $$$, publicity or sex, and she was vulgar, but she was a big star, respected by her peers. At least in the US. The english actors generally loathed her. She had the most beautiful violet eyes, and will be remembered for them.

"Elizabeth Taylor is forgotten, a has been, blah de be blah blah." ahahahahahhahahahhahahahahha

contrarian nonsense.

She was no Jean Simmons

the only CLEOPATRA

R85, "Cleopatra" was "the highest-grossing film of 1963,(Wikipedia)," and won four Academy Awards. Taylor's salary was over $1 million, the highest theretofore for an actress.

How was this movie Elizabeth's "biggest failure"?

I'll see you outside, r88...

R79 I think Suddenly Last Summer is the only movie role where she didn't have a love interest!

R91 She pimped herself out for Sebastian in order to attract boys to him.

R62, ET was a child actor. If anyone knew the score about whom to please, it was she (and her mother). So why would she have waited until adulthood to convert?

But you give me the opportunity, at least, to edit: Elizabeth studied Judaism after Mike Todd's death, and converted for her marriage to Eddie Fisher.

Her wardrobe in this one was really something.

[quote]Plus, there's all she did during the early years of AIDS when everyone else was too afraid to even mention the word.

Not just the early days - she continued until the end. She was one of the greatest friends the "gay community" ever had.

Aids advocate, iconic film star. Husband stealer.

“Fed up with the dark ones, famished for the light ones..”

She was great! No complaints about her at all.

[quote]“Fed up with the dark ones, famished for the light ones.”

Was she talking about pieces of fried chicken?

Yes she was tacky- but in a Continental European manner- it was deliberate- you see it in the resort towns of Switzerland, Austria and Italy.. Most of all she did not take herself seriously and in her post movie star career used her spectacular celebrity and beauty to help others. Big time.

I recall her saying how she could use her celebrity to raise money “they all come to see how fat I am and ogle my jewelry and I raise a million doing so.” I also love her response to a journalist when flashing her huge diamond and asked whether the jewel was vulgar, she responded, “would you have me any other way?”

Most famously she keep her council and that of her friends as well. She knew where the bodies were buried and who did what to whom. She kept her mouth shut. She actually preserved her privacy with a very large and devoted family.

A great beauty, a great movie star, a survivor, and a great woman.

PS, I saw her in person once in NYC in one of her slimmer phases and she was tiny, and more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever seen- more so than photographed. And really small- that is what surprised me.