I feel like this particular thread has morphed into the "
cult of personality" or "pop-
culture" thread... the death of Elizabeth Taylor, to me, falls under this catagory. This article from today, highlights what I've been posting about pretty effectively...
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/obi ... 4_CV_N.htmElizabeth Taylor: The biggest star ever?
It could be said of the death of Elizabeth Taylor: Now she belongs to the ages. But the truth is, Taylor has always belonged to the ages — it's why her absence is so significant to millions. How can it be that Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor won't be around to admire, envy and gawk over, ever again?
Taylor, who died Wednesday at age 79 of congestive heart failure after weeks in a hospital in Los Angeles, once said she wanted her tombstone to read: "She lived." And oh, did she ever.
"She embodied everything it is to be a movie star," says Turner Classic Movies weekend host and film expert Ben Mankiewicz. "There's such a tendency to diminish her talent while looking at her stardom. I don't think they have to be separated, they're one and the same. But you can't escape the awesome power of her stardom."
Her legacy is lengthy: three Oscars, several memorable films (National Velvet, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Butterfield 8), her role in encouraging more acceptance for gay people, and her clarion call for more attention to the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic at a time of widespread indifference. She has been iconic virtually since World War II, one of the last products of the old Hollywood studio system. And, thanks to her friendships with the likes of Michael Jackson and Elton John, she has been a forerunner of today's celebrity-driven pop culture. Her last important movie was in 1966, and still her star power endured.
Liz (she actually disliked the headline-friendly nickname) Taylor is the gold standard, says Nancy Schoenberger, co-author of Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Marriage of the Century. "The level of her fame and glamour and the sheer dazzle of the woman was unparalleled. I don't know if we'll have that kind of movie stardom again."
AFP/Getty Images
Elizabeth Taylor with friend Michael Jackson at the American Music Awards, Jan. 25, 1993.
There are actresses who aren't stars, and stars who aren't actresses — "and she was both," says Howard Bragman, longtime Hollywood publicist and author of Where's My Fifteen Minutes?
Superlatives usually failed to capture the Taylor aura. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, she was the greatest movie goddess in the world. She also suffered from multiple medical ailments and nearly died several times in her nearly eight decades.
"Elizabeth Taylor is immortal — as long as we're speaking about Hollywood, we'll be talking about Elizabeth Taylor, the pre-eminent cinematic star of the 20th century," says one of her biographers, C. David Heymann, author of Liz: An Intimate Biography of Elizabeth Taylor. "She was a comet, an 80-year comet."
'We got it all with her'
But the biggest star ever? "Who more than Elizabeth Taylor?" says another of her biographers, William Mann, author of How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood. "She was so remarkable at making us care equally about her personal life as much as we cared about her movies. We got it all with her."
She was the most notorious, the most tempestuous, the most bejeweled, the most generous, the most blessed, the most tragic screen star in the Hollywood firmament. She was a supernova celebrity who pioneered a new standard of fame even before 24/7 media. As one of the first stars to live her life almost entirely in the global public eye, she could teach Angelina, Lindsay and Gaga and, yes, Charlie, a thing or two about grace and gauche under pressure.
"Today, you can't be a big celebrity unless we know everything about you, and that goes back to Elizabeth," Mann says. "She showed that you take the parts of your life that will resonate with the public and use them to your advantage. Everything that is standard about celebrities today can be traced to Elizabeth Taylor, whether it's causes or personal lives or the marketing."