Archive for the 'California' Category

Elizabeth Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) ) died last week at the age of 79 with her family at her side. Ever since I was a little girl I have had this ‘thing’ for Elizabeth Taylor. I think it started because people used to tell me that I looked like her. As a child I didn’t really understand the significance of the comparison, but now I realize that it was a huge compliment. Like with all Hollywood icons, there is often good and bad rap, but I much rather focus on her zest for life and contributions than the fact that she had been married eight times.

Elizabeth Taylor was a survivor in every sense of the word. As a recent article in the New York Times, “Movies, Men, Melodramas” A Lust for Life by Manohla Dargis stated, “she had cheated death with a long line of infirmities that had repeatedly put her in the hospital—and on the front pages across the world—and in 1961 left her with a tracheotomy scar on a neck more accustomed to diamonds.” Anyone who knows anything about Taylor knows about her adoration and love affair with jewelry. Last year when in the Munich airport I wandered into a jewelry store and asked the salesgirl to try on at a pair of earrings behind the glass cabinet. She unlocked the door and handed me the silver embossed earrings. “You know Bulgari is Elizabeth Taylor’s favorite jewelry designer and she’s a woman who has good taste,” she blurted out without any solicitation on my part. I stood frozen at the thought that there was yet another connection between me and Elizabeth Taylor. I graciously tried on the earrings, glanced at the white price tag, smiled and handed them back to the salesgirl. I would never have felt comfortable spending that much money on myself!

Elizabeth Taylor was not formally trained as an actress. She was pushed into the profession by a stage mother who recognized the young girl’s talent. Many people claim that it was Taylor’s intrinsic beauty which landed her major roles in movies such as “Cleophatra, Cat on a Red Tin Roof, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Last Time I Saw Paris, The Flintstones, and An American Tragedy.

In 2007 California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inducted Elizabeth Taylor into the California Hall of Fame. Taylor donated a huge amount of money and time to AIDS related research. I also recently learned that she converted from Christian Science to Judaism and was a supporter of the Kabbalah, or the study of the mystical aspects of Judaism. She was married eight times to seven husbands, and many of you will remember her marriage twice to Richard Burton.

Elizabeth, you will always be dear to my heart. May you rest in peace.