legends: march.

the book legends by john miller catalogs "women who have changed the world."  given to me as a gift 8 years ago, it inspired me to dedicate the last friday of every month's post to a different legend (in my humble opinion).

this month's legend breaks my heart: the late elizabeth taylor.  oddly enough, i planned ms. taylor as the subject of this post just a day before her death.  when i heard the sad news on wednesday, i found it all the more fitting to pay tribute to the stunning legend this month. 

knowing of my love for classic movies, my friend c was shocked when she found out recently that i'd never seen the 1956 epic giant, and she wasted no time lending it to me.  the film, starring elizabeth taylor, rock hudson, and james dean, tells the story of the rise of the oil industry in texas through the struggles and triumphs of one ranch (albeit a large one) and the family who lives on it.  while watching the movie, i realized this was the first time i'd seen elizabeth taylor in anything other than the 1949 little women, when i was a little girl myself.  she hovers as a larger than life personality, but it was interesting to see her in action and in her heyday.  and her beauty is undeniable.

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 {perhaps her most iconic role, as cleopatra, via}

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{before there was brangelina, there was liz 'n' dick, via}

one would find it hard to dispute that, although she had seven husbands, richard burton was the love of her life.  they met on the set of cleopatra, and although they were both married at the time, the chemistry portrayed in the film boiled over into real life, creating an unprecedented and unstoppable mega-watt star couple that overshadowed any work they did on screen.  although their marriages (yes, 2!) were tumultuous, it is interesting to hear that elizabeth, speaking to us magazine in late 2010, was still heart-broken that richard never won an oscar. 

 

it is unfortunate that my generation grew up knowing liz as little else than the somewhat eccentric spokesperson behind her many perfume lines and a good friend to michael jackson.  she is a woman who lived fully and passionately, albeit sometimes destructively, who won two oscars - for butterfield 8 in 1960 and who's afraid of virginia wolf in 1966 - and who spent her later years raising awareness and funds for hiv/aids research and treatment, a cause she took up when her good friend rock hudson was dying of the disease and before much of it was understood.  

 

from the washington post: more than for any film role, she became famous for being famous, setting a media template for later generations of entertainers, models and all variety of semi-somebodies.  she was the “archetypal star goddess,” biographer diana maddox once wrote.

 

"i never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands...

for me, life happened, just as it does for everyone else."

xo. di.

*images as noted above