Woman of the World

I was thinking that it was about time for a Garbo moment, but then I heard (thank you, TJB!) that this remarkable creature would have turned 85 today. What better reason for an Elizabeth moment?

Accept No Substitutes

So.  I hear people have been talking about her a little this weekend.  That certainly wouldn't surprise her, although the low-rent context might - that was one thing she never was.

And God knows, she was many things.  Star - no, for her it can be said: superstar.  Beauty, at moments nearly unparalled.  Actress, and at times a damn good one.  Bonne vivante, gourmande, and acolyte of excess in almost every conceivable form. Wife (also at times a good one), mother, grandmother, philanthropist, activist, author, entrepreneur (few in Hollywood died richer).  Child, girl, woman, old woman, all in the very middle of the public eye.

All I have to say about this latest assault on her legend is to echo what another Hollywood survivor, Mr. Bugs Bunny, might have said:  da noive.

This impertinent attempt does conjure up one question:  has there ever been a really satisfactory incarnation on film of a film legend?  The only one that springs to my feeble mind is Betty Comden in Garbo Talks, and she was given only the (daunting) task of impersonating the star's back.  I know that Blanchett won an Oscar for her Hepburn, but I found it vaguely embarrassing, a party trick at best (and not, in the end, all that precise an impression).  Downey's Chaplin is close, I suppose, but the movie was all over the place, and after that it's kind of a yawning void - Mr. Barbra Streisand and An Unmarried Woman were hardly a satisfactory Gable and Lombard, and Dunaway as Crawford strays perilously close to Lizanddickland.  In the sixties, there were two attempts at Harlow, both flops (deservedly), and more recently Kirsten Dunst as a pretty blonde called Marion Davies, but nothing like the original in manner or looks.

One thing the last twenty-four hours have taught us:  when it comes to a force of nature like Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Chevalière de la Légion d'Honneur (among countless other gongs, two Oscars not the least of them) - the viewing public would have been a lot better off, last night, watching BUtterfield 8.

Diamond Anniversary

Sixty years ago today, Elizabeth Taylor ended her academic career, a fetching graduate of Hollywood's University High School. Or at least was photographed by Life, cap-and-gowned, as doing so.

Time in its Flight

Today's sad news is the kind of thing that unsteadies us, unwitting passengers as we are in something like the opposite of Fitzgerald's boat that was so famously "borne ceaselessly into the past." We're hurtling, helpless, into the future, yet further from the ever-receding, once-familiar shore.

Senator Edward Moore Kennedy was a paragon of no virtues but the civic ones, and I've always been essentially immune to the fabled Kennedy charm. Nonetheless, he and his extended family helped shape the last half-century or more of our American life, and for a while they did so with a lot of panache.

Here's an example, albeit a latish one: The first Mrs. Senator Kennedy, Joan, for whom I've always had a sneaking fondness, sandwiched between another sometime political matron, Mrs. Senator Warner, and her sister-in-law, Princess Lee.

The Kennedy ladies all trailed in the wake of Rose and Jackie O, and Joan had the disadvantage of being neither a born-Kennedy, nor a Bouvier, nor, like Ethel, a Martyr's Widow. She was, therefore always, comparatively, B-list. Still, she did the best with what she had, and when she'd had enough, threw it all in for life outside the charmed circle. She's had a hard row to hoe since, but here she is in memory's eye, poised, like her family, between Hollywood and royalty (well, semi-, at least), and seemingly carefree.

Today, nothing seems quite so simple, really; wasn't ever, I suppose, however much we liked to think so. I've quoted it before, but Shakespeare always says it best - "Golden lads and girls all must /As chimney sweepers come to dust." And just so we cover all the cliché-bases: good night, sweet prince...

Something Spiteful and Elegant

I just happened home, after a latish evening out (business party - is there any drearier phrase?), to find some odd station showing BUtterfield 8. What a strange, awkward, weirdly moving film.

The picture may all fall apart at the end, but the ten minutes of pantomime that open it should have put to rest once and forever the question of whether its star can act: she is as effective as any of the great silent stars, with an anger and reserve that boils over into the whole first hour.

Watching this performance, I found it bizarre to think that she's still with us. Her buxom, sly brand of lacquered, earthy glamour seems as far removed as the acting of Sarah Siddons; she is a goddess as grande horizontale - or is it vice versa?

The Many Friends of Lena Horne

Everybody loves Lena! And why not?

She's stunning, but not so much that she pulls focus entirely from - I'm guessing on the timeline here - Mrs. Warner;

She's equally at home tossing one back with Tony...

...or kindly leading a guest who may already have had enough to the nearest exit.

She's happy leaning on a guest (bonus points for anyone who can explain why Shirley showed up in a T-shirt, velour housedress, blazer, and pearls - maybe it's one of those reincarnation things?)...

...or herself providing a suprisingly strong knee on which to perch.

God knows she's more patient than I, not batting an eye at being nearly swept aside by Lucy's furs -

Or having her audience distracted when a pal stops by in an outfit only marginally more comprehensible than Shirley's.

And, like all genuine divas, she bursts into living color when at least she meets a true peer. Title this one "when goddesses embrace."

I like knowing that Lena is still with us, albeit quietly, her days of entwined cocktails and evicting junkies, perhaps to her relief, behind her. She's the real deal.

Three on a Match

Well, definitely three on something. If I had to guess, I'd say the Quaaludes were just kicking in. Still, wouldn't you kill to have been there?

The March of Time

The passing years are a challenge for even the greatest stars. One moment you're Queen of the Lot, at the top of your game, and the next you've started that long, slow slide that takes you through memoirs, TV movies, and appearances at increasingly obscure film festivals to oblivion.

It can start without warning. For example, I believe that Dame Elizabeth, whatever else happened thereafter, experienced the Movie Star equivalent of Jumping the Shark the moment she donned that headdress.

For many, the next step is an ill-advised return to the stage, all too often playing against type. Is there anything in the world less hard-boiled than Claudette Colbert, drooping cig or no?

Suddenly, you find yourself wearing unfortunate jewelry and biting nervously at the centerpiece...

Some few, in the end, achieve a rare grace; Miss Lillian, luckier than most, seems never to have made a wrong step (except perhaps that hat) during the last three decades of her long, long life, holding her own even against Miss Davis and coming out smiling.

But most are not so lucky, as evidenced by frail, sad Lucy, apparently attempting a slo-mo slap at the hapless (and for the moment, unsuspecting) Dorothy Lamour impersonator to her left.

Beyond that, draw the veil; you don't want to venture into the final stages, the time of This 'n' That, the Motion Picture Country Home ("Irving! Where is Irving? We'll be late for my premiere!"), and moments like the ghost of Mary Pickford appearing live, more or less, from Pickfair on the 1976 Oscars.

It's no surprise that Ruth Elizabeth said it best: old age is no place for sissies. Ironic, though - given that it's mostly sissies that are paying attention...

Ladies and their Tigers (and Spots, and Fluffies...)

What accessory is more versatile, offstage or on, than the right animal? Generations of stars have known it, from Josephine Baker, who heightened her exoticism in Parisian eyes by walking in the Bois with her pet cheetah...


To Kim Novak, whose innate chilliness was only enhanced by the presence of a minatory Siamese..

Joan Crawford's pack of poodles, by contrast, were carefully marshalled to warm up her image (and at least poodles can't inadvertently use wire hangers).

Today, stars still clutch their four-legged friends, although one senses it's in many cases as much for comfort as promotion. Elizabeth Taylor, for heaven's sake, has no need to raise her profile any further, but remains devoted:

It's hard to imagine some stars romping with animals. Nonetheless, most do, at least on film, as in this touching exchange between Miss Golightly and her pet cat, Cat.

I believe there are lessons in each of these images; what they are, I'm not so sure.

Get Well, Please, Cleopatra-Maggie-Martha-Velvet-Sissy Goforth

Elizabeth Taylor, reports the British, has been Very Ill, but is Now Recovering. Let's hope that's so, and while doing so, remember how incredibly beautiful, how gallant, and how generally a good old thing she is and has been, for so very long.

It also makes me oddly happy to know that her middle name is "Rosemond."

Image du Jour: Flashback

It was a time when goddesses roamed the earth...

... clad in Halston, insulated from reality by pharmaceuticals, and staring at the off-camera shirtless cater-waiter and his tantalizing tray of cocktails...

Tables for Two

Just when you think teh Interwebs have lost the capacity to entertain, you go and find something like Celebrities Playing Table Tennis and your faith in the future is restored. It's a veritable Who's Who, including any number of people whom you wouldn't have thought even owned sportswear.

People like Dolores Del Rio, apparently snapped playing in a light moment on-set, in the only backless ping pong outfit ever made:

Or the future Dame Elizabeth Taylor in what may have been her last active moment, from the look of it, just before she became Mrs. Senator John Warner and it all started to go so Very Wrong:

Perhaps it was prescribed as part of Mr. Mayer's exercise-and-diet plan for young Judy Garland:

And there's never a bad excuse for Guy Madison to take off his shirt:

Wynne Gibson had the first (and, one hopes, only) matching bra-and-paddle ensemble:

"Celebrity" is defined marvelously broadly, so we are treated to things like the Duchess of Cornwall at a tense moment:

And (to my mind the real treasure of this trove) a Princess of a very different kind - Zsa Zsa, about to bat a ball away as imperiously as she did half-a-dozen husbands:

Bitch stole my table tennis frock!

Go, and enjoy - but beware. The proprietor takes his table tennis very seriously. Oh, and the gent with Zsa Zsa? Not a husband; we're told he is, instead, "Long Beach TTA President John Hann."

How one wonders this particular event came about; the thing about Gabors is that you can't tell anything from the outfit. In their universe, that is daywear. Maybe she just dropped by.