Elizabeth Taylor, R.I.P

She was a beauty in her time. She defined beauty. She was the beautiful woman. She defined glamor. She was the role model for celebrity. She was a great actress. Check out "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", "Butterfield 8," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly, Last Summer." She was Elizabeth Taylor, super star, one of those bigger than life persons who was a dominate force in popular culture of the 1950s and mid-1960s. She made good films, but became more famous than her films. She became who she was Elizabeth Taylor, personality, celebrity, rich, and interesting for being Elizabeth Taylor.

She was an American icon. News? Gossip about her life, and her romances, and her marriages sucked up more than her share of the space of the fan magazines of her era. She and the man whom she called the love of her life, Richard Burton, may be forever listed among the most romantic couples of history and of literature. She began making films at age nine, made more than fifty movies, had a public career of over seventy years. She died this morning,Wednesday in a Los Angeles hospital . She was seventy nine years old..

Elizabeth Taylor lived a good life. She had a successful career. She made money and she gave back in humanitarian work .In 1993, for her advocacy for AIDS research and for other humanitarian work, she received a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in her acceptance speech she said, "I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being - to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame."

I remember her work well. I saw many of her movies. Followed her life on televisions. Watched her on TV handing out the best picture Oscar at the Academy awards. For years she defined what a movie star is supposed to be. Elizabeth Taylor, R.I.P.