Elizabeth Taylor died today. She was 79. When they say “a legend has passed” this is one of those legends. Though this blog is about music and promotion or the lament of trite sounds flooding every place it could possibly come out of this makes a good place to mark something. With the passing of Elizabeth Taylor, as with all the great musicians and artists of the last couple of years we are seeing the departure of individuals who not only set high marked standards but created a standard before there was one. Elizabeth Taylor was unlike any other actress, her beauty all her own and not just her physicality but the way she mixed both, being strong, even in scenes where she was supposed to be vulnerable, tough as a sword blade when just a nail would do, and her eyes, always possessing some secret anyone watching had to know within their violet depths. Was she the greatest actress ever? Probably not. Was she flawed? Most definitely, as are we all. I always wanted my Pygmalion to have a error in her veneer, my Aphrodite blemished. As an actress she was a complete artist who refined her craft constantly. Yet with greatness it is much more difficult to name the fine points as it is to explain what they are not.
Elizabeth Taylor was not a flash in the pan. She was in it for the long haul. Elizabeth Taylor did not take her beauty and expect it to command talent. She took what talent she had, developed and just so happened to be stunning. Elizbeth Taylor’s tragedies in life (many) were not used to jump back in the game or create a media hype. They really almost destroyed her but she persevered through them. We are missing so much of these characteristics today or those artists are just stepped over in favor of plastic and hand of a surgeon intervention.
Just like you cannot polish a turd you cannot surgically implant grit and talent. So you just go on and take all the others and just leave me Elizabeth Taylor.
Oh also Elizabeth Taylor embraced AIDS patients when a majority of the world would not even touch them.
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