David Carr
No one could have been surprised by the flurry of headlines surrounding Elizabeth Taylor?s death. Taylor certainly would not have been. She sailed through life on a sea of ink and never seemed in danger of drowning.
Ceaselessly covered, but never truly uncovered, Elizabeth Taylor was her own damn thing no matter what anybody said or did. In a feat that would be hard to replicate in the transparent age of today, Taylor seemed completely open but mysterious, too. Unlike Lady Gaga, or Madonna before her, Taylor did not maintain custody of her image and her fans by mutating to give them what they wanted before they even knew they wanted it. Taylor was convinced from a very young age that what they wanted was her as she already was and always would be. That?s part of why she was a great movie star even though she may not have been a great actress.
Given that she began living out loud at the age of 12, she was easy pickings for a culture that has come to snack on those it adores, but unlike Britney or Lindsay, Liz did not end up as public property. She may have been robbed of her privacy, but her soul never seemed as if it were up for grabs. Taylor, who found her own public image ?revolting,? did not confuse what was said about her for what she thought of herself. She always seemed to be having a very wonderful time of it.
TMZ and the rest of the current gossip websites became a fact of life long after Taylor was a daily obsession, and though Hedda Hopper could be vicious, she presented few of the challenges of the gossip hunters of today.
The fact that she maintained dignity in death as well as in life seems to have little to do with her lifestyle choices. She married seven men, bought hundreds of carats of diamonds and during certain times in her life, ate and drank like a sailor on leave. ?I know I?m vulgar,? she once said, ?but would you have me any other way??
But that is not the same as saying that she was not a lady. She was every inch a lady. But think of the biggest-wattage stars, like, say, Angelina Jolie, who like Taylor, is in control of her own career. But there is certain masculinity to Jolie?s appeal, a willingness to kick some tail on screen and go after whatever she wants off-screen. Yet even though Taylor?s fans adored her with far more ferocity than Richard Burton?s talents ever engendered, she deferred to him.
That may be why, apart from her manifest beauty, she remained, as the director George Stevens said, the girl every American boy ?thinks he can marry.? Many did, of course, none with much success. In that way she was something of a traditionalist. She chose to marry the men whom she wanted to sleep with, and if she didn?t have a knack for making marriage work, well, you can?t blame a girl for trying.
Even as she went through what has become the crucible of modern fame for talented women?she had affairs, dropped and gained weight, went through treatment for drug and alcohol addiction?she never seemed imprisoned by her own celebrity. Early on, schooled and protected by the studio system, she mastered the art of being famous, and as a result built a career that seems almost comical in its longevity in the current context: 50 films, 70 years, and we are still talking about Elizabeth Taylor.