- Source of quotes.
- Wikipedia's biography.
- A suitably trashy bio.
- Socialist eulogy. Elizabeth Taylor and the melodrama of American life in the 1950s and 1960s.
- Peculiar Beauty: Elizabeth Taylor: Too Bloody Much
- Liz Taylor: Rare and Unpublished Pictures
- Richard Burton's letter to Taylor, upon Their Break up
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Her public profile blurred between flawed serious thespian and unrepentant queen of celluloid decadence, Elizabeth Taylor can be a squeamishly bad film's singular delight. Eventually a career of being type-cast and supremely miscast bleeds into her persona, whereby she becomes sort of a meta-diva, playing the role of Hollywood actress for movies: but also tabloids.
Those sensational grotesqueries in which she plays the part of aging or nubile tyrannical bitch easily surpass melodrama to become touching monster movies with her often as star (even where she is not cast as such).
Glamorously overacting and lushly stage-villainous, she is clearly having a good time, chewing up her luxe scenery of co-stars who seem by comparison of merely pretty types, upstaging blockbuster spectacles, out-pronouncing scripts-by-numbers, adding a comic stirring of life.
Lousy stage-acting and glorious, operatic scene-stealing are indistinguishable in her performances. Below are some haply campy quotes and films in full of her dizzily erratic, dramatic, high trash appearances.
Big girls need big diamonds.
I am a very committed wife. And I should be committed too - for being married so many times.
I fell off my pink cloud with a thud.
I have a woman's body and a child's emotions.
I haven't read any of the autobiographies about me.
I really don't remember much about Cleopatra. There were a lot of other things going on.
I suppose when they reach a certain age some men are afraid to grow up. It seems the older the men get, the younger their new wives get.
I sweat real sweat and I shake real shakes.
I think I'm finally growing up - and about time.
I'm a survivor - a living example of what people can go through and survive.
I've been through it all, baby, I'm mother courage.
I've only slept with men I've been married to. How many women can make that claim?
If someone's dumb enough to offer me a million dollars to make a picture, I'm certainly not dumb enough to turn it down.
It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.
It's not the having, it's the getting.
Marriage is a great institution.
My mother says I didn't open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did, the first thing I saw was an engagement ring. I was hooked.
People who know me well, call me Elizabeth. I dislike Liz.
So much to do, so little done, such things to be.
Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.
Success is a great deodorant.
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
When people say, 'She's got everything', I've got one answer - I haven't had tomorrow.
You find out who your real friends are when you're involved in a scandal.
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THIS LAST LINK to the movie Identikit, or The Driver's Seat is one of her best, most emotionally disturbing appearances as aging diva (and, in this case, thief). Featuring a cameo by Andy Warhol!
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