Golden Age Syndrome: Elizabeth Taylor

I first heard of the golden age syndrome from Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" where it was used to describe the main character's "everything was better in the 20's" outlook. When I did, I immediately recognized it as something that befits me as well, owing largely to my tendency to get fixated on periods gone long before my birth. Suffice it to say, I am and forever will be in love with everything vintage, hence, this new blog series.

Today, I honor Dame Elizabeth Taylor. Because why the hell not? My god, she was beautiful, completely riveting! When I think of the golden age of Hollywood -- and mind you, I do it quite a lot -- it is the image of her (and my darling favorite actress, Vivien Leigh) that always comes to mind. She always looked so elegant, so glamorous. And beyond that, she was an exceptionally talented actress.

As much as I dislike the idea of her suffering from the deprivation of privacy she had to go through for most of her life, I admit that I am quite drawn to the stories the media produced about her. Her marriages and love affairs, I can read about and watch all day; the love between her and Richard Burton is the stuff of Hollywood legends. Theirs was a love affair that had the whole world dumbstruck and shaken. Heck, even the Pope himself had a thing or two to say about it! And then they were married. And how I wish it had stopped there. I don't know much about love but in my heart of hearts, I know they were meant for each other. Soul mates. And maybe, just maybe, had it occurred in a different setting, the Liz and Dick show might have fared better than it actually did. Maybe they would have lasted. He loved her until his death, and she took his last love letter for her to her grave. And if that isn't testament enough of their passion for one another, then I daresay, I don't know what is.

Glamour aside, she was a down-to-earth human being. Those close to her remember fondly her great sense of humor. She dismissed her fame as trivial until she found for it a greater purpose. With it, she became the name and face of the battle against AIDS. About it, she said:

"[E]very scandal, terrible headline, intrusive paparazzi, every lie — everything I came to hate about my fame — now I am so grateful for. Without all that, I never would have been able to do what I have been able to do for AIDS. Fame means nothing. It stopped having meaning for me many years ago. I thought it was absurd that I was still famous, that people still wanted to look at me or write about me.

“Then I saw what was happening with AIDS. That nobody was doing anything. But maybe I could. And I did. And why? Because of my ridiculous fame. My name still meant something. People wanted to pay big money to see if I was fat or have violet eyes or whatever. Bring it on, I thought. And I thanked God that my fame and my life had finally made sense.”

- Elizabeth Taylor; lifted from an article by Liz Smith

I am mesmerized by this genuinely beautiful human being, and rightfully so. She was a true superstar, long before the term was even coined. And while she is long gone, her legacy lives on and her stardom shines ever so brightly.

*I started off by saying Vivien Leigh is my favorite actress. Fun fact: Elizabeth once said Vivien was her heroine. ;)

**Photos are clearly not mine and were obtained from everywhere in the web via Google search