Those of a certain age might enjoy this trip down memory lane of perhaps the most famous woman In America especially in the 1960's, though I suppose Jackie Kennedy might rival that, but whatever, Elizabeth Taylor led one of the most spectacular lives in the 20th century. She was rarely a great actress, though talent was always there and surfaced strongly now and then particularly in A Place In the Sun, Giant and, of course, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. She states here that she never had an acting lesson and perhaps she should have. The result might have been something to witness. These tapes make her sound like a down to earth rational woman, but that's not quite how I remember her 50's/60's heydays. She talks quite kindly about all of her ex-husbands, but oddly today in the NY Times there is an article about her and how she and Richard Burton created the paparazzi that we sadly live with now. It also goes into details on how she took everyone of those ex's to the cleaners when they split, sort of a different version than the one we listen to here. It's filled with wonderful photos and candid clips of her personal life and scenes from some of her films and they are a delight to view. I was a bit surprised to also hear vocal comments from Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds and neither seem to be upset with her, though I suppose time heals a lot of things. She was also simply stunning to look at, especially in shots with no makeup, but like all of us it faded, but in her latter years after pretty much quitting films, while seemingly trying to get her hair to be big as possible, she then became a truly great humanitarian and helped so many with AIDS. She became as admirable crusader. It was a remarkable, enviable, bold life from just about the very beginning. Katharine Hepburn once called her the last movie star and that is true in the tradition of the past greats. It doesn't take much to be called a star these days. This is not a great documentary, but it's a good one and hearing her talk about herself after all these years was quite interesting. I'm not sure why, but I really did adore her especially in the 60's, both on and off the screen. I met her once briefly when she did The Little Foxes on Broadway as I worked in the theater industry at that time. She was short, vulgar, funny with immense presence.
