Actress Liz Taylor passed away today, we take a look at some of her best known film roles
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
Featuring two of the biggest Hollywood stars of its day, the movie tells the tale of Brick (Paul Newman), an alcoholic ex-football player, is at the centre of this drama as he resists his wife Maggie’s (Liz Taylor) advances and deals with the news of his father, Big Daddy’s (Ives) cancer.
They don’t make trailers (or movies) like this any more “Elizabeth Taylor is Maggie The Cat, a girl too hungry for love to care how she goes about getting it.”
CLEOPATRA
Elizabeth Taylor was the Queen of the Nile in this mega-budget extravaganza that took 3 years and a whopping $44 million to make. A box-office disappointment that failed to make back its millions, the film is most famous for the off-screen Taylor-Burton love affair that made international headlines and led to them divorcing their respective spouses and marrying in 1964.
BUTTERFIELD 8
“I was the slut of all time!” declared Elizabeth Taylor in the role for which she won her first Academy Award. Taylor plays Gloria, a model of loose morals who discovers a last chance at love and redemption when she spends a week with Weston Ligget (Laurence Harvey), a man who married into money and hates himself for it.
WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
Winning her a second Oscar, Taylor sports gray hair, extra pounds, a slovenly appearance, and a vulgar mouth to portray Martha in this film based on Edward Albee’s biting play, directed by Mike Nichols.
NATIONAL VELVET
Her fifth film, playing Velvet Brown became Elizabeth Taylor’s star-making role. Paired with Mickey Rooney, she plays a pretty English girl with a passion for horses who wins a horse named “Pie” in a local lottery.
FATHER OF THE BRIDE
This 1950 comedy tells the story of a man trying to cope with all of the disasters that happen along the way from the time that his daughter announces that she’s engaged until the wedding actually occurs. It spawned a sequel called Father’s Little Dividend, in which Taylor’s character had a baby alongside a 1960’s TV series and a 1990’s remake with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton.
A PLACE IN THE SUN
Taylor is paired with handsome Montgomery Clift in this drama based on the book An American Tragedy, about a young, lower class man, George Eastman (Clift), who falls in love with a gorgeous debutante (Taylor). Taylor’s strapless boned bodice dress with its enormous white tulle skirt became the prom and wedding fashion of the day, winning costume designer Edith Head an Oscar.
SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
A role which earned her an Oscar nomination, Elizabeth Taylor is re-teamed with Montgomery Clift in this film based on the Tennessee Williams play and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz. Taylor is Cathy, the niece of wealthy Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn), whose son Sebastian died mysteriously while on vacation with Cathy in Spain.
What were your favourite Elizabeth Taylor roles? (Let’s forget about ‘The Flintstones’ for now).