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Elizabeth Taylor would have been 80 today
At last night’s Academy Awards ceremony, Elizabeth Taylor was remembered as part of the show’s In Memorium segment.
Frankly, I could have done with a few less montages and instead would have appreciated a more proper tribute to one of the greatest stars the movie industry has ever had. Miss Taylor, who died last April, would have turned 80 today and producers really missed the boat in not making more of it.
Miss Taylor won Academy Awards for best actress for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Butterfield 8, was nominated three other times for Raintree County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer, and received the Academy’s humanitarian Oscar in 1993 for her tireless work on behalf of HIV/AIDS.
For the last 25 years of her life, Miss Taylor used her great fame to raise millions of dollars for research and care and a percentage of the proceeds from a Christie’s auction of her treasures after her death raised millions more.
Imagine how much more special the Oscars telecast could have been had it shined some light on this national treasure just one more time.
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
walker says:
I was very disappointed that the Academy did not give a final tribute.
Val from France says:
Thanks for this great article.Really Dame Elizabeth Taylor deserved more than that a few seconds on the Academy Award day…Where was the tribute every admirer in all over the world waited for…It’s a shame with her huge career,nominations,her 2 oscars and the one for her humanitarian work.She was a woman with a big heart and the most wonderful actress in the world!We love you,Elizabeth,we’ll never forget you,never!
Krista says:
I was looking forward all year for what I had hoped would be a great tribute to our Dame. In my wildest dreams ,I never thought that it would be a 5 second blip. I am so disappointed in the Academy. Can they really name another star who would deserve a special tribute? Shame on them. 3 Oscars, the first woman to be payed $1000000 for a movie, Humanitarian,50 years in showbiz,glamor+++++, etc,etc,etc.
Allant says:
What in the WORLD was the Academy thinking? Last year (or was it the year before?), Halle Berry presented a several-minute, stand-alone (apart from the “In Memoriam” feature) tribute to Lena Horne. I was expecting NOTHING LESS for Elizabeth Taylor, the LAST of the true, all-time Hollywood greats and one of, if not THE, greatest stars Hollywood ever had. And, with her 80th birthday being the very next day, the 5-second “tribute” was nothing short of an insult to her memory and a slap in the face to her legions of loyal fans!! I suppose all the inane banter and shtick between the presenters was more important? Truly, the inmates are running the asylum!
JERILYN DARIA BIFULCO says:
This article was right on the money. The Academy Award Show which was a day before Dame Elizabeth’s 80th Birthday shoud have given her a separate proper tribute as the last of the HOLLYWOOD LEGENDS. Considering Dame Elizabeth had been a three time Oscar winner and her last Oscar was the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award how could the Academy ignore this legend, icon humanitarian? Yes she got the last spot in the MEMORIAM but if you blinked you missed it! There was so much in this show that could have been eliminated. Many of us watched hoping for a touching tribute to the LAST of the great stars. SHAME on the Academy for not understanding the impact of ELIZABETH ROSEMOND TAYLOR on Hollywood and the world. Truly the Academy dropped the ball big time.
DameElizabethFan says:
I don’t want to see Oscar-show again. NEVER! They are getting cheeper and cheeper.Long Live the DAME and F*сk the Academy(((
K. Martinez says:
It doesn’t surprise me. I haven’t watched the Academy Awards for a couple of decades now. I thought it was getting bad back then. Not much has changed I guess. I doubt the people hired to produce this show really give that much importance to the memorium. They’re just interested in getting the ratings numbers up. No respect for it’s own history anymore. I just watched the memorium online and noticed that they omitted some of my personal favorites like Michael Sarrazin and Michael Gough. Also noticed Jeff Conaway missing. SCREW the Academy!
Dennis says:
Indeed. They missed a great opportunity to celebrate one of the greatest stars of the ages. If tributes like that aren’t integral to what the Oscars are all about, what is? Very stupid and callous decision by people who have no idea what they are doing.
Van Mason says:
I wanted them to have Mickey Rooney come out with a horse on the stage and then look up at Elizabeth playing in National Velvet followed by more film clips. I was so disappointed. I didn’t expect them to do exactly what I wanted, but I certainly expected more! The show is too long, but there is so much nonsense, and then they don’t do what really matters!
Van
Karin says:
Great article, I agree with you. The Oscars were a snorefest, I am so glad that we taped it so I could fastforward the boring bits. A couple of minutes in a tribute to the Queen of Hollywood (Elizabeth Taylor) would have been better than any of the other stuff they managed to put on. Seriously the old MGM review film which was newly taped was boring, the beginning with Justin Bieber was like, what is that guy doing at the Oscars, he’s a singer for teens! Even the thank you speeches these days tends to be very long and boring compared to the thank you speeches the stars of the golden era used to make. I have watched some on the Oscar’s youtube channel and they were short and impactful, not just an endless listing of names of people you’ve never even heard about!
Also what’s up with the same movies being nominated and winning in almost all of the categories?
Sergio says:
Hi everyone… I am from southamerica, and from my lil room I expected to see something better… I watched the red carpet stuff and after a few minutes I knew they were not going to do a damn thing to honor Elizabeth Taylor. I did not watch the show, and I was to know later that they showed a 2 second clip of Elizabeth in Cleopatra… WTF? I am very angry but I am not suprised. I also heard that The Academy Awards´been losing audience in the past 10 years, well it doesnt surprise me, and it´s getting so commercial that it makes me sick. All these little starlets showing off and craving for attention with these weird costumes… bah! Elizabeth needed her face alone to overshadow Garbo! Give me a break.
and yes, there were thousand of people in southamerica waiting to see atribute to one of the greatest stars in the world and nothing.
SHAME ON YOU!
Lois says:
I was excited about what the Academy would do to honor Elizabeth Taylor. I imagined clips from National Velvet, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and then, maybe ending with her in that incredible dress in Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift. But they showed wobbly old footage of her receiving an Oscar and a 2-second shot of her winking in Cleopatra (a dud movie for her). I felt so angry. What is the matter with the Academy? It’s out of touch, elitist, and secretive. Screw the Academy. People should boycott the Oscars and just enjoy watching the SAG awards! The Academy may end up crumbling what with the new technological changes in film distribution. Perhaps up and coming brilliant directors and actors will begin to emerge through the Internet as a venue. Take that, stuffy old Academy! And Billy Crystal made racist jokes on top of everything. Oh, and you did a great job on sound and skit writing, Academy. Thanks for devoting all that time to Oprah Winfrey’s humanitarian award, too. So glad we got to hear about all of the movies Adam Sandler loved as a kid.
Robert says:
I agree 100%…she deserved much more…not only that in the montage…under her name it simply said “Actress”…at the very least… it should have said “Actress and Humanitarian”. One thing is for certain…even dead…she was hands down the most beautiful, most glamorous and most exciting star at that lousy, boring event…