Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Violet Eyes of Elizabeth Taylor

If I were to say to you "Quick! Word association—Elizabeth Taylor!" What would you say? Richard Burton? Jewelry obsession?  Friend of Michael Jackson? Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? White Diamonds?? One thing most will agree upon is that she is a very handsome woman. What many forget (blinded by the White Diamonds?) is that back in the day, Elizabeth Taylor was STUNNING. We're talking jaw droppin', make-Angelina-look-like-she -was-beat-with-the-ugly stick, stupifyingly beautiful. 


Ms Liz was married 8 times to 7 husbands (twice to Richard Burton), she has one of the largest privately owned jewelry collections around, and was the co-founder of amfAR. I love that she looked so lady like and naive, yet she was always extremely feisty, could swear a blue streak and just did her own thing.

Check her out in all her violet eyed glory. 

First up, the young 1940s "national velvet" and "lassie come home" era Liz:







A little older and hair a little shorter, but still so striking. This was the 1950s:





Hello bouffant! La Liz does the 60s in style:



I love this one, I'd never seen it before. She looks so 70s casual.



She looked pretty amazing as she made her way into the 80s and finally the 90s:



Images: This fella, UltimateGraphics, on Flickr has a spectacular collection of Liz photos. I had a lot of these images saved over the years and then I stumbled upon his page and the quality was a million times better than mine! Also, there are sooo many more gorgeous photos. It was pretty hard to choose!

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9 comments:

  1. I just love how she dyed her dog to match her hair in that last photo ;-)
    It's good to be reminded of stars in their prime, thanks!

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  2. extraordinary. what a beauty!

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  3. Ah, thank you! I love this. (I came up with "Montgomery Clift" for word association--A Place in the Sun! She looked so gorgeous in that. Poor Shelley Winters.) I think my favorite Liz movies, though, are Butterfield 8, and, most especially, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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  4. Great pictures. I love the one with the short hair and red shirt. So very pretty.

    This reminds me of a conversation I had about Liz with a coworker of mine (yrs ago). He had never seen any of her early work or given her any thought at all - she was just some old Hollywood star from his parents' generation.

    Then he "discovered" her when watching one of her films from the 50s, and couldn't get over how stunningly gorgeous she was. He was raving about her beauty - it was funny.

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  5. I noticed Dita was channeling her for a while. I think she is prettiest in the 50's. And her nose is perfection.

    Thanks doll,
    The Glamorous Housewife

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  6. update: look what you've started - I've been scouring the internet for more gorgeous photos of liz!!

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  7. willow81: hahaha, I know! i love the matching dog!

    nath: she was, wasn't she!

    parallel-botany: oooh good! did you check out the flickr page link? TONS of goodies!

    karen: She is *amazing* in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" I've only seen snippets of Butterfield8, but I what I've seen was great. She's so lovely you don't realize she is also kind of a bad ass!

    Glamourous Housewife: Dita was def channeling her 50s look! Have you checked out Dita's twitter? It's pretty fun...and very glamorous! haha

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  8. RIP Elizabeth....your beauty, the likes of which we will not see again.

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  9. May you R. I .P you and Micheal Jackson have reunited in the after life.

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