Elizabeth Taylor Has Died at 79; The Silver Screen Weeps

Yahoo! News featured an announcement early on the morning of March 23, 2011, that the beautiful Dame Elizabeth Taylor passed from life earlier the same day. Taylor died at age 79 at Cedars-Sinai hospital after a six-week hospitalization for congestive heart failure. While Taylor's passing from suffering is a beautiful blessing, the loss of her is a sad moment for the silver screen as it has lost ones of its most beautiful and endearing stars.

Many people remember Elizabeth as the seven-time divorcee who had a torrid love affair with her "Cleopatra" cast-mate Richard Burton and stole the heart of Eddie Fisher away from Debbie Reynolds, but she was so much more than the sum of her relationships. Taylor was the dark-haired, violet-eyed beauty who grew up in Hollywood and provided it and the world at large with a natural elegance that fellow beauty icons like Marilyn Monroe never really seemed to possess.

Elizabeth was sensual, but there was a fire within her that showed through despite her vulnerabilities and illnesses. This fire came to the front when Taylor became a pioneer for AIDS research (E! Online) in a time when Hollywood was still ignoring the call to acknowledge a disease that would claim the lives of many of Taylor's dear friends and contemporaries, perhaps most notably Rock Hudson, her co-star in the epic motion picture "Giant."

Taylor was made for epic motion pictures in her prime, but she started acting long before adulthood. She had smaller parts in several movies, including a "blink and you would miss it" scene as an orphan in the 1943 version of "Jane Eyre." She also starred in early Lassie endeavors that bookmarked the most famous role of her youth, Velvet Brown in "National Velvet." If there was ever a quintessential movie that demonstrated the love of a family for their daughter and a little girl's love of her beloved horse, this film was it. A young Angela Lansbury and Mickey Rooney also appeared in the film alongside Taylor, and despite both being older, they both remain alive and will likely issue statements in the coming days.

As she matured, Taylor starred in films like "Life with Father" and the original "Father of the Bride" movies before redefining herself in several key roles throughout the 1950s (Yahoo! Movies). It all started with the Edna Ferber-based epic "Giant," in which Taylor and Rock Hudson journeyed through life from marriage to old-age on a Texas cattle ranch. James Dean, who died before "Giant" was released, and Dennis Hopper, who passed away late last year, both appeared in this film in supporting roles.

"Giant" was followed by the less popular but equally touching epic of "Raintree County" which found Taylor starring alongside Montgomery Clift in a drama set in the Civil War era and beyond. Throughout the film Taylor's character continually suffers from mental illness and a battle within herself over the details of her conception and the horror surrounding an early childhood tragedy. Taylor's performance in this film and her next movie, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," are ground-breaking in their honest and frank portrayal of issues of the day. While "Raintree County" danced around a variation of the "one drop" rule, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" dealt with infidelity and sexual longing in classic Tennessee Williams style. Taylor's beauty only further demonstrated the unreasonable nature of Brick Pollitt and his family as both he and they refused her.

At the end of this notable chapter in Taylor's career falls the movie "Cleopatra." Despite being labeled a flop in its day, this movie should stand the test of time as the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous portrayal of Cleopatra to date. Taylor was beautiful in this role, and she was surrounded by talent. There are few men who could top Rex Harrison as Caesar or Richard Burton as Marc Antony. That Taylor and Burton found themselves in a heated affair during the film only added to the chemistry and intrigue.

It is a stunning movie and definitely worth a viewing as testament to the talent and the beauty of Elizabeth Taylor. May she rest in peace.