News: R.I.P Elizabeth Taylor

     Today came the sad news of the death of movie icon Elizabeth Taylor due to complications from a heart condition. The actress, who started out in the business as a child in films such as "Lassie Come Home" and "National Velvet", went on to receive a total of five Best Actress Oscar nominations including two victories ("Butterfield 8" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"), as well as an honorary Oscar for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contributions to AIDS awareness. She was also notoriously famous for her plethora of marriages and relationships (8 marriages in total I think), including her most infamous marriage to Eddie Fisher, who she had stolen away from Debbie Reynolds, only to leave him for Richard Burton not long afterwards. In the later part of her life she might have been most famous for being a close confidant of Michael Jackson, and supposedly his death took a great toll on her psyche. As an actress, I personally wouldn't put her up with the heavyweights of the previous era like Katherine Hepburn or Bette Davis (although I have not seen either of her Oscar-winning performances), but she had her moments. Out of her work that I have seen, I am more of a fan of her earlier performances, such as in the original "Father of the Bride" (a great movie) and "A Place in the Sun" (an overrated film, but her performance still stands out nonetheless). The timing of the news is a bit ironic for me, because I am currently in the middle of writing the next edition of "If I Picked the Winners", which happens to include one of her more famous films (I should post it sometime tomorrow night). I really hope this isn't the start of some curse for the articles, because if this is the case, I think I'll have to discontinue the series. Anyway, if you want to read and see (via clips) a retrospective on Ms. Taylor's career, check out this interesting piece at The Guardian by clicking here.