A Talented but Eccentric Personality
Taylor’s fame reached far beyond her screen life. After marriages to hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, actor Michael Wilding, and film producer Mike Todd, she found herself embroiled in a scandalous affair with singer Eddie Fisher. While filming 1961’s “Cleopatra” in Rome, Taylor made tabloid headlines again when her tryst with married co-star Richard Burton was uncovered.
As she grew older, Taylor began drinking heavily and abusing prescription drugs. Her weight ballooned, which made her the butt of countless jokes by professional comedians. As a result of her increasingly flamboyant personality and obesity, Taylor was often confused with another veteran entertainer, Liza Minnelli. In a famous media mix up from four years ago, Elizabeth Taylor was credited with toppling off a stage in Europe, although the incident actually involved Minnelli.
In 2007, Minnelli collapsed during a Christmas show in Sweden and fell off the side of the stage. She was caught by a technician and escaped additional injuries. According to doctors, the technician’s injuries, while severe, were not life threatening. It took medical personnel and stage technicians nearly 75 minutes to attach the trusses and cables necessary to hoist Minnelli’s bulk from the floor.
Even today, fans remain sensitive about references to Taylor’s weight. Elton John, although a dear friend, found himself the subject of criticism when, issuing a statement intended to memorialize Taylor, his comments were taken out of context: “We have just lost a Hollywood giant.”
John’s publicists spent hours convincing fans that the British singer’s comments were not meant to lampoon Taylor’s weight.
Westboro Bapist Plans Protests
More than Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Joan Crawford, or even Cher, Elizabeth Taylor was the predominant gay icon. Her lavish persona, camp, embrace of celebrity, and tireless efforts to fight AIDS endeared her to the homosexual community. Because of her standing in GLBT circles, media analysts expect a large turnout of homosexuals at Taylor’s funeral, if publicly held.
Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church has implied that his followers will seize the opportunity to organize protests in this event. In a preliminary statement issued on Westboro’s Web site, which was subsequently pulled after the servers crashed, Phelps said:
The death of Elizabeth Taylor provides yet more proof that Almighty God’s justice is divine and righteous, if not always swift. Ms. Taylor’s rise to popularity occurred after she portrayed Cleopatra, a heathen and polytheistic queen of an unclean people who have rejected Christ throughout their unnecessarily long history. May they all burn in hell, in His love.
As time wore on, and her career wore out, Ms. Taylor committed innumerable sins, including covetous behavior, adultery, greed, gluttony, lechery, pride, and every other manner of blasphemy, which culminated in her embrace of gays. What were the rewards of this life? Alcoholism. Addiction. And finally death. Her efforts to thwart AIDS -- a plague sent by God to wipe the unclean beasts from His grace -- have been punished.
Ms. Taylor’s passage into Hell should also serve as a warning to all the Christ-killing Jews and queers and atheists in Hollywood. You are the measure of the company you keep, and that company has fallen far outside the glorious shadow cast by Christ’s grandeur. Actors make obscene amounts of money to lie. That’s what they do -- they lie and pretend and sin. Being in the actor’s union, catering to the sodomites and murders and money lenders, is more a pact with Satan than the legitimate business enterprise of hard working Christians. It serves only to prove that God Hates SAGs.
