Legend ... Taylor pictured at the 2005 BAFTA awards/file
Posted on 04/28/2006 5:54:50 AM PDT by yankeedame
Liz Taylor 'at death's door'
From: MX From correspondents in Los Angeles
April 28, 2006
Legend ... Taylor pictured at the 2005 BAFTA awards/file
HOLLYWOOD legend Elizabeth Taylor is reportedly on
the brink of death after her heart began to fail.
The Oscar winner, 74, is believed to be bedridden in her Bel Air, California, home. Taylor reportedly cancelled her annual Easter party to plan her funeral.
She is expected to be buried next to former husband Richard Burton in Switzerland.
"Liz is inching closer to death every day and she knows it," a friend said.
The actress was diagnosed with a disease known as congestive heart failure, a terminal condition where the heart weakens, pumping ever-decreasing amounts of blood through the body. Taylor has been confined to a wheelchair since 2004, having broken her back five times.
Advertisement: Taylor has been near death with pneumonia twice, endured a brain tumour removal, has had skin cancer and has been a recluse since her health started failing. "She's not leaving a lot of money to her children. She wants the bulk of her fortune to go to AIDS research."
The actress said she was at her happiest while with husbands Mike Todd and Richard Burton, and in recent months mourned the loss of her pet Maltese terrier, Sugar, of whom she said: "I've never loved a dog like this in my life. It's amazing. Sometimes I think there's a person in there."
Ms Taylor won her first Oscar in 1961 for the film Butterfield 8, following this up with another in 1967 for Mike Nichols' drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, often considered her best screen performance.
Mmmm... don't know about that. Sophia Loren was bodacious back in her day, too.
"I think it's sort of wierd Liz Taylor, (who converted to Judaism when she married Mike Todd), has annual Easter parties"
Maybe 'cause annual Passover Parties don't have the right ring to it. What could you do? Dye Matzo Balls?
She'll die knowing she really lived, and lived large.
I, too, have a Maltese named Sugar...
Bone cancer will weaken bones too.
I used to love watching her on John McLaughlin's show.
She always looked like she just woke up,
or hadn't slept in about 48 hours.
Probably late-nighters with her lib buddies.
What the heck is a maltese terrier? Ain't no such thing.
I suggested bone cancer... but likely they would have named that. Osteoporosis sounds more likely, as you say.
Didn't she adopt Michael Jackson. They are close you know. (sarcasm on)
Originally, Maltese were considered part of the Terrier group. Now they are considered Toys. Maltese Terrier is just an old-fashioned name for Maltese....
* My wife and I breed Maltese.
Ah, yes ... as Leslie Benedict in "Giant." Definitely my favorite of her roles. Also one of my favorite movies.
She was stunning - as in the pix here on the thread in the white brocade dress and in the red dress. Dynamite. Liz has always had a presence about her that is larger than life. I'm sure you know when she's in the room.
Remember her rehab husband, Larry Fort-something? Was it Fortensky? Egad, it's hard to believe she is *only* 74 - she's done at least 100 years of living.
In addition to the movies most have mentioned (even "The Flinstones"), I remember her in "Raintree County." It was a terrible movie, but I was just a little kid and it seemed GWTW-like to me. I always thought if Liz had been older, she could've played Scarlett O'Hara very well - although Vivien Leigh was so exquisite, there's no imagining anyone else in the role.
She was also in the very strangest movie I think I ever saw, at least at the time it was. It was with Marlon Brando and Julie Harris, IIRC - "Reflections in a Golden Eye." Just downright *weird.*
I loved it when she first got fat (a la John Belushi) - the porky among us had a "role model." If Liz Taylor could let everyone see her get fat, it shouldn't matter to any of the rest of us who had put on a few ourselves. I lost it all about the first time she did.
Indeed, her marriage to Michael Todd ("Todd-ao") seemed to be her happiest, but Richard Burton was the love of her life, I think. (Oh, obviously, since she's being buried next to him.) They couldn't live *with* each other or *without* each other.
The last I heard about a "gentleman caller," it was Rod Steiger and it was during one of her other more recent "bedridden" periods. Remember when she fell and hit her head on the nightstand? She was supposed to die that time, too. The press has been writing her obit for a long time.
Bless your heart, Liz - you're one of a kind.
Actually, there was a whore in St. Louis in the early fifties who had ties to bank robbers. She was known as 'the whore with violet eyes'...my dad interviewed her once when he was a G-man.
Only a woman would enjoy Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Not necessarily. I have had 90 year old patients that have lived with CHF for many years, but then most were VERY compliant with their therapy.
I'm pretty sure they are.
Incidentally, the "chicken bone" incident was on a campaign stop for him in 1978.
The real Cleopatra was the owner of a championship snout...but also one of the biggest treasuries around...
"On the January 15, 2001 "Larry King Live" show, Elizabeth Taylor was asked "You are Jewish, are you not?" and she replied "I am, I am." (She had converted when marrying singer Eddie Fisher, and of course she later married the Jewish producer and impresario Michael Todd.)
Elizabeth Taylor narrated portions of "Genocide," produced by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that went on to received the 1981 Academy Award® for best feature documentary, the first Holocaust documentary to be given this honor.
sw
Yeah they're pretty cute(if you cut their hair...) ;-) and I knew what a maltese was but I didn't realize they were terriers. Apparently they are (just did a google search) but it's weird that they would bring up that archaic term. It'd be like calling an airedale a Waterside Terrier. No one would know what you meant anymore.
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