Though similarities between classic looks are often coincidential, the references can be strategic, too. Jeffrey Monteiro, a fashion expert and former design director at such houses as Derek Lam and Bill Blass, explains that celebrity stylists and handlers borrow from one another "to place themselves [and actresses] in the Hollywood hierarchy," choosing particular dresses to announce a transformation in a star's career, or even to set the tone for an era of fashion.

Monteiro has hand-picked some of the most iconic dresses in Oscar history  — e.g.,  Grace Kelly's classic green gown, Lauren Hutton's 1975 Halston — and the frocks they would inspire years later. But a gown doesn't make the complete look: Though the differences between these styles may be subtle, one celebrity truly owns the look.

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The movie, "Burton and Taylor," will focus on the pair's relationship during Noel Coward's play "Private Lives" in 1983, when they came together onstage after two previous, explosive marriages, hoping to reunite. The play itself was about a couple who have come together after a divorce and discover that they each have new partners. Bonham Carter told the Daily Mail, "Elizabeth was 51 [when she took on the role in Private Lives], still every inch a star, still beautiful  and they still needed each other but this was professional." The two didn't marry a third time, but Bonham Carter says the movie is "about this sliver of their lives together. They were huge stars and they'd never been onstage together before."

The movie is to be released in the fall of 2013.

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“Liz and Dick,” which airs on Sunday night, where it should serve as a perfect final mouthful to a long weekend of binging, is, after all, a Lifetime movie, a camp genre unto itself. The Lifetime movie is where Douglas Sirk lives in infamy, flattered by endless imitation as he rolls over in his grave, mimicked slavishly and poorly, his plots grown ever more sordid, but his earnestness never topped. A movie in which Lindsay Lohan-as-Elizabeth Taylor regularly lectures the camera about how she and Richard Burton (Grant Bowler) invented paparazzi and the celebrity photo frenzy, a movie in which Lohan-as-Taylor downs a bottle of pills and booze and sobs through the resulting dangerous, but entirely manipulative suicide attempt, a movie in which Lohan lies on a bed with cucumbers on her eyes even as said eyes are drenched in her infamous Cleopatra makeup is ridiculous, yes, but it is not unknowing. You can hate Lifetime movies, and still see that “Liz and Dick” is exactly what a Lifetime movie is supposed to be, instantly hootable, usually ludicrous, rarely dull. Snuggle up.

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It's inevitable to not be struck by the irony of the tweet given the circumstances around her death. Our final messages have weight, and sometimes it's a weight too large for social media to bear. Salon contributor Wajahat Ali mulled over his own last words in this essay.  As he points out, many people end up at death’s door with no prior warning, and unwittingly end up tweeting their last words. We decided to look at some of these famous epitaphs, sometimes as poignant as they were unplanned.

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Click through the following slide show for a short preview of the hundreds of fashion-related items from Taylor's personal collection that are set to be auctioned by Christie's this winter (and take note: before they go on sale, standout pieces from the collection will tour the world; an exhibition will hit Los Angeles in October, and New York at the beginning of December). Among other things, you'll see a surprisingly simple yellow chiffon wedding dress; an embroidered robe that Taylor wore to Grace Kelly's 1969 "Scorpio Ball;" and an eye-catching Versace jacket -- worn by Taylor to two AIDS benefits -- that features the face of its photogenic owner herself.

For full details of the Christie's collection (which also includes Taylor's jewelry and other personal items), including tour and sale dates, click here.

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Exactly. At that time, you have to realize, Elizabeth Taylor was still being underestimated as an actress. No one took her seriously -- she would even make jokes about it in public. And when I wrote that piece, Meryl Streep was constantly being touted as the greatest actress who ever lived. I was in total revolt against that and launched this protest because I think that Elizabeth Taylor is actually a greater actress than Meryl Streep, despite Streep's command of a certain kind of technical skill.

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It is years now since Elizabeth Taylor made a proper movie. Yet we know she’s there, still: her face blooms for perfume promotions, and she’s always likely to be standing up for AIDS victims or Michael Jackson. Are we meant to think she has the same sincerity for all three? Or is she resting? That would be sad -- for at one time, she seemed uncommonly engaged, in movies and scandal alike.

Though her love life and the soap opera of her health seem to have been with us as long as the H-bomb, Liz was younger than, say, Audrey Hepburn or Rock Hudson. When they made "Giant" (56, George Stevens), she was actually a year younger than James Dean. Brought up at a time when sexuality on the screen was still creatively suppressed by censorship, her private life was paraded by the press as that of a love goddess. That now looks like the last flare of classic star charisma, the last time the public could read any imagined voluptuousness into a decorous, sulky princess of "House & Garden." Image and reality clashed like cymbals in "Cleopatra" (63, Joseph L. Mankiewicz). But though the chaos of that film’s making included Liz dangerously ill and Liz exchanging a fourth husband (Eddie Fisher) for a fifth (Richard Burton), her Queen of the Nile emerged a plump, complacent clotheshorse.

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A friend of mine in his 60s once told me the story of accidentally running into Elizabeth Taylor with her entourage in an alley in New York. He was a successful model and Princeton architect -- no stranger among beautiful people. But the sight of Elizabeth, even in the mid-'70s (when the wattage of her once perfect beauty was already slightly dimmed), was, the way he described it, something like being shot with a gun in the chest by Beauty itself. It wasn't just her fearful symmetry, or her big-bang eyes, but the power of her being, the animation of her character. For him it was life-altering -- in a lifetime of looking at art, that split-second encounter in a New York alley was still the encounter with beauty that left him most dumbstruck, some 30 years later. What he felt for Elizabeth Taylor instantly was something akin to the seismic power of pure love.

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Publicist Sally Morrison says the actress died Wednesday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center from congestive heart failure. Morrison says her children were at her side.

She'd been hospitalized for about six weeks.

Taylor first gained stardom as a child and appeared in more than 50 films. She won Oscars for her performances in "Butterfield 8" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

She was equally famous for extraordinary beauty and her stormy personal life, including eight marriages and a series of physical ailments.

In later years, she was a spokeswoman for humanitarian causes, notably AIDS research. That work gained her a special Oscar in 1993.

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View the slide show

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According to William J. Mann, Taylor's latest biographer, we probably shouldn't have been. "How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood," argues that, despite Taylor's half-dozen or so legendary on-screen roles -- including her Oscar-winning portrayal of a posh call girl in "Butterfield 8" -- the instrument she truly mastered was celebrity itself. That she's nabbed a few more headlines by communicating directly with her fans using the latest technology only demonstrates that she hasn't lost her touch.

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So insists Brian Grazer, who directed the rapper formerly known as Marshall Mathers and Basinger, who plays his mother, in the upcoming film "8 Mile."

Though Grazer admits that his film will likely benefit from the publicity, he tells TVGuide.com that Eminem and the ex-Mrs. Alec Baldwin are "not having an affair."

"They're so not, actually," he says. (Whatever that means.)

Why should we believe him? "If they were [romantically involved], I would go, 'I don't know,'" he says. "But they're actually not."

And if we didn't believe him, we'd say, "We don't know," but we actually do.

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Tears of a clown

"I think if we all acted the way we really felt, four out of eight people at a dinner table would be sitting there sobbing."

-- Jim Carrey on the human condition in the London Observer.

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As we all know by now, the duo exchanged vials of blood some time ago so that each could wear a piece of the other in an amulet around his or her neck. (Awww.)

But necklace or no necklace, Billy Bob apparently did not feel that he'd shed quite enough bodily fluids to express the depths of his love, so he went back in for more -- as a special surprise for Angie.

And this time, he let his artistic impulses roam free.

"For our anniversary, I had a certificate drawn up that states I can never leave her for eternity," he says in the upcoming issue of Jane magazine. "It has the seal of the great state of Louisiana on it." The latter came courtesy of a notary public, who came to the Baton Rouge set Thornton was working to make it "official."

"I signed it in my own blood with a paintbrush," the actor says with pride.

It was, he muses, the most romantic thing he's done for Angie in some time, though the poor notary public didn't quite see it that way. When Thornton broke out his ink substitute, he says, "I think she almost passed out."

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On a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (8 p.m., WB), love-struck Spike shows Buffy how Riley has been spending his nights. Angel rushes to find Darla before she's reborn as a vampire on a rerun of Angel (9 p.m., WB). Joan pushes for total honesty regarding her and Jake's sexual history, then wishes she had kept her mouth shut, on What About Joan (9:30 p.m., ABC). 48 Hours (10 p.m., CBS) reports on campus hazing. James McDaniel, one of the original cast members, leaves NYPD Blue (10 p.m., ABC); his Lieutenant Fancy gets a new job, leaving the squad to fret about his replacement.

Specials

Copperfield! Tornado of Fire (8 p.m., CBS) finds the illusionist trapped inside a flaming vortex. Masochism night continues with another installment of Eco-Challenge (8 p.m., USA). Looks like the team from Playboy is in trouble! The two-hour documentary Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood (8 p.m. EST/9 p.m. PST, American Movie Classics) takes a close-up look at the problem-plagued production of the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton epic that, with costs adjusted to reflect today's monetary value, still stands as the most expensive movie ever made.

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Boston Public (8 p.m., Fox) concludes its crossover with "The Practice." On Ally McBeal (9 p.m., Fox), Richard hires a rainmaker (Taye Diggs), and Barry Manilow has a cameo as himself. Ray and Debra have a less than romantic Valentine's Day dinner date on Everybody Loves Raymond (9 p.m., CBS). An armed man holds Judge Sims hostage on 100 Centre Street (9 p.m., A&E). Boies' prodigal dad (guest Billy Dee Williams) is admitted to the hospital on Gideon's Crossing (10 p.m., ABC).

Specials

Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine and Joan Collins play Hollywood has-beens revving up for a comeback. Is this the premise of a "Saturday Night Live" skit? No, it's the new TV movie These Old Broads (8 p.m., ABC). The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show (8 p.m., USA) opens its 125th annual competition. Chuck Woolery hosts Kiss the Bride (9 p.m., WB), a reality special in which three couples compete to win a televised wedding and honeymoon. To where, "Temptation Island"? Samuel L. Jackson presides over the ESPY Awards (9 p.m., ESPN), honoring the best athletic performances of 2000.

Talk

Rosie O'Donnell (syndicated) Jessica Alba
David Letterman (CBS) Chef Jamie Oliver
Jay Leno (NBC) Gary Oldman, Steve Zahn
Politically Incorrect (ABC) Chris Rock, Marlee Matlin
Conan O'Brien (NBC) Regis Philbin (rerun)
Craig Kilborn (CBS) Donny Osmond

All times Eastern unless noted.

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First Manson claimed he was a Bush man. Then a few weeks later he was stumping for Gore. And now the goth rocker tells the Toronto Sun he didn't vote in the presidential election "because I didn't think that either one was worth voting for and I didn't want to settle for one."

But he won't feel bad at all if George W. Bush takes the White House, he says. On the contrary. "I think music and all art really flourishes and becomes much more exciting under a conservative president because there's a need to react against limitations," Manson says, sounding rather Nader-esque. "If it's right-wing, it just instantly makes me want to push the envelope more."

More?

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Ever heard of Elvis, boys?

"We thought it would be cool to do something that no one has ever done."

-- Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson on the band's new superdeluxe tour jet (complete with gold fixtures and king-size vibrating bed).

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"The thing that hurt me the most was
that they tried to pin something on me
that I was not. My mother raised me to
never, ever be ashamed of what I
am," Houston tells Out magazine. "But
I'm not a lesbian, darling. I'm not."

And in case you missed that, allow her
to make herself perfectly clear. She is
"not lesbian, not gay, not all that B.S.
I don't want to hear that. It's
over."

What, you need to hear her say it again?

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What
would Lucy and Desi say?

"What I often do is think of what the
Little Ricky inside me thinks of what
the grown-up Ricky has become. I will
ask him: 'Are you happy with how things
have turned out? Are you proud?' And you
know what? Sometimes, Little Ricky isn't
proud."

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In 1960, as her mother lay dying, Makeba applied for a visa to return home for a visit, and was denied -- as she would be until the end of apartheid. In its clumsy attempt to marginalize the indefatigable singer, the white South African government inadvertently granted Makeba a three-decade run as black South Africa's de facto ambassador to the Western world, where she acquired the appellation "Mama Africa."

Under the tutelage of Harry Belafonte, Makeba pleaded the case of her people to audiences across America during the height of this nation's civil rights struggle. In 1962, she performed at President Kennedy's famous birthday party in Madison Square Garden (also on the bill that night: Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday"). By 1967, she had a top-selling song on the Billboard singles charts; today that infectious dance tune, "Pata Pata," has found new life in commercials, and has been re-recorded for her new CD.

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Despite the subtitle that Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor have given their engrossing and massively detailed new biography of Daley -- "His Battle for Chicago and the Nation" -- the authors depict a man who was rarely concerned with national politics or with political theory or philosophy. The Daley of "American Pharaoh" is a shrewd manipulator who approaches every issue, every conflict, as either a threat to his power or an opportunity to consolidate it. For all his famous malapropisms ("The policeman is not there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder"), Daley was always intensely focused on his prime objective: preserving political power at any cost whatsoever.

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