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.

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

View the slide show

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

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.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

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.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Continue Reading...

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."

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

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?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

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).

Continue Reading...

"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?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

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."

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

No attention has been paid to an equally important question: Where will all the disaffected Bill Bradley Democrats (like me) go this fall if they decide they've had it up to the chops with the deceit and incompetence of the Clinton-Gore years?

Bush will never get my vote, since not only is he embarrassingly unprepared for the presidency but his party, with its weird congressional collection of milquetoasts, dodos and dunderheads, seems stuck in 1958. Nor can I imagine voting for Ralph Nader, the consumer-rights crusader turned flake who could no more govern than my hero Andy Warhol -- another brooding, boyish, ethnic monastic.

Continue Reading...

Gee, where do I start? There have been
so many people who haven't helped me
over the years. Please forgive me if I
fail to mention some of your names
tonight when it really counts, as you
have failed to mention mine so many
times over the years.

First of all, I would not like to thank
my family. They were never there when I
needed them and, of course, they're all
here now. Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa,
you were always the first to say,
"You're right. You can't do it. Why
don't you make us all feel comfortable
and give up?"

Then there's my industry family. I'll
start with my agent. He once dislocated
both shoulders describing the fish he
caught. Jeremy, what can I say? You
didn't get me this part and you almost
blew the deal. You're fired. Not that it
was such a great part anyway. As we all
know, the person it was written for has
the acting range of a doorbell. When she
turned it down, I got the part because
my agent said that I'd work for food.
Sorry, is that too bitter? It's just
that I'm dying. Really. Why so quiet?
Everyone knows that I've got six weeks.
Isn't that why I'm getting this award?

Continue Reading...

Until recently, for instance, Parkinson's disease was just a shaky blip in the National Institutes of Health's budget, despite the more than 1 million victims of the neurological illness. In 1998, the NIH research funding for Parkinson's was $41 million (or $41 per person afflicted), compared with the more than $1,600 per person that is being spent to find a cure for the 980,000 citizens currently infected with HIV. Cancer, in its various forms, afflicts 8 million in the United States; as of 1998, cancer research receives $368 per person.

Continue Reading...

After returning from the Korean War, Fisher married Debbie Reynolds, the girl next door. Theirs was the ideal marriage, at least to the media. "I've often been asked what I learned from that marriage," he says. "That's simple: Don't marry Debbie Reynolds."

Soon enough, he left Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor. And when that marriage collapsed, he got hitched to Connie Stevens. Throughout all these musical chairs, he was singing, pouring out records -- and the money was pouring in, along with the women. Queen Elizabeth asked him to dance; Bette Davis "made drool eyes at me." He knew, sometimes intimately, Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Gina Lollobrigida, Brigitte Bardot, Joan Collins, Sue Lyon, Lana Turner, Margaret Truman. So much fun, so many parties. One wonders how he was able to find time to record songs between his bouts of passion.

Continue Reading...