Elizabeth Taylor has been on my mind the last couple days. It started when I was watching the DVD commentary of The Graduate the other day and Mike Nichols was talking about the experience of directing Taylor and Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and what a contrast that film was stylistically to The Graduate, which he filmed the following year. (The fact that these were the first two films of Nichols's career speaks to what a beast he is -- and continues to be -- as a director, but I digress.)
So that got me thinking about Virginia Woolf and what a great film it is, and how long it's been since I've seen it, and what an impact it made on me when I first saw it in high school. (I really do need to cop it on DVD.) There is a scene in my romantic comedy, When It All Falls Down, that is seriously indebted to it. the main characters, Kenny and Jamilah, have recently broken up, and are bitter at one another, yet still, obviously in love. Kenny reveals an embarrassing secret about Jamilah to her family (in one of those moments where comedy segueways violently into drama) and one of Kenny's retorts, pulled directly from this movie (and Edward Albee's play) is, "And that, my friends, is how you play Hump the Hostess."
Sometimes I get fixated on people and they become omnipresent in my world until I stop thinking about them. My Netflix movies showed up Saturday, and one of hers was there -- The Sandpiper -- which I've never seen, but look forward to. A Place in the Sun, another tremendous influence on me in my film school days, played on Turner Classic the other night, and another of her films, Butterfield 8, (for which she won her first Oscar) comes on in about an hour.
Then, today comes this news item. Only Liz Taylor could do a show in the middle of the strike and get love from both sides. And man, her and James Earl Jones, on the same stage? Where was I at? It's not like I had $2500, but I'm saying.
We just don't have stars like her anymore. She matured from child star to ingenue to true actress (I could imagine cats was clowning when it was announced that she was going to play the frumpy, alcoholic, older Martha in Virginia Woolf. But she gained 35 pounds and came with it, to win her second Oscar.) Her 575 husbands, legendary glamorous gowns, tireless charity work for AIDS, and most of all, the amazing performances she gave in film after film (although it took me years to forgive that Cleopatra b.s.) Much respect.
As for me, I just got done watching the Patriots squeak by the Ravens in a heck of a game on Monday night. My Bengals are frazzled and stumbling as usual. It took my alma mater's upset of #2 West Virginia to make this a not as horrible football weekend.
The short script is just about done. I renamed it Parkside Boulevard, after a street not too far from my house. I grew up on Freeman Street, but hey, face it, Parkside Boulevard sounds better. I've got so many ideas for other stories, scripts, songs, etc. But with the day job and stuff, time is short. I just keeping jotting them down. They will come forth eventually.
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