RIP Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor, the actress who dazzled generations of moviegoers with her stunning beauty and whose name was synonymous with Hollywood glamour, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 79.

In a world of flickering images, Elizabeth Taylor was a constant star. First appearing on screen at age 10, she grew up there, never passing through an awkward age. It was one quick leap from “National Velvet” to “A Place in the Sun” and from there to “Cleopatra,” as she was indelibly transformed from a vulnerable child actress into a voluptuous film queen.

In a career of some 70 years and more than 50 films, she won two Academy Awards as best actress, for her performances as a call girl in “BUtterfield 8” (1960) and as the acid-tongued Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966). Mike Nichols, who directed her in “Virginia Woolf,” said he considered her “one of the greatest cinema actresses.” (Click Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011
A Lustrous Pinnacle of Hollywood Glamour, NYT for the rest.)

(Interestingly enough, the writer of the above obituary of Taylor has already been dead for the past six years, according to the L.A. Times.)

The first Elizabeth Taylor movie I ever watched was Cleopatra, which co-starred her great love Richard Burton. It was one of those old flicks shown on Ch. 9 during the Martial Law years. She was such a great beauty, so lovely and powerful she fit the role of the Egyptian pharoess to a T, while Burton was oh-so-ruggedly handsome. Any discussion or writeup of either two wouldn't be complete without mentioning their love affair that got them condemned by the Vatican, and their twice-over marriage (and divorce).

But their love was just "too big too last", according to a story in Vanity Fair, and one of my favorite pieces ever written on their relationship.

In fact, you might say there were two marriages: the ballyhooed union of Liz and Dick and the private marriage of Elizabeth and Richard. More often than not, Liz and Dick overwhelmed the private marriage, holding it hostage and ultimately helping to derail it. Many who knew of Burton's meteoric rise through the ranks of London's West End felt that the Welsh actor had entered into his affair with Elizabeth Taylor with impure motives—a chance to seize greater fame through his liaison with the most famous actress in the world. If so, he quickly found himself utterly bewitched. In scores of letters and notes he wrote to Elizabeth over the course of their marriage, Richard poured out his infatuation, love, and need for her, how he had discovered in her the embodiment of all the women in Wales he had loved or lusted after, from his sainted sister, who had raised him, to the dark-haired “tarts” he knew as a randy youth in the Welsh towns of Pontrhydyfen and Port Talbot. “My blind eyes are desperately waiting for the sight of you,” he would write to Elizabeth well into their marriage. “You don't realize of course E. B. how fantastically beautiful you have always been, and how strangely you have acquired an added and special and dangerous loveliness. Your breasts jutting out from that half-asleep languid lingering body, the remote eyes, the parted lips.” (Read VF for the rest. There are a lot of other great Taylor-Burton stories in the mag, now available online, such as When Liz met Dick. Also check out The Queen And I, which is about the late author Dominick Dunne's friendship with Taylor.)

Sometimes her ethereal beauty just seemed to overpower the screen, making the audience forget how great an actress she really was. And those mesmerizing violet eyes...wow! she was just so lovely to look at. Check out VF's slideshow here.

But she was indeed one of the best actresses in Hollywood - even Paul Newman, her co-star in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (one of my favorite Taylor movies!) thought so. He pays tribute to her in a Turner Classic Movie bit in 2007, just a year before he passed away.



Rest in peace, Elizabeth Taylor. We will always remember you with great joy and much affection.

Remembering Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper

Coleman’s road was both more and less difficult than those of his cast mates. He was unquestionably a superstar, overshadowing them with his radiant charisma and boundless energy, but the kidney condition that enabled him, even as a teen, to play the world’s most precocious little brother on TV also complicated his life in ways most of us will never understand. We, his fans, grew up and moved on, but he stayed down there, stuck in a show-business netherworld, his increasingly incongruous physical appearance a source of lasting amusement to certain people my age, but never to me. (Click Remembering Gary Coleman w/o irony.)

Also, Dennis Hopper's photographs in Vanity Fair

Steven Seagal and the Pacman

LOS ANGELES, California – Filipino boxing icon Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao had dinner with action star Steven Seagal in Hollywood early this week, Balitang America reported.

Pacquiao and Seagal talked about the possibility of doing a movie or concert together.

“We had a great time together. The time just flew by,” said Pacquiao. (Click ABS-CBN News Online Beta for the rest.)

O ha! Say nyo? ;p

(Photo from Team Pacquiao/ABS-CBN News Online)

Cyd Charisse, 86

SHE'S dressed in a tight green Charleston strapless outfit her hair in a Chinadoll cut, a cigarette in a black thin holder dangling from forefinger and middle finger, and she's seated on a stool.

Her long shapely dancer legs so fabulous, as she kicks one straight up over head, Gene Kelly's hat on top of her foot shod in a green high heeled-pump. She teases Gene Kelly with those gorgeous gams and glides around him ever so sexily.



That is my all-time favorite scene, dubbed Broadway Melodies, in my all-time favorite movie musicale, Singin' in the Rain. Cyd Charisse was not an actress, she was a classical ballet-trained dancer, and yet she became as popular as many of her acting contemporaries.

She was my idol when I was very young. When I was still taking my ballet lessons, I would imagine growing up to be just like her...famous for her flirty and almost effortless dancing. And she could dance anything...classical ballet, swing, jazz, tap...she lived in the time when grand movie musicales were most in demand. It is my favorite Hollywood period as film studios churned out one hit after the other...Brigadoon (also starring Cyd btw), Silk Stockings (Cyd and Fred Astaire), West Side Story, Carousel, Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, etc.

Thank you Cyd Charisse, for giving us so much joy through your dancing. We have truly been blessed by your beauty and grace.

Click here for TIME's feature on Cyd Charisse's succesful Hollywood career.

Here's my other favorite scene in Singin' in the Rain.

The cougar relationship

(This is the unabridged version of my column, Something Like Life, published on June 6, 2008, in the BusinessMirror.)

I WAS channel-surfing the other day and chanced upon another showbiz true stories-type of program, featuring the Top 25 Cougars in Hollywood. Guess who made to the top of the list? Of course, it was none other than Demi Moore.

Okay, wait a minute…to those who are still in the dark, a “cougar” is a term to describe older women dating or are married to younger men. How young? Well in Demi Moore’s case, her Ashton Kutcher is 15 years younger than her. (Hmmm…did Demi ever think that when she was starting to screw around, Ashton was just in his nappies sucking his thumb? Eww. Banish that thought! Just think how the thumbsucker turned out into the gorgeous hunk and drool.)

To most women over 40 who have a difficult time finding and maintaining relationships with men their age or older, Demi has come to symbolize the ideal woman. She looks fabulous for her age, has a great career, has grown-up and, as far as we can tell, well-behaved kids, a supportive ex-husband in the person of Bruce Willis, and obviously lots of great sex with Ashton. To top it off, Bruce gets along well with Ashton! What a fabulously satisfying life Demi must have and I personally envy her. I wish I had the guts to date someone younger than me.

Of course, a cougar relationship isn’t exactly smooth-sailing as Demi and Ashton would like us to believe. Especially in our culture, cougar relationships, a.k.a. May-December affairs, are still viewed somewhat negatively. They are viewed as either predatory (on the part of the women) or parasitical (on the part of the young men). This is especially true if the man and woman are not on equal footing financially or intellectually.

I remember my mom dissing an amiga of hers who was going out with a man half her age. I, of course, applauded my tita and jested that my mom was just envious about my tita’s good fortune. Inggit ka lang, noh?! (It is a scientific fact that as women reach their 30s and 40s, their testosterone levels get a boost, thus accounting for their increased libido. On the other hand, men at this age would rather head off to Dreamland. As one writer asks, if you had a choice between a thick juicy steak and beef jerky, what would you choose? Then again, sex may not necessarily be the only reason these supposed sugar mommas get into relationships with younger men.)

While a cougar coupling may not necessarily be bothered by what society thinks of them, the age factor may still become an issue simply because each belongs to a different generation that is reflected in one’s attitude, upbringing and behavior. (Imagine ladies talking about traveling with Capt. Kirk in the USS Enterprise or getting lost in the Twilight Zone, to a man who grew up watching Barney, that disgusting purple dinosaur on TV!) What is important is whether or not the couple can weather their differences that come with the age gap.



Take the case of Vanessa. She is 42 and a strong independent woman who has never had a problem attracting men. But among the men she has dated, there wasn’t anybody serious enough to ask her for marriage, although she already had made a trip down the aisle once before, and has two kids with her ex. Whenever we talk about men and relationships, she always tells me that she is tired of the dating game and wants to settle down.

Now enters Toby, a 30-year-old American whom she met in May 2006. “It was the oddest moment because we met at the time when I was venting on my friends, telling them about my failed date two nights before and swearing that I would never date anymore. They told me not give up and that I would find the right man. Then they recommended Toby, who at that time was sitting at the bar next to us. And I said, ‘Him? How old is he? Twelve?’”

Vanessa says that she found Toby cute but she was more into men her age or someone older. “So at first I wasn’t interested. But I ran into him a couple of times. And as I got to know him, I realized how mature he is.”

As she got to know Toby more, she found out how many things they had in common. “He’s so cool. Bohemian like me. He’s a Renaissance man. We share the same interests: literature, non-mainstream music and films.” Calling Toby a “musicologist,” Vanessa says she has learned a lot about artists from him. She adds that she had never dated anyone who appreciates foreign films like her.

“Plus,” she rattles off, “he’s very open-minded, very interested in learning new things, very interested in my culture. He’s a modern man; he doesn’t expect his Asian woman to be subservient. He believes in equal opportunity in the kitchen. He’s from New Orleans and knows how to cook great dishes!!!”

After going steady for about two years, earlier this year Toby finally popped the big question. Vanessa excitedly announced it via e-mail and said she had gotten engaged. A few weeks after, the engagement was off. “What happened?!” I asked. She gave a cryptic answer about the age gap and the many issues that came with it.

Vanessa admits it was she who was more concerned about the age gap than Toby. “I was very cautious because of it. I wasn’t investing in the relationship too much because I thought he was still in the process of exploring life and that one day he would decide to go out with a 20-year-old bimbo. But as the months went by, I realized that I was underestimating him and that I was making a big deal out of the age gap for no reason.”

She realized how very serious he was about their relationship when she came home to Manila for a visit to spend time with her teenage children. “He said he wanted to come and meet them. That blew me away. I always told myself that the guy who wanted to meet my children would be ‘The One.’ And that’s Toby.”

Her kids fell in love with Toby immediately, especially her older son. “They talk about technology, which leaves me out of the conversation,” Vanessa jokingly gripes.

Two months ago, Toby again visited when Vanessa came for a visit. She is excited and says the engagement is back on and they are “making big plans this year.” I am, of course, keeping my fingers crossed that these plans push through.

“I realize that the age gap is all in the mind,” Vanessa says. “They’re just numbers with no relevance in the relationship. As long as you get along well and you have a mental and intellectual alignment, ‘cougar’ relationships can actually work.”

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. Photo from BM.)

Sydney Pollack, 73

WHILE Sydney Pollack has been known to be one of the best film directors of all time, with hits such as The Way We Were, Tootsie, Out of Africa, among others, he was also an actor.

The last time I saw Pollack onscreen was in The Sopranos – my favorite TV show; I almost busted by Ibook downloading all seven seasons of it via Bittorrent! — where he played an oncologist-turned-orderly in a medical facility for inmates. (Creepy that he dies of cancer in real life.)

Just watch how he explains how he became an inmate as well...brilliant understated acting by Pollack. Btw the other actor in this clip is Vincent Curatola who plays Johnny Sack, a mob boss.