ELIZABETH TAYLOR

Elizabeth Taylor died last month. I never cared much for all the marriages (how can you marry the same man twice?), the jewels and rehab, the odd friendships. What I liked about her was that although she made some real howlers (Cleopatra springs to mind), she was also a great actress in some very good films.

She won an Oscar twice, for Butterfield 8 in 1960 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966. Her other good films were A Place in the Sun; Suddenly, Last Summer; Giant; and my favourite, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, where she was terrific. In the first two she starred with Montgomery Clift, another actor I like a lot.

I watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? last night. It's a film adaption of a stage play, and takes place in the course of a single night, from about 2.00am until dawn. The four characters have all been to a party before the film starts, and they drink hard liquour almost continuously throughout the film's two hours, so they are either drunk, getting drunk, or sobering up. It's very difficult to act convincingly as a drunk, but both Taylor and her husband (both on- and off-screen at the time) Richard Burton do it brilliantly. Her Oscar was well-deserved.

She will be missed.

Walter Blotscher