"A great example of where ['Liz and Dick'] doesn't dare go as far as reality is the way the movie depicts the end of Taylor's marriage to Eddie Fisher."

"In real life, as in the film, Burton really did demand that Taylor pick between him and Fisher, and she chose Burton—right in front of Fisher."

In Liz and Dick, this scene marks the end of Taylor's marriage to Fisher. In real life, though, the cuckolded Fisher hung on for quite a while longer. According to Furious Love, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger's incredible book on Burton and Taylor based on their diaries and letters, Fisher called Taylor's villa days after the confrontation and Burton answered. “What are you doing in my house?” Fisher asked. “What do you think I'm doing?” Burton responded. “I'm fucking your wife.”

ADDED: Here's "Furious Love," which is only #30 in the "Rich & Famous" subcategory of the "Leaders & Notable People" subcategory of the "Biographies and Memoirs" list at Amazon. Who's leading among the "rich & famous"? Bruce Springsteen, followed by Rod Stewart. Aging boomers prefer a rock 'n' roll milieu for their vicarious memories.

At the Beautiful Love Café...

Source: retronaut.co via Ann on Pinterest

... it couldn't get any better.

"Well, if we did do it in Betty Ford then I don’t remember."

Larry Fortensky remembers.

He tells of long rides on the Harley along California’s famous Pacific Coast Highway. ‘She would wear a helmet and no one knew who she was. We could be alone and free.’

They would stop for burgers in greasy biker bars. ‘People would pretend not to know who she was. Elizabeth loved that. She loved a burger and a beer....

‘We travelled the world. We had a dinner in Japan which cost $30,000 (around £20,000 then). The beef had been hand-massaged or something. It was a real good steak but at thirty grand it should have been.’

Burgers, steak... it's all good.

"She was single-handedly a living rebuke to postmodernism and post-structuralism, which maintain that gender is merely a social construct."

Camilia Paglia appropriates the dead body of Elizabeth Taylor to restate the point she's been making for 20 years.

Zsa Zsa seeks entry into glamorous death triad.

Aware of the superstition that celebrity deaths come in threes, she said: "Oh, Jane Russell and Liz Taylor — I'm next."

Elizabeth Taylor.

The goddess walked the earth for 79 years.

"Only Eddie Fisher, as a boyhood friend of the frantic playgirl, seems like something dragged in from left field."

"He plays a music writer who lives in a dark room in Greenwich Village and acts as if he wishes they would all go away and leave him alone."

From the 1960 NYT review — by Bosley Crowther — of "Butterfield 8," the movie Elizabeth Taylor won an Oscar for playing "the slut of all times" in. Fast-forward to 2010 and Eddie's dead.

When Eddie Fisher's best friend, producer Mike Todd, was killed in a 1958 plane crash, Fisher comforted the widow, Elizabeth Taylor. Amid sensationalist headlines, Fisher divorced Reynolds and married Taylor in 1959.

The Fisher-Taylor marriage lasted only five years. She fell in love with co-star Richard Burton during the Rome filming of "Cleopatra," divorced Fisher and married Burton in one of the great entertainment world scandals of the 20th century.

Fisher's career never recovered from the notoriety.

Eddie, like Todd and Burton, is now dead. He made it to 82. What did he do after Liz? Did anyone pay attention to anything other than Liz? Even now, the old man finally gone, we hear of his death, and we think — don't we? — of the goddess Elizabeth Taylor.

"I hate where we are today. I hate the Internet. I hate the instant-news cycle," says National Enquirer editor Barry Levine.

"I yearn for the days when we could pass off a reporter as a waiter at Liz Taylor and Larry Fortensky’s wedding and get the inside scoop. They were the best days, no question about it. These days, the Lindsay Lohans and the reality stars? They’re flies on the wall, specks, not real celebrities."

You've got to have the glamour and grandeur before it's any fun snooping and toppling.

The 1960s look.

I was enjoying this selection of photos of women who exemplified 1960s style. Lots of iconic prettiness. But then I hit this one:



Ha ha.

And here's a bonus 60s style video — fashions by Elizabeth Taylor, with Patti Boyd modeling, and George Harrison, John Lennon, and Richard Burton gawking.

Flea at USC.

He's a freshman, studying music:

The Chili Peppers [created tension] in our song structures but all based on emotion and intuition as opposed to knowing the math and academics of it. Knowing the structure is really fun.

He's also working on a solo album:

I’ve been making a record at home and it’s nearly done. It’s mostly instrumental stuff but I have Patti Smith singing on it and the choir from the school but mostly it’s an instrumental record. I’m not sure how to describe it but a lot of people have described it as cinematic, like soundtrack music. It’s not really a commercial enterprise, it’s not going to be on rock radio or anything. The record is based on the character Helen Burns from "Jane Eyre." I love Charlotte Bronte and all of the Bronte sisters.

That "Jane Eyre" stuff sound really nerdy, but if you've ever seen the Orson Welles movie version, you know that Helen Burns is the most stunning beautiful child ever seen in a film:



But no, Flea (Michael Balzary) says he's mad about the Brontes, and he's going to college, so I'll assume it's about the books, not how insanely beautiful Elizabeth Taylor is in that movie.

Here's Flea playing the bass:



He's studying trumpet (and music theory and composition) at USC.

AND: No, a men in shorts tag is not called for!