tagged w/ Elizabeth Talor
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The iconic 1963 Andy Warhol silkscreen portrait of legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor will be auctioned on May 12, 2011, and is expected to sell for $20 Million to $30 Million. “Liz #5” was created at the height of the Taylor’s fame, which also coincided with the most significant and creative period of Warhol’s career. The glamorous portrait embodies the most important themes of Warhol’s body of work, which include celebrity, wealth, scandal, sex, death and Hollywood.
Elizabeth Taylor, the queen of American motion picture stardom, who enthralled generations of moviegoers with her stunning beauty and whose name was synonymous with Hollywood glamour, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles at the age of 79.
During a theatrical career that spanned six decades and more than 50 films, the legendary beauty 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). Long after she faded from the motion picture screen, Taylor remained a mesmerizing figure. She was a child star who bloomed gracefully into an ingenue; a femme fatale both on the screen and in real life; a shrewd entrepreneur of high-priced perfume; and a pioneering activist in the fight against AIDS.
Taylor had many gay friends and, as the AIDS epidemic mushroomed, some of them were dying. In 1985, she became the most prominent celebrity to back what was then a most unfashionable cause. She agreed to chair the first major AIDS benefit, a fundraising dinner for the nonprofit AIDS Project Los Angeles. Taylor began calling her A-list friends to enlist their support, but many of Hollywood’s biggest stars turned her down. Undaunted, Taylor redoubled her efforts, aided along the way by the stunning announcement that Rock Hudson, the handsome matinee idol and her co-star in “Giant,” had the dreaded disease. She stood by Hudson, just as years later she would stand by pop-idol Michael Jackson during the latter’s struggle to defend himself against child abuse allegations.
Taylor went on to co-found the first national organization devoted to backing AIDS research, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, or AmFAR. In 1991, she formed the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, which directly supports AIDS education and patient care. Taylor’s AIDS work brought her the Legion of Honor in 1987, France’s highest civilian award, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ awarded her The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1993. In 2000, Queen Elizabeth made her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, an honor on the level of knighthood. Through her various efforts she would eventually raise more than $270 Million for AIDS research, prevention and care.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution vintage photographs, a slide show and three documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/warhols-iconic-liz-taylor-portrait-could-draw-30m-at-may-auction/The iconic 1963 Andy Warhol silkscreen portrait of legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor... more
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