Elizabeth Taylor, 1932–2011

"Elizabeth Taylor: The life, the looks, the movies, the smarts, the talent"
Hadley Freeman, guardian.co.uk (March 23, 2011)

"The Cleopatra costume will, surely, dominate the news reports but with all respect to the Egyptian queen, Liz was bigger than that.

"Elizabeth Taylor evokes more images than the number of husbands she had. She was the breathtakingly beautiful child who - unlike her near contemporary, Judy Garland - seemed to slip into adulthood unscarred by her precocious professional success; the sultry dramatic actress; the compulsive bride, who went through husbands like fashion trends...."

It's not a particularly breathless, or sentimental, obituary: for which the Lemming is duly grateful. However, the Guardian piece focuses more on Taylor's adherence to contemporary mores, and less on her remarkable professional career.

The sparse IMDB bio, "Elizabeth Taylor," does a better job, in the Lemming's opinion: by simply listing the titles that she played in.

Elizabeth Taylor played rolls in The Simpsons (1992), Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1992), Sweet Bird of Youth (1989), Doctor Faustus (1967), Quo Vadis (1951), and - of course - National Velvet (1944).

IMDB, and quite a few other sources, say that she won two Oscars.

That's fine: but the Lemming thinks it's more impressive that Elizabeth Taylor played a wide variety of roles in dozens of movies and television episodes: and had what it takes to keep getting re-hired from 1942 to 2001.