About Liz...

Elizabeth Taylor passed away last week.

When you're a movie buff like me, well you just can't forget her beauty and her movies from National Velvet to Cleopatra...from Butterfield 8 to Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf, but the one that sticks with me the most is The Giant, Edna Ferber's novel which was made into a 1956 award-winning movie with a cast I'll never forget. Rock Hudson, James Dean, Dennis Hopper, Mercedes McCambridge, Chill Wills...and the list goes on with another handful of character actors involved in the epic film about a Texas cattle baron (played by Hudson), who falls in love with a beautiful lady (Taylor) from Maryland, gets hitched, and moves her West.

The new bride steps off the train and enters a new life on the Benedict Family spread, called Reata, complete with a ranch house full of characters like Jett Rink (Dean) and Luz Benedict,the sister, played by McCambridge. Bick Benedict (Hudson) ends up with a keg of worms, so to speak, corralling all of the above characters (and a few more) into a family unit.

Elizabeth Taylor, a movie star, one of my favorite actresses of all time, dead at the age of 79.