A Lustrous Pinnacle of Hollywood Glamour
( New York Times Japan Times )
Elizabeth Taylor, the actress who dazzled generations of moviegoers with her stunning beauty and whose name was synonymous with Hollywood glamour, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 79.
In a world of flickering images, Elizabeth Taylor was a constant star. First appearing on screen at age 10, she grew up there, never passing through an awkward age. It was one quick leap from “National Velvet” to “A Place in the Sun” and from there to “Cleopatra,” as she was
indelibly transformed from a vulnerable child actress into a voluptuous film queen.
There was more than a touch of Ms. Taylor herself in the roles she played. She acted with the magnet of her personality. Although she could alter her look for a part ? putting on weight for Martha in “Virginia Woolf” or wearing elaborate period costumes -- she was not a chameleon, assuming the coloration of a character. Instead she would bring the character closer to herself. For her, acting was “purely intuitive.” As she said, “What I try to do is to give the maximum emotional effect with the minimum of
visual movement.”
Sometimes her film roles seemed to be a mirror image of her life. More than most movie stars, she seemed to exist in the public domain. She was pursued by paparazzi and denounced by the Vatican. But behind the seemingly scandalous behavior was a woman with a clear sense of morality: she habitually married her lovers. People watched and counted, with
vicarious pleasure, as she became Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky -- enough marriages to certify her career as a serial wife. Asked why she married so often, she said, in an assumed drawl: “I don’t know, honey. It sure beats the hell out of me.”
【 まずは準備運動 】
・dazzle 目をくらます、まぶしくする
・indelibly 消えないように、永久に.(delete:削除する、消す)
・voluptuous 肉感的な、色っぽい
・coloration 着色、配色、(生物の)天然色
・intuitive 直観的な(名詞:intuition)
・vicarious (他人の経験を)想像して感じる、代理をする
・drawl ものうげに言う、母音を引き延ばして言う
● 解説ザブ〜ン!