Elizabeth Taylor Dies

www.anglophonie.fr
Elizabeth Taylor Dies at 79
(BBC, March 2011)
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=5exlA5UJpKo&feature=email
Elizabeth Taylor, one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the twentieth century has died at the age of 79.
The double Oscar-winning actress had a long history of ill health and was being treated for symptoms of
congestive heart failure. Our arts correspondent, David Silito, looks back now on her life.
To many, she was the last icon of the golden age of movies. Her beauty, screen presence and simple star
power outshining all those around her. But Elizabeth Taylor’s life was both blessed and cursed. Her life
story (was) extraordinary even by the standards of Hollywood.
Elizabeth Taylor began acting in films when she was just 8 and she was a star by the age of 12.
I haven’t told you, that stone … (???) Three times this morning he sailed over it!
Born in London and brought up in Los Angeles, she glided effortlessly into adult stardom. Her look helped
define the ideal of beauty in the 50’s, and she had real talent. It was Montgomery Cliff, she said, who had
taught her to take acting seriously.
I learned that you had to feel it in your gut. You get a rush of, like, being that person, and being true to that
person and what they would do.
But increasingly, it was her marriages that attracted attention: the first to Conrad Hilton of Hilton Hotels.
Then came Michael Wilding. After that the film producer, Mike Todd. It was soon after his death that she
filmed the movie Butterfield 8. Elizabeth Taylor! She hated it, but suffering a near-fatal illness helped sway
Hollywood’s heart when it came to Oscar night.
I guess all I can do is say thank you, thank you with all my heart.
By 1963 Elizabeth Taylor was described as the most beautiful woman in the world and she was earning a
million dollars to star in what was then the world’s most expensive film. Her co-star was, of course, Richard
Burton.
-Remember, remember that once you were to forget… please!
-Forget? How? I can never be more far away from you than, than this!
Their romance was a media sensation that went on and on. Burton and Taylor married, divorced, remarried
and divorced again. And their stormy passion was mirrored in another Oscar-winning performance.
-You’re a monster, you are!
-I’m loud and I’m vulgar and I wear the pants in the house because somebody’s got to (do it)!
But I am not a monster!
Then, there were the other husbands: singer, Eddie Fisher; the senator, John Warner, and twenty years her
junior, builder Larry Fortensky, her friend from the rehab clinic. And through all of this was the ill health.
She suffered from ulcers, dysentery, pneumonia, a brain tumor, arthritis and numerous addictions. But her
charity work was for another condition: AIDS. Following the death of Rock Hudson, who co-starred in
Giant, she was furious at the taboos surrounding the topic.
Everybody was talking about it, but like this, and nobody was doing anything about it – including myself!
And then I got really angry.
The foundation she helped set up has distributed more than two hundred and thirty million dollars. It was for
this that she was made Dame Elizabeth, but when you add in the rest of the story and all the roles, she was
always Hollywood royalty.
Remembering Elizabeth Taylor…
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Vocabulary
1. congestive heart failure
2. looks back on
3. screen presence
4. outshining
5. both blessed and cursed
6. even
7. by the age of 12
8. brought up
9. glided effortlessly
10. stardom
11. take acting seriously
12. feel it in your gut
13. you get a rush
14. increasingly
15. near-fatal illness
16. sway Hollywood’s heart
17. she was earning
18. to star
19. then
20. went on and on
21. stormy passion
22. was mirrored
23. somebody’s (has) got to
24. rehab clinic
25. AIDS
26. co-starred
27. set up
28. add in
insuffisance cardiaque congestive
revient sur
présence à l’écran
éclipsant
à la fois bénie et maudite
même
avant l’âge de 12 ans
élevée
passa sans effort
célébrité
prendre le métier d’acteur au sérieux
le sentir dans vos tripes
vous ressentez une poussée d’adrénaline
de plus en plus
une maladie quasi fatale
influencer, captiver
elle gagnait
jouer
à l’époque
continuait sans fin
(fig.) stormy = orageux
s’est reflétée
quelqu’un doit
de désintox
SIDA
partagea l’affiche
à fonder
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