I was at work this afternoon when my boss — who had just gotten to the office after spending the day in court — approached my desk and said, “Lisa, you like old movies, don’t you?”

“Kinda sorta,” I replied and I tried to say that with just a hint of a coy little smile to let him know that I absolutely love movies — new and old — but I’m not sure if he noticed.

“Did you know Elizabeth Taylor died today?” he asked.  I guess I didn’t answer quickly enough because he then added, “She was a movie star, might have been a little bit before your time.”

Well, just for the record, I do know who Elizabeth Taylor was.  And even though she pretty much retired from acting before I was even born, she was hardly before my time because — whether it was by appearing in classic films like A Place in the Sun and Giant or films like Cleopatra and Reflections in a Golden Eye that were so bad that they somehow became good — she became one of those timeless icons.   

I think there’s probably a tendency to be dismissive of Elizabeth Taylor as an actress because her private life, in so many ways, seemed to epitomize every cliché of old school Hollywood scandal and glamorous excess.  However, you only have to watch her films from the 50s to see that Elizabeth Taylor actually was a very talented actress who, even more importantly, had the type of charisma that could dominate the screen.

I think that’s why it was so strange to hear that Elizabeth Taylor had died.  It was a reminder that, as opposed to just being an image stored on DVDs that can be viewed as often or as little as one might choose, she was actually a human being just like the rest of us.