By Brent Lang
?She was the last of the great stars and the first of the new ones,? William J. Mann, author of ?How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood,? told TheWrap.
There is a straight line from Taylor to Madonna all the way up to Kim Kardashian. It?s safe to say that without Taylor and Burton, there would be no Brangelina.
True, she was not the first Hollywood figure whose personal life collided with the klieg lights, but she changed the idea of what made a star a star forever.
Read also: Elizabeth Taylor -- Every Inch a Star, and Sometimes a Great Actress
Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford?s romance captivated a nation. Roscoe ?Fatty? Arbuckle?s manslaughter case was dubbed ?The Trial of the Century.? Ingrid Bergman?s affair with Roberto Rossellini led to a denouncement on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
Elizabeth Taylor dwarfed them all.�Through scandal, addiction, failed marriages and medical scares, Taylor always commanded public attention.
Read also:�Hollywood, World React to Elizabeth Taylor's Death
?She transcended being a star really. After ?Cleopatra,? it didn?t matter what films she did, she was just a legend,? David Slide, author of ?Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine,? told TheWrap.
?The paparazzi would not exist if not for Taylor and Burton. People became rich because Elizabeth and Richard fell in love," Mann said. ?Movie stars of the Golden Age didn?t have photographers in trees trying to take pictures of them in their back yard. That all goes back to Elizabeth.?
The white-hot media glare must have been exhausting, but there was a certain symbiosis in Taylor?s relationship with the press. Her ups and downs in the limelight seemed to only strengthen her bond with a global audience. It helped that she also saw fit to use her celebrity to draw attention to good causes such as AIDS, not just jet-setting excursions to Puerto Vallarta.
The public never turned on her, film critic Leonard Maltin pointed out to TheWrap.�?Even in moments when you might think she?d used up her reserve of goodwill,?�
It's a testament to the intensity of Taylor's hold on audiences that many of her fans referred to her simply as "Liz."
Taylor?s last significant film role was in 1966?s ?Who?s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,? but because she erected few barriers between the personal and professional, she remained a fixture of magazines and gossip sites until the end of her life.
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