The New York Times reports on the relationship between Elizabeth Taylor and the West Hollywood bar The Abby. According to David Cooley, the founder of the iconic bar, last Halloween he received a phone call. Elizabeth Taylor was on the line, and she wanted to know if it was a good night to come. “I told her not to come,” he said. “It was too busy. And there were already a half dozen Elizabeth Taylors here anyway.” For years, Taylor was a once-a-week regular, sipping tequila shots, downing watermelon and apple martinis or simply waving happily from her wheelchair. Sometimes she brought her dog, Daisy, who, some patrons claim, liked to bob her head along to the bar’s throbbing Madonna soundtrack. The scene in the “Elizabeth Taylor Room” — her favourite spot amid the Abbey’s many nooks and crannies — was decidedly sombre just after news of her death on Wednesday at the age of 79. Regulars, fans and Abbey employees started leaving flowers, candles, pictures and other tokens of affection (an autographed napkin) around a donation Ms. Taylor once made to the bar - a large portrait of herself in her prime. Sitting untouched on an empty table nearby was a remembrance from the bar staff, a Blue Velvet martini, a bluish drink made with vodka and blueberry schnapps and named in a nod to Ms. Taylor’s 1944 film National Velvet. “People have been walking up and starting to cry,” said Brian Rosman, an Abbey spokesman and a patron. “Others can’t talk, they get so emotional.” Cooley said it should not be a surprise her death resonates with the community. There have been other gay icons — Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Cher, Debbie Reynolds, Madonna — but Taylor perhaps eclipsed all of them, at least for a certain generation, with her outspoken efforts to raise the profile of AIDS at a time when people still referred to it as “the gay disease.” Taylor started raising money for AIDS research and victims after her friend Rock Hudson died of the disease in 1985. Over the next 25 years, she would become synonymous with the fight against AIDS, ultimately helping to raise more than $100 million for the cause. “For her to testify before Congress as early as she did was really remarkable,” said John Scott, the former executive director of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. In fact, Taylor also became a heroine for many gay people for criticizing a slow response to AIDS from politicians. “I’m not even sure if he knows how to spell AIDS,” she said of President George Bush in 1991. “She helped make talking about being gay okay,” said Mark Conaghan, a tourist from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who had his picture taken next to the Abbey’s shrine on Wednesday night. “She let it be known, God forbid, that she even had gay friends herself.” The Abbey, which opened in 1991 and has grown to 16,000 square feet, has become a tourist attraction because of Taylor’s patronage, which started about four or five years ago, according to Mr. Cooley. She was not the only star of her era to frequent West Hollywood’s cluster of gay bars. Legend has it that Loretta Lynn once judged a drag contest of men dressed in her likeness. But no other celebrity of Ms. Taylor’s wattage became such a presence, said John Heilman, a member of the West Hollywood City Council. “I used to run into her all the time at clubs on the strip,” he said. Still, the Abbey was her hangout. Mr. Cooley said she told him on one of her visits that it was her favourite pub. He had the sentiment printed on a plaque and placed near her donated portrait, which captures her diva qualities: arms extended, wearing an extravagant, shimmering gown recalling her wardrobe in Cleopatra. But the bar finds itself continually replacing the plaque. “People steal it,” Mr. Cooley said. “We’ve screwed it on. We’ve glued it on. Nothing works. I think it’s a symbol to people — that she loved us as much as we loved her.”
John Waters tells The Baltimore Sun that the great, late Divine "led me to Elizabeth Taylor. Divine even smoked Salems because she did. He almost got to meet her because Elton John was going to take Divine on a private plane with Liz, but Liz got sick and couldn’t go. Divine was crushed." Waters says he got his "shock of the day" early Wednesday morning with the news of Taylor's death. He said. "I always was a fan of hers. She was a real movie star and did great stuff for AIDS. She really was a hair-hopper! And she was amazing. Right up to the end she had a great sense of humour." Waters got to meet her when he went to her house for a Labour Day cook-out in 1997. "I believe I was invited because her entire staff knew who I was; I’m not so sure she did. It was a day or two after Princess Di died, so there were tabloid helicopters above. Their angle was, 'How can Liz have a party so soon after she died; she doesn’t care!' I just covered my bald spot, because it was like Apocalypse Now with the helicopters overhead." Waters said "It was an amazing party. Her house was a great house but it was not like some completely pretentious movie-star mansion; it was, appropriately, a great Beverly Hills house, but it wasn't extravagant, it seemed to me. And it really was a pool party. I looked around and it was like -- wow, is that Jennifer Jones? She just had hot dogs and hamburgers and she was giving out candy. And she even looked a little like Divine, not in a bad way." Waters says that Taylor was “Divine’s idol. If you look at some of the moves we made, like Multiple Maniacs, you can see we were paying tribute to her. Divine wanted to be Elizabeth Taylor. Divine once went on some date dressed as Elizabeth Taylor, dressed as Elizabeth Taylor, and he picked up his female date. There’s photos of that -- I don’t have them, but I’ve seen them." Divine specifically "liked Elizabeth Taylor when she played rich people, in The VIPS, or Ash Wednesday. I'd try to drag Divine to Bergman movies, and he’d say, 'No, can’t we see movies with rich people and Elizabeth Taylor?' He liked Boom! He liked Cleopatra. I did a whole art piece where I turn into her in Ash Wednesday, or she turns into me – her stitches turn into my moustache. That was a long time ago. Those movies were huge influences. I've seen every Elizabeth Taylor movie. Meeting her was one of the amazing days of my life."
0 comments:
Post a Comment