Elizabeth Taylor
A Private Life for Public Consumption
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- 33,99 €
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- 33,99 €
Descrizione dell’editore
The first volume to examine the iconic Elizabeth Taylor in this light, Elizabeth Taylor: A Private Life for Public Consumption paints Taylor as the seminal representation of "celebrity." A figure of enormous charisma and cultural sway, she intrigued a global audience with her marriages and extra-marital improprieties, as well as her extravagant jewelry, her never-ending illnesses, her dependency on alcohol, and her perplexing friendship with Michael Jackson. Despite her continued world-renown, however, most people would be hard-pressed to name even three of her films, though she made over seventy.
Ellis Cashmore traces our modern, hyperactive celebrity culture back to a single instant in Taylor's life: the publicizing of her scandalous affair with Richard Burton by photographer Marcelo Geppetti in 1962, which announced the arrival of a new generation of predatory photojournalists and, along with them, a strange conflation between the public and private lives of celebrities. Taylor's life and public reception, Cashmore reveals, epitomizes the modern phenomenon of "celebrity."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cashmore (Beyond Black: Celebrity and Race in Obama's America) combines broad research and personal observations in this lively study examining how Elizabeth Taylor transformed our perception of modern celebrity. He depicts the Oscar-winning actress's life in the spotlight, beginning with her doomed affair with Eddie Fisher, followed by her very public romance with Richard Burton. He chronicles their tumultuous marriage and lavish lifestyle, as well as their shared dependency on alcohol, which, combined with Taylor's abuse of prescription medication, led to her highly publicized stint at the Betty Ford Center. Taylor's ability to deflect media criticism is impressive as she develops a beloved perfume brand at considerable profit and becomes a persuasive figurehead in the fight against AIDS, a story that will leave readers wondering why she didn't enter the business and political arenas sooner. Finally, Cashmore shrewdly asserts that Taylor's greatest role was as herself, cultivating a public image that redefined modern society's relationship to fame and fed the media's insatiable appetite for public spectacle. 16 b&w illus.
