Elizabeth Taylor

What have I seen with Elizabeth Taylor?

Suddenly Last Summer. Who's Afraid of Virginian Woolf. Cleopatra. The Mirror Crack'd.

The episode of The Simpsons where she was the voice of Maggie.

Divorce His - Divorce Hers. The Only Game in Town. A Place in the Sun. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Father of the Bride. Father's Little Dividend. Life with Father. Giant. Here's Lucy.

Didn't realize I'd seen so many.

A friend once told me that it was a celebrity look-alike in the episode of Here's Lucy, but imdb.com says otherwise. I was surprised to see that she appeared in General Hospital and All My Children.

Elizabeth Taylor died today, Wednesday, of congestive heart failure.

I'll tell you an Elizabeth Taylor joke. I can't remember who told it. Red Skelton? Morey Amsterdam?

"I got a job singing at Elizabeth Taylor's weddings. The pay's not good but the work's steady."

The Westboro Baptist Church

And finally, there is this. The Westboro Baptist Church announced their intention to picket her funeral.

The Westboro Baptist church consists mostly of members of its founder, Fred Phelps', family. They're the gay-haters who've been picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in the various wars we're in.

Phelps' has a son and daughter who are not in the church. They have said that Phelps has no religious beliefs but has a paraphilia. He is sexually excited by hatred. Which is the most logical explanation for them I've heard.

I do wonder. The Westboro Baptist Church has been able to get away with its stuff on free speech grounds. But if they made false or defamatory statements about Elizabeth Taylor whose name and image have a substantial monetary value, could her estate sue the crap out of them?

John Dean, Lizzie Borden

Quite a few years ago, someone tried to get files from the law firm that had represented accuse ax murderer Lizzie Borden in 1892. They wanted to know if she confessed to her attorneys.

The law firm, which is still in business, refused to release the files. They had an obligation to protect their clients' confidences and a court agreed with them---people have a legal interest in protecting their privacy and reputations even after their deaths.

More recently, John Dean, counsel to the president during Watergate, wrote about Patricia Cornwell. Cornwell is a mystery writer. She claims to have solved the Jack the Ripper case---claims that the killer was the artist Walter Sickert. She continues to claim he was guilty even though it's been proven that Sickert was in France when some of the murders were committed.

Here is a link to Dean's essay. He discusses ways in which one might go after people who defame the dead:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20021122.html