At 1.28 a.m. on Wednesday 23 March 2011 just three weeks after celebrating her 79th birthday the biggest star Hollywood has ever known died. The tributes & eulogies to Elizabeth Taylor were legion. A weeping Elton John said We have just lost a Hollywood giant. More importantly we have lost an incredible human being. In Elizabeth Taylor: The Lady The Lover The Legend 1932-2011 acclaimed biographer David Bret has written the revealing incisive & definitive life story of the most controversial cinematic icon since Mae West. While never yielding in his admiration & respect Bret has stripped away the veneer to portray the star as she really was: sometimes arrogant attention-seeking avaricious reckless monstrous towards her peers generous even foolish at times but above all through the tumultuous relationships & the personal mayhem a survivor. Elizabeth Taylor was the very last of the Hollywood greats. As David Bret writes Most of her contemporaries
- Garbo Streisand & Dietrich excepted
- were compelled to walk in the shadow of her sun. Of todays stars not one may be deemed worthy of stepping even within a mile of that shadow.