The Taming of the Shrew. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. 1967. DVD. Sony, 1999. Today, 23 March 2011, Elizabeth Taylor died. Her Katherine was magnificent, as was the Helen of Troy she played in the Doctor Faustus directed by Richard Burton.
I'm out of town, so I can't cull a clip right now, but her version of Katherine's "I am ashamed that women are so simple" speech is remarkable. She plays it absolutely straight, leaving it up to us to determine just how much of it Katherine embraces and how much is merely a façade.
The face (or the eyes?) that launched a thousand ships (and seven or eight marriages, depending on whether you count Richard Burton once or twice) has departed from the world, but she has left a marvelous legacy behind her.
Links: The Film at IMDB.
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You know, upon watching it let's make sure to give credit to Petruchio's "WTF is going on??" stare through the whole thing. That, if anything, shows me that she was playing him.
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