Elizabeth Taylor's obituary: outtakes from a 12-year work in progress

Elizabeth Taylor's death Wednesday moved me in an odd way. Although I never met or spoke to her, I had a "relationship" with her that spanned a dozen years: Hers was the first advance obituary I ever wrote for The Times. The assignment, which I received in 1999, probably was precipitated by one of Taylor's nearly annual brushes with death. I read a mountain of articles and books over a three-month period before writing a lengthy piece. And nearly every year since then I updated the article, adding a worthwhile quote or details about her latest illness. I felt I had come to know her and, unlike many of my subjects, I liked her.

More recently, I revisited the obit to shorten it. Some pithy quotes had to go, such as this one from writer Truman Capote, who once said: "Her legs are too short for the torso, the head too bulky for the figure in toto; but the face with those lilac eyes is a prisoner's dream, a secretary's self-fantasy."

And this one from Paul Newman, her co-star in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." He called her "a functioning voluptuary."

Elizabeth Taylor: A life in pictures

One of my favorite anecdotes that didn't make the final cut concerned Howard Hughes, the nutty billionaire who tried to run a movie studio after making a fortune building planes. After Taylor separated from her first husband, Conrad Hilton Jr. of the Hilton hotel chain, she was lying by a pool in Palm Springs when Hughes landed a helicopter next to her. "Come on, get your clothes on, we are getting married," he told the raven-haired beauty. She told him he was mad, whereupon he dipped his hand into a coat pocket and scooped out a handful of diamonds, which he then proceeded to sprinkle on her. Taylor roared with laughter and ran into her friends' house, scattering the diamonds behind her.

The diamonds from Richard Burton, the Welsh actor who accounted for two of her eight marriages, were another matter: She kept most of those. I loved his recollection of his desire for a $1.1-million, 69-carat diamond ring from Cartier in New York, which he acquired for Taylor after outbidding Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. "I wanted that diamond because it is incomparably lovely," Burton said. "And it should be on the loveliest woman in the world. I would have had a fit if it went to Jackie Kennedy or Sophia Loren or Mrs. Huntingdon Misfit of Dallas, Texas." 

I noticed that when Taylor spoke about herself, she rarely took herself too seriously, a quality that made her appealing. "People have called me accident-prone," she told Life magazine in 1997. "That really pissed Richard Burton off. He'd say, no, you're incident-prone."

You can read the obituary here.

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 -- Elaine Woo

Photo: Elizabeth Taylor in 2009.

Credit: Los Angeles Times

One year ago: Jennifer Jones

Jennifer Jones was an Academy Award-winning actress who in her life married two legendary men — producer David O. Selznick and industrialist and art collector Norton Simon. She died one year ago at age 90.

Jones starred in more than two dozen films, playing opposite such A-list actors as William Holden, Joseph Cotten and Gregory Peck. She won an Oscar for best actress for her performance in the 1943 film "The Song of Bernadette."

Her acting talent may have gone undiscovered if not for Selznick. He groomed her for stardom, pulled strings to get her roles and eventually married her  after she divorced her first husband, actor Robert Walker, with whom she had two sons.

Starting in the mid-1960s, Jones went through a bleak period. Her film career was on the wane and, in 1965, Selznick died. Two years later, she attempted suicide.

Her life took a turn for the better, however, around the time she met art collector Simon at a reception in Los Angeles in 1971 when she was 52. By then, she had retreated from Hollywood and taken up work with mental-health and charity organizations while raising her daughter by Selznick.

Jones, originally not an art connoisseur, became enamored of it when she married Simon. At his death in 1993, Simon named her president of Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum, where she oversaw a $3-million renovation of the museum's interior and gardens that was completed in 1999.

Jones herself was surprised at the many turns her life had taken.

"Actually," she told the Washington Post in 1977, "every time I stop to think about it, I'm really amazed. I think I've had an extraordinary life. And lots of times I can hardly believe it's me."

For more on the actress, read Jennifer Jones' obituary by former Times staff writer Claudia Luther, and view a photo gallery of her life.

--Michael Farr

Photo: Jennifer Jones in 1949, the year she married David O. Selznick. Credit: Associated Press

One year ago: Roy Edward Disney

Roy Edward Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, was so committed to his uncle's creative spirit that he mounted revolts that led to the unseating of two of the company's chief executives who he felt were leading the company astray. He died one year ago at age 79.

As chairman of Disney animation, Disney helped guide the studio to a new golden age of animation with an unprecedented string of artistic and box-office successes that included "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin" and "The Lion King."

But it was a long road to those successes. After 20 years of working on nature films for the studio, he quit in 1977 when he was denied a larger role in the company after the death of his uncle Walt and his father, Roy O. Disney. He remained on its board as a director but was largely a figurehead.

Disney went on to partner with lawyer Stanley Gold and became a successful financier through Shamrock Holdings, where he built up wealth to ease his reliance on his inherited Disney stock.

When he had accumulated enough money and influence independent of Disney, he made his move against the company that had increasingly frustrated him. He quit the Disney board in 1984, causing a stock turmoil that led the unseating of the company's management. Using his influence, Disney was able to bring in a whole new management team led by Michael Eisner.

The victory was short-lived. Tensions began building between Disney and Eisner when the company's president and chief operating officer, Frank Wells, died in 1994, leaving Eisner solely in control of the company. In 2003, Disney called for Eisner's resignation, saying the company had come to be perceived as "rapacious, soul-less and always looking for the 'quick buck' rather than long-term value." Eisner resigned in 2005.

Disney initially fought the hiring of Eisner's successor, Robert A. Iger, but relented when Iger made peace, offering Disney an office at the company's Burbank studios, a consultancy and the title "director emeritus."

Despite wealth estimated at $600 million, Disney remained shy and outwardly unpretentious, according to people who knew him. He also was involved in several philanthropic activities, including serving on the board of trustees of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he helped carry out the dream of Walt and his father to build and sustain a top arts college in Southern California.

For much more on his turbulent career, creative passion and the sometimes tense drama within his family, read Roy Edward Disney's obituary by The Times. Also, view a photo gallery of his life.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Roy Disney, in the Shamrock Center in Burbank on December 1, 2003. Credit: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times

Richard Goldman, who helped create Goldman Environmental Prize, dies at 90

Richard Goldman, a San Francisco philanthropist who created the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize to reward grass-roots activism around the world, has died. He was 90.

Goldman died Monday morning at home in San Francisco. Amy Lyons, executive director of the foundation that awards the prize, said he died of natural causes.

Launched in 1989, the $150,000 Goldman Prize is informally dubbed the "Green Nobel." It's awarded annually to six people "who chose to take great personal risks to safeguard the environment."

The 2010 recipients included a public-interest attorney from Swaziland, a Polish activist who fought to protect a wilderness area from a highway development and a Costa Rican man whose work resulted in that country halting the practice of shark finning.

"While there are other prizes for environmental achievement, it is this focus on work done at the grass-roots level that sets the Goldman Prize apart," Goldman wrote previously in a letter posted on the prize's website.

"Goldman Prize recipients are proof that ordinary people are capable of doing truly extraordinary things."

Goldman and his late wife, Rhoda Haas Goldman, started the prizes after realizing the environmental world did not have a Nobel-like prize dedicated to honoring grass-roots environmental work.

The prize was not the beginning of the Goldmans' philanthropy. The couple created the Goldman Fund in 1951, which has given away nearly half a billion dollars since then.

Goldman was also heavily involved in funding Jewish educational and pro-Israel organizations. The fund gave more than $12.6 million to Jewish-affairs groups in 2010, according to its website.

"One of the most powerful things he did was ensure that his children and grandchildren care about the world," Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, said in a statement.

"I am sure that his legacy will continue in their intelligence, compassion and commitment to the world."

In 1949, Goldman founded the insurance brokerage firm Goldman Insurance Services, which was sold to Willis Insurance in 2001.

He is survived by two sons, John and Douglas, daughter Susan and 11 grandchildren.

A funeral is scheduled for Friday in San Francisco.

-- Associated Press

One year ago: Frances L. Brody

Frances L. Brody was an art aficionado with a fierce intellect and pointed opinions whose private art collection fetched more than $224 million at an auction in May. She died one year ago at age 93.

Brody, along with her husband, Sidney, played a major role in the launch of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which opened in 1965. For many years, she was a force on the UCLA Art Council, which she helped found and served as president.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Gardens in San Marino, where Brody was a guiding patron and board member for 20 years, received a portion of the proceeds from her posthumous art auction.

Brody and her husband lived in a modernist masterpiece in Holmby Hills designed by architect A. Quincy Jones and decorator William Haines that became a gathering spot for a dazzling cross-section of the city's elite, from old Los Angeles families such as the Chandlers to Hollywood icons Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford.

"Francie was one of those originals -- really smart, inquisitive," said longtime friend Robert C. Ritchie, the Huntington Library's director of research. "As a collector, she knew what she liked and knew what she didn't like and ... you knew where she stood. It was never unpleasant, just 'Here's what I think.' "

For more on the storied Los Angeles art patron and her husband, read Frances L. Brody's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Frances L. Brody

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One year ago: John O'Quinn

John M. O'Quinn was a Texas lawyer who lived a lavish lifestyle furnished by the riches he received from high-profile lawsuit victories over wealthy corporations. He died one year ago at age 68 in an auto accident that also killed his passenger.

The 6-foot-4 O'Quinn, one of Houston's best-known trial attorneys, was known as a Texas-sized lawyer with a Texas-sized ego and a wallet to match. His John M. O'Quinn Foundation donated millions of dollars to the University of Houston, the Baylor College of Medicine and other institutions.

He also was the single largest contributor in the Texas governor's race, giving Democrat Chris Bell $1 million and loaning him an additional $1.7 million.

O'Quinn said he took in $3 billion from more than 3,000 breast-implant cases between 1992 and 2000. In 1995, Dow Corning, an implant manufacturer, cited his lawsuits as reasons for its bankruptcy filing.

Among his biggest prizes was a $3.3-billion fee he shared among five lawyers for helping the state of Texas settle its lawsuit against the tobacco industry.

For more on the high-spending Houston lawyer, read the entirety of John M. O'Quinn's obituary that appeared in The Times.

--Times staff and wire reports

Photo: John O'Quinn in 2006. Credit: Associated Press

One year ago: Nancy M. Daly

Nancy M. Daly was a stay-at-home mom of three and wife of a prominent entertainment executive when she made a life-changing visit to MacLaren's Children's Center in El Monte in the late 1970s. The former probation center had been converted into a juvenile protection facility with little attention paid to making it less prison-like. "The kids looked sad," Daly recalled years later," and I found it almost unbearable."

Her determination to improve conditions at MacLaren's (which closed in 2003) turned her into a formidable children's advocate. In 1979, with allies such as actor Henry Winkler, she helped found United Friends of the Children to support youngsters in foster care. She successfully lobbied for the creation of what is now the county Department of Children and Family Services and served on its advisory commission. She later helped launch the Children's Action Network, which sought to raise awareness of children's issues in the entertainment industry and lobbied for legislation in Sacramento and Washington. She also served on the nonpartisan President's Commission on Children.

"She was the central, most important person on the commission for adolescence and foster care and the transition from foster care to adulthood," fellow commissioner Donald Cohen of the Yale Child Study Center said of Daly in 1994.

Daly, who was married to former Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordanafter her first marriage to former Warner Bros. chief executive Bob Daly ended in divorce, was also a philanthropist and arts leader. She died one year ago at 68.

For more on Nancy Daly, read Times staff writer Jean Merl's obituary.

Lucius Walker, volunteer who brought aid to Cuba, dies at 80

Rev. Lucius Walker, who led an annual pilgrimage of U.S. aid volunteers to Cuba in defiance of Washington's near half-century-old trade embargo, died Tuesday of a heart attack in New York. He was 80.

Walker headed the nonprofit group Pastors for Peace, which since 1992 has brought tons of supplies donated in the U.S. to Cuba -- goods ranging from walkers and wheelchairs to computer monitors and clothing.

A statement on the New York City-based Pastors for Peace website expressed "immeasurable sadness" about "the passing of our beloved, heroic, prophetic leader Rev. Lucius Walker Jr."

-- Associated Press

One year ago: Frank Fertitta Jr.

That local casino -- you know, the one with the inexpensive buffet and frequent customer giveaways -- has on it the fingerprints of Frank Fertitta Jr., a bellman turned gaming mogul who pioneered the concept of neighborhood casinos in fast-growing Las Vegas. He died one year ago in Los Angeles.

Fertitta, founder of Station Casinos Inc., opened his first neighborhood casino -- simply named the Casino -- in 1976. The 5,000-square-foot gambling hall, attached to the Mini-Price Motor Inn and a short drive from Las Vegas Boulevard, gave the Strip's dealers and cocktail waitresses their own after-work hangout.

The casino went through many expansions, becoming Bingo Palace in 1977 and Palace Station in 1983. He eventually turned over the business to his sons, who later credited their father for building not only a popular entertainment hub, but also an upbeat work environment for his employees.

"The best thing about him was the culture he started," son Frank Fertitta III told the Review-Journal in 2006. "As the Bingo Palace grew into the Palace Station, people always wanted to come work for him. They liked the work environment, and that's the thing we've tried not to screw up."

Fertitta went on to start another casino, Texas Station, which he sold to his sons' company in 1995. Eventually, Station Casinos was involved in more than a dozen gambling operations, including upscale Green Valley Ranch in Nevada and Thunder Valley Casino near Sacramento.

For more, read Frank Fertitta's obituary by The Times.

--Michael Farr

Photo: Frank Fertitta Jr.: Credit: Craig L. Moran / Las Vegas Review Journal

Bill Lane, Sunset magazine publisher and philanthropist, dies at 90

Former Sunset magazine publisher Bill Lane, who donated millions of dollars to Stanford University and environmental causes, has died. He was 90.

Lane also served as U.S. ambassador to Australia and the island nation of Nauru. Stanford says he died of respiratory failure Saturday at Stanford Hospital.

Lane was born in Iowa. His family moved to California in 1928, when his father bought the fledgling travel magazine Sunset.

Lane and his brother Melvin ran Lane Publishing Co. from the 1950s until 1990, when they sold it to Time Warner.

A 1942 graduate of Stanford, Lane donated $5 million to endow the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He also gave money to help restore a Yosemite National Park amphitheater and preserve Silicon Valley open spaces.

-- Associated Press

Max Palevsky, art collector and computer technology pioneer, dies at 85 [updated]

Max Palevsky, an immigrant's son who made a fortune in the early days of the computer industry, then used his millions to build notable art collections and finance liberal campaigns, including the late Tom Bradley's first successful bid for Los Angeles mayor, died Wednesday at his Beverly Hills home. He was 85.

The cause was heart failure, said his wife, Jodie Evans.

Palevsky was best known for selling Scientific Data Systems to Xerox in 1969 for $1 billion. He went on to serve as a director and chairman of Xerox's executive committee and later helped found Intel Corp.

He left the corporate world during the 1970s to produce movies, finance a then-struggling magazine called Rolling Stone and delve into politics.

He was an early supporter of George McGovern during his ill-fated 1972 presidential campaign, then ran Bradley's successful 1973 bid for mayor. He also was a major backer of Robert Kennedy and Jimmy Carter during their presidential bids, and various campaigns of former Gov. Gray Davis.

His open checkbook and activism led to his branding in the 1970s as one of the "Malibu Mafia," a loose alliance of extremely wealthy and well-connected Democrats that included television producer Norman Lear and philanthropist Stanley Sheinbaum.

In later years, Palevsky seemed to sour on politics and concentrated more of his attention on art. He built important collections of Arts and Crafts furniture and Japanese woodblock prints, which have been featured in shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Click here to read the full obituary.

-- Elaine Woo

Photo: Max Palevsky in 2005. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Eunice Shriver and a daughter's public grief

“Grief cracks your heart into little pieces,” said Maria Shriver, speaking a little more than two months after the death of her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

California’s first lady stood before the annual Women’s Conference that she hosts in Long Beach and told attendees yesterday that “my mother’s death has brought me to my knees.”

The “extraordinary evocation of grief” brought “thousands to tears,” wrote The Times’ Cathleen Decker.

Shriver said her mother was “my hero, my role model, my very best friend. I spoke to her every single day of my life. I tried really hard when I grew up to make her proud of me.”

Just before her mother died, Maria Shriver said she asked her to “send me signs from time to time, so I know you are OK.”

The day after her mother’s funeral Shriver received one of those signs, she said, in the guise of a former nun who gave her prayer cards from Mother Teresa, a friend of Eunice Shriver’s. The former nun, fully clothed, then waded into the ocean, just as her mother often had.

-- Valerie J. Nelson

Photo: Eunice Shriver with her daughter Maria in 2005. Credit: Reuters