Cleopatra Eyes

I'm home sick today with a beaut of a headcold. I tried to sleep as late as possible, and it's peppermint tea for the throat and Lipton's Chicken Noodle Soup for the tummy. For the soul, it's Days of Our Lives and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Cleopatra (1963).

I haven't watched DoOL in ears, and its just as cheesy-good as ever. Someone is a murderer, and someone else nearly married him, and someone is secretly very ill, and someone is pregnant, and so is someone else, but keeping it a secret from the father... It's comforting that even when the names change, the plots stay the same.

Cleopatra, a four-hour epic, was considered a box office flop because of the cost overruns, but it's a lavish slice of 1960s hubris. I love that the Egyptians are wearing fitted bullet-bra garments. And let's face it; any excuse to see Liz Taylor's remarkable cleavage is worth it. She's sexy, and totally covered up.

I grew up in the generation where Liz Taylor was either a lush or frail from an illness. But this movie reminds me that she was the queen of Hollywood, and at five-foot-two, no one could touch her.

It also reminds me that of the reason she married Richard Burton twice. He was a vital, handsome man back in the day. I always picture him from the interview he and Liz did with Barbara Walters in the 1970s, and it seemed to me that he was a drunkard and kind of sad. But once he truly was a lion among men.

It also makes me thing of the cat-eye makeup look, and how this movie had such an impact on the fashion of the era. It had such impact that it continues to be an iconic look that is adapted every decade. The eyeliner flair may change, and the colour or use of eye shadow differs, but it's always there in the fashion realm.

Admit it, you've rocked the cat-eye in your day!