Perhaps it’s been a long time coming, and for too long the rumors have been greatly exaggerated, but today we must sadly report that Elizabeth Taylor has died.

As always, we take a look back at the contributions to Shakespeare made by such a fine actress. Everybody knows where this train of thought goes, right? Zeffirelli’s Taming of the Shrew, of course. Is this not the definitive cinematic version? To me I think that she’ll forever be Kate, chased by Richard Burton’s Petruchio while she hurls curses (and furniture, if I recall!) at him.

Interesting : The trivia for this movie says that, unlike Burton, Taylor had no Shakespeare experience when she started. In fact she insisted that her entire first day of shooting be reshot because she wasn’t happy with it. Perhaps this has something to do with her coming off of Cleopatra, a legendary flop (and no, not anything to do with the Shakespeare story on the same subject).

Does anyone know if she ever did any other Shakespeare after this? I can’t find any. Although, amusingly enough, I see that she gave Marlowe a spin, starring in a version of Doctor Faustus :).

Rest in Peace, Katharina.

UPDATE: For those looking for more, US Magazine had done a recent “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me” story with Taylor. I just learned that Richard Burton never won an Oscar?

Over on Yahoo Answers there was a question about Edmund’s status as a villain. So I went looking through the archives to find one of our many “Best Villain” discussions…. and couldn’t find any.
Could it be possible that we’ve never had that discussion? Let’s remedy that.
Best Villain In Shakespeare. Make your case. Tell us who, and tell us why. Strictly *in context of the play* – not “because you really want to play him” or any meta-stuff. Fair enough? Keep everybody arguing the facts of the case.
Who’s it gonna be? Edmund? Iago? Richard III? Aaron?
(It dawns on me that it might be fun to do a post on *all* Shakespeare’s villains, like a Rogue’s Gallery focusing specifically on the evildoers in all of Shakespeare’s works. Hmmmm, yet another idea to put up on the shelf….)

Did Shakespeare write Edward III?
Jeff Watkins, founder and artistic director of the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, thinks so. And it’s crucial to his argument that his group is the only one in America to have produced all 39 of Shakespeare’s plays.
Let the debate rage. If you fall back on the classic agreement of plays — 37 (leaving out Two Noble Kinsmen) — then there are a number of Shakespeare companies that have achieved this goal. If you count Kinsmen, then the Royal Shakespeare Company (granted, not in America) can raise its hand to make that claim.
Watkins isn’t stopping at E3, however, and ye gods one can only hope that he’s going for quality and not just quantity — his group will be doing Double Falsehood (aka Cardenio) as well as Sir Thomas More, which would indeed make him the only company around to have produced 41 of Shakespeare’s plays.
Maybe he can just put an asterisk next to Shakespeare(*) like they do in baseball.

Face it, Daniel Radcliffe, you’ll forever be known as Harry Potter. And I know, it’s not terribly newsworthy to hear that he’d “love to do Shakespeare one day”. But since he seems intimidated by the idea (he admits that he’d need a lot of direction), I thought it might make for some interesting conversation to ask…. which character for him?
I figure that his name recognition alone at this point would require that he get a fairly lead role, there’ll be no Banquo or Benvolio for him. But do we see him as a Romeo? I don’t think so. It would be a fun character turn to see him try Iago, but come on, the kid’s intimidated by Shakespeare already, do you really want to start him there?
How about Benedick?