Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor, a star for sev­en decades, died ear­li­er today of con­ges­tive heart fail­ure. She was 79 years old. To pay quick trib­ute, we’re high­light­ing Tay­lor’s 1954 appear­ance on “What’s My Line?,” the longest-run­ning game show in Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion his­to­ry (1950 — 1967). A good way to remem­ber Tay­lor – hav­ing a lit­tle fun in her prime.

The film men­tioned at the end of the scene – The Last Time I Saw Paris stars – also hap­pens to be avail­able at the Inter­net Archive for free. Enjoy

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sal­vador Dali (and Oth­er VIPs) on “What’s My Line?”

Bruce Lee’s act­ing career began on tele­vi­sion in 1966, when he land­ed a part in The Green Hor­net. (Watch his amaz­ing audi­tion here). But it took anoth­er five years before he gave his first (and only) tele­vi­sion inter­view. For 25 min­utes in Decem­ber 1971, the mar­tial arts star sat down with Pierre Berton, a Cana­di­an jour­nal­ist, in Hong Kong. And their con­ver­sa­tion cov­ered a fair amount of ground – Lee’s suc­cess star­ring in Man­darin films .… despite only speak­ing Can­tonese; his dif­fi­cul­ty devel­op­ing a career in a coun­try still hos­tile toward Chi­na; and his work train­ing oth­er Hol­ly­wood stars in the mar­tial arts. Berton prob­a­bly nev­er scored many points for his inter­view­ing style. But Berton is not the point here. It’s all about Lee. via Brain­Pick­ings

James Dean starred in only three major films – Rebel With­out a Cause, East of Eden, and Giant – before per­ish­ing in a car acci­dent on Route 466, near Cholame, Cal­i­for­nia in Sep­tem­ber 1955. (A free doc­u­men­tary cov­ers that.) A star died at 24. Mean­while, a leg­end for­ev­er embody­ing youth was born.

Jim­my Dean would have turned 80 today. Amaz­ing to say it. And, to mark the occa­sion, we’re fea­tur­ing a slide show show­cas­ing the pho­tog­ra­phy and voice of Den­nis Stock, the Mag­num pho­tog­ra­ph­er who took many icon­ic pho­tos of Dean, includ­ing Dean’s famous walk through a rainy Times Square with a cig­a­rette propped in mouth and hands in pock­ets. Stock­’s images shaped Dean’s pub­lic per­sona, and the work you’re see­ing here fig­ures into a more com­pre­hen­sive pre­sen­ta­tion of Stock­’s oeu­vre on the Mag­num web­site.

PS Today is also Jules Verne’s 183rd birth­day. If you’re look­ing for his clas­sics – Around the World in 80 Days or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – you can find them in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.