 And the winner for Best Actress in a movie she absolutely hated—Elizabeth Taylor!  
The 1960 melodrama BUtterfield 8—the capital BU being a phone exchange in New York City—was probably one of the most contentious productions in which Elizabeth Taylor was ever involved. Because she had just gotten her name splashed all over every tabloid on the planet for stealing the husband of America’s sweetheart Debbie Reynolds, and because her contract with MGM was ending and she wasn’t coming back to the studio, the suits decided to capitalize on her freshly ruined reputation by casting her as the promiscuous Gloria Wandrous. If the last name feels like a mash-up of “wondrous” and “wandering,” that’s an apt description for the character, who’s a home-wrecking maneater. But the studio suits weren’t done. Just to make sure the scandal rags were all over the story, they cast the man Taylor had stolen in real life—Eddie Fisher—in the film as well. Their goal seemed to be to generate attention and they succeeded. BUtterfield 8 was a success and Taylor snagged an Academy Award for her efforts, but she hated the film. The story goes that she threw her shoes at the screen the first time she saw it. The Japanese posters you see above are exceedingly rare. The first has never appeared online before, we're pretty sure; the second version, in pink with the unusual capital BU in the title, we found at an auction site. We can’t help but think even Elizabeth Taylor would have liked them. Update: Oops, we forgot we had a third vesion of the poster. An unusual all black edition. We've uploaded it below, butter late than never. Heh. Um... 
 Liz Taylor may be the last big star who came out of Hollywood’s old studio system. 
It’s amazing how few people these days know Elizabeth Taylor is a highly regarded two-time Oscar winner who ruled Tinseltown for twenty solid years. Though she's certainly well-known, the reasons for her fame are beginning to fade from popular memory. But she was a once-in-a-generation talent who scored four Oscar nominations in her career, notching her two wins for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was also the most highly paid performer in the world, and one of the first true tabloid queens, with paparazzi dogging her every step from Hollywood to Rome. Looking at this Life cover from sixty-two years ago today, we get a glimpse of the beauty that fueled the worldwide Taylor obsession.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot.
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