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La Liz’s legendary GLAAAAD-EEE-AYY-TUR! moment from the 2001 Golden Globes!
The Oscars can be messy, but they try to keep their messiness on the down-low while trying to deliver the perfect portrait of poise and classiness. They’re your snobby and uppity auntie who tries to keep it together, but every now and again she misses taking her meds, has one too many more glasses of chardonnay and loses it (see: THIS and THIS). The Golden Globes, on the other hand, don’t try to really hide their drunken messiness and go with it, which is why that mess is a little more watchable than the damn Oscars. Case in point: the time in 2001 when Elizabeth Taylor delivered the moment of the night by not knowing how award presenting works.
Vulture paid tribute to the late Elizabeth Taylor nearly fucking up the presentation of Best Motion Picture Drama at the 28th Golden Globe Awards. Dame Liz decided to graciously bring some old Hollywood sparkle to the sea of drab in the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton by presenting the final award of the night. Elizabeth sashayed on out to a standing ovation, and started off normal by reading the lines she was supposed to read, but shit went off the rails into FuckeryVille when she started opening up the winner’s envelope before announcing the nominees. But before she could shout, “LA LA LAND!”, people in the audience dared to correct her and told her she was doing it wrong. That’s when a wave of confusion hit her and she became me whenever I have to fill out a form that is more than one line long. Dame Liz let out a stream of HUHs and WHAs before letting those lesser tricks know that she’s used to getting awards, not giving them out, thankyouverymuch.
Eventually, a 68-year-old Liz got help from her elder, a 71-year-old Dick Clark, who told her she had to read the nominees before opening the envelope. Liz did just that before giving us the prequel to MAAAAAAAIR-EEEEE by shouting GLAAAAD-EEE-AYY-TUR after opening up the envelope. Honestly, the Gladiator people should’ve handed over that trophy to Elizabeth Taylor since she was the real winner of Best Drama.
Many thought that La Liz was La Drunk, but many years later, the president of the HFPA, Philip Berk, told The Hollywood Reporter that even though it took a lot to get her to agree to present (including paying $8,000 for her hair and makeup), she gave them the moment of the Golden Globes!
Berk writes that when she took the stage, there was a tremendous standing ovation. This so overwhelmed Taylor that she opened the envelope and started reading the name of the winner. She was rescued by producer Dick Clark, who rushed on-stage and had her list the nominees before revealing the winner.
“It may have been nerve-racking for me,” writes Berk, “but it ended up giving us more favorable publicity than any single moment in Golden Globe history.”
This year is the 19th anniversary of that beautifully messy moment, and although 19 is not a big anniversary, I still feel like whoever presents the Best Motion Picture Drama award should pay tribute to it by not bothering to read the nominees and opening up the envelope to say, PAAAAAAAIR-A-SITE! (No, it’s not nominated in that category, but it should still win.) It’s what La Liz would want!
Pic: YouTube