Just a few weeks ago, Kirk Douglas was stage-hogging at the Oscars, accounting for one of the most talked-about portions of ABC's annual telecast.
So it was with some surprise that I listened to ABC's Diane Sawyer last night describe the late Elizabeth Taylor as the last of the Golden Age Hollywood stars, an assertion later repeated by reporter Barbara Walters.
Walters "report" consisted of a canned interview, during which Walters ogled Taylor's diamond necklace, and tried on one of her jewel-encrusted rings, which looked like something Project Runway might design for the Super Bowl winner.
Anyway, Kirk is 90 something, Taylor was 79, so there is no portion of any Hollywood age that he did not also live through as a star.
Are they wishing Kirk were dead, or merely pretending?
Later, on NBC, Brian Williams quoted Joan Rivers as praising Taylor for dying "wealthy."
Maybe that's what Sawyer meant by Golden Age.