Pity Award?

There’s no question that Elizabeth Taylor was a great actress, but even she admitted that her best actress win for 1960’s BUtterfield 8 might have been a sympathy vote. In the months leading up to Oscar night, Liz suffered a nearly fatal — and highly publicized — bout of pneumonia. She ended up accepting her award with her tracheotomy scar still visible. “I only won it because I almost died,” Liz confided in 1992. Happily, she would win one more time for 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a performance that actually

deserved to be honored.