Most readers are aware that legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor passed away recently. My daughter Kaye will sometimes hear things at school or in the Chinese media that she’s not sure I am aware of so she will share things with me. At school she learned of Taylor’s death and the teacher pointed out that Taylor had violet eyes, a purple hue, as well as a genetic mutation for double eyelashes which gave her eyes a thick full beautiful look.

Well, I was surprised that Kaye had already known about Taylor and her eyes . . . it’s not like we watch a lot of old American movies here in Taipei so her exposure to things that other American children her age consider basic cultural knowledge is sometimes rather intriguing in its happenstanceness.

Evidently, a few months ago, Kaye had done a web search for purple eyes as the phenomenon intrigues her and the vast majority of images in the ol’ googlesearch are of Elizabeth Taylor. Now, there are some folks out there who say Taylor’s eyes were not actually violet or purple but were blue or green and that she wore contact lenses . . . uh, nope. The first company to manufacture purple contact lenses used Taylor as their inspiration. Her eyes were genuinely of that shade . . . and strikingly beautiful . . . something that those of us who never met her in person can only guess at as photographs and film are color corrected and enhanced so we can never know the true shade and the impact that those eyes had. The first time I met someone with purple eyes, they very nearly mesmerized me . . . but then that was well after contact lenses and I just assumed the young woman wore colored lenses as an affectation . . . now I have to wonder. It is a very rare color but it is a natural one.

See http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/now/shes-got-elizabeth-taylor-eyes/59 for a bit on her eyes.

All the best,
Brian