On the day Elizabeth Taylor died, Carmela Meola of Mamaroneck, NY passed away at age 94. Carmela, who was born in Sicily, did not have eight husbands like Miss Taylor, but rather only one, Charles Meola, with whom she raised two kids.  She may not have earned millions of dollars in show business, but she did work in food services at a local high school for twenty years.

On the day Elizabeth Taylor died, Sister Jean Baptiste Nicholson passed away at age 75.  JB, as she was known, probably was not born with Miss Taylor’s beautiful eyes, but she spent many years as the principal of a private Catholic girls’ school, Ursuline College. In her 35 years there, she helped create a greater diversity by expanding the student body’s race, religion and socioeconomic background.  She oversaw the expansion of the curriculum to meet the needs of the 21^st century, with greater emphasis on computer skills, foreign languages and the arts. In addition, she added greater athletic opportunities for her students, and created programs such as Peer Counseling.  

On the day Elizabeth Taylor died, Mary Provost of Waterford, NY passed away at age 81.  Mrs. Provost may not have played Cleopatra on screen, but she did teach history for 25 years in a local school district.  She was a community activist, an advocate for teachers and labor unions, and she ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate against former New York State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno.

On the day Elizabeth Taylor died, Richard Leacock passed away in Paris, France at age 89.  Unlike Miss Taylor, Mr. Leacock never won an Academy Award, but maybe he should have.  He was among the first practitioners of the cinéma vérité style of documentary filmmaking and worked with such influential filmmakers as the Maysles Brothers, D.A. Pennebaker (on Monterey Pop) and Jean-Luc Godard.  He founded, and taught at, a film school at M.I.T. where several top current filmmakers honed their skills.

On the day Elizabeth Taylor died, these four people also passed away.  They weren’t famous, they never made scandalous headlines and they never appeared in the gossip rags.  They also deserve to be eulogized.