Liz Taylor laid to rest near beloved Jackson

[1]

Film icon Elizabeth Taylor was laid to rest on Thursday in the same celebrity cemetery as her long-time friend Michael Jackson — and demonstrated a keen sense of humour to the end.
The legendary actress, who died Wednesday aged 79, was sent off with an hour-long private ceremony at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, where generations of Hollywood stars are buried.
But her last wishes were respected, and announced after the service had finished.
“The service was scheduled to begin at 2.00 pm, but at Miss Taylor’s request started late,” said a statement by her publicist.
“Miss Taylor had left instructions that it was to begin at least 15 minutes later than publicly scheduled, with the announcement: ‘She even wanted to be late for her own funeral,’” it added.
The film legend and violet-eyed beauty, famed as much for her stormy love life as her five-decade Oscar-winning film career, died early on Wednesday from congestive heart failure at Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai hospital.
Tributes poured in from Hollywood and beyond for the actress, who won two Oscars — including for the 1966 classic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — and was arguably the last great star of cinema’s golden era.
But Thursday’s funeral was reserved for a few dozen family and friends, brought in a fleet of black stretch limos to the verdant cemetery, where stars including Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow are also interred.
Irish actor Colin Farrell — a “close friend” — gave a recital of the Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo, while other readings were done by her children and grandchildren, said her publicist.