Following on the heels of the death of beloved German polar bear Knut, Hollywood lost an icon when Elizabeth Taylor passed away at the age of 79.

Immediately after Taylor’s passing questions arose as to the suspicious timing of the two deaths.  It was known that Taylor was an avid animal lover.  A autographed (autopawed?) photo of Knut was found among her possessions.  Could Taylor, in poor health and distraught over the death of Knut, have taken her own life as part of a love suicide pact?

As amazing as that may seem at first there is strong evidence that this is indeed what happened.  Taylor and Knut were kindred spirits and a bond did exist between them.  Both spent their formative childhood years in the public eye.  Both had messy private lives and were unsuccessful finding permanent companions.  Both loved walks in the rain, romance novels and eating raw fish.  Both had a tendency to corpulence and maiming children who fell into their cages.  Both were represented by the William Morris Agency.  Both were married to Eddie Fisher.

“People shouldn’t be surprised” said a Hollywood insider.  “It’s just that most Americans are too bourgeois to accept the reality of interspecies love.”

Indeed the available evidence suggests that interspecies love predates Taylor and Knut by over a century.

The first recorded interspecies love suicide pact appears to be that between Abraham Lincoln and the Dodo bird.  The entire species of Dodo bird voluntarily went extinct after Lincoln’s death.

“Lincoln and the Dodo had a lot in common” relates a Lincoln biographer.  “Both were homely and flightless and both opposed the Mexican war, feeling it was unnecessary and nothing but an excuse for Democrats to expand slavery.”

After Lincoln and the Dodo bird other well-known interspecies love affairs include Herbert Hoover and Rin Tin Tin,  Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s race horse and Mark Spitz and Secretariat.

According to a codicil in Taylor’s will, she will be buried facing Europe so she can look upon Knut for all eternity.

“It’s what she would have wanted” said a spokesman for her estate.

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