Elizabeth Taylor

Name: Elizabeth Taylor
Profession: Actress

Wiki:
 Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011),[2][3] often referred to as Liz Taylor, was an English-born American actress. She first became famous as a child actress, and was later recognized for her superior acting talent and striking beauty, especially with her violet eyes. Taylor's much publicized private life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. She used her stardom to promote many social causes, among them AIDS research. As a two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, Taylor is considered one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. The American Film Institute named her seventh on its Female Legends list.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born at Heathwood, her parents' home at 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb,[4][5][6] a northwestern suburb of London; the second child of Francis Lenn Taylor (1897–1968) and Sara Viola Warmbrodt[7] (1895–1994), who were Americans residing in England. Taylor's older brother, Howard Taylor, was born in 1929.[8] Her parents were originally from Arkansas City, Kansas. Francis Taylor was an art dealer, and Sara was a former actress whose stage name was "Sara Sothern." Sothern retired from the stage when she and Francis married in 1926 in New York City. Taylor's two first names are in honor of her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Mary (Rosemond) Taylor.
Of their closest friends in England, Colonel Victor Cazalet, had an important influence on the family. As a rich and well-connected bachelor, a Member of Parliament and close friend of Winston Churchill, he was a passionate lover of both art and theater, and encouraged the Taylor family to think of England as their permanent home. In addition, as a Christian Scientist and lay preacher, his links with the family were spiritual. He also became Elizabeth's godfather. In one instance when she was a child, suffering from a severe infection that kept her in bed for weeks, she "begged" for his company: "Mother, please call Victor and ask him to come and sit with me."[9]:14
Biographer Alexander Walker suggests that Elizabeth's conversion to Judaism at the age of 27 and her life-long support for Israel, may have been influenced by sympathetic views she heard at home. Walker notes that Cazalet was an active campaigner for a Jewish homeland, and her mother also worked actively in various charities, which included sponsoring fundraisers for Zionism. Her mother recalls the influence that Cazalet had on Elizabeth:
Victor sat on the bed and held Elizabeth in his arms and talked to her about God. Her great dark eyes searched his face, drinking in every word, believing and understanding.[9]:14
A dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States, she was born a British subject through her birth on British soil and an American citizen through her parents. She reportedly sought, in 1965, to renounce her United States citizenship, to wit: "Though never accepted by the State Department, Elizabeth renounced in 1965. Attempting to shield much of her European income from U.S. taxes, Elizabeth wished to become solely a British citizen. According to news reports at the time, officials denied her request when she failed to complete the renunciation oath, refusing to say that she renounced 'all allegiance to the United States of America.'"[10]
At the age of three, Taylor began taking ballet lessons. Shortly before the beginning of World War II, her parents decided to return to the United States to avoid hostilities. Her mother took the children first, arriving in New York in April 1939,[11] while her father remained in London to wrap up matters in his art business, arriving in November.[12] They settled in Los Angeles, California, where her father established a new art gallery, which included many paintings he shipped from England. The gallery would soon attract numerous Hollywood celebrities who appreciated its modern European paintings. According to Walker, the gallery "opened many doors for the Taylors, leading them directly into the society of money and prestige" within Hollywood's movie colony.[9]:27
Acting career

Child actress


Studio publicity photo as a child actress, circa 1942
Soon after settling in Los Angeles, Taylor's mother discovered that Hollywood people "habitually saw a movie future for every pretty face." Some of her mother's friends, and even total strangers, urged her to have Taylor screen tested for the role of Bonnie Blue, Scarlett's child in Gone with the Wind, then being filmed. Her mother refused, as the idea of a child actress in film was alien to her, and in any case they would return to England after the war.[9]:28
Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper introduced the Taylors to Andrea Berens, the fiancée of Cheever Cowden, chairman and major stockholder of Universal Pictures. Berens insisted that Sara take Taylor to see Cowden who, she insisted, would be dazzled by her breathtaking dark beauty.[13] Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer also became interested in Taylor, and MGM head Louis B. Mayer reportedly told his producer, "Sign her up, sign her up! What are you waiting for?" As a result, she soon had both Universal and MGM willing to place her under contract. When Universal learned that MGM was equally interested, however, Cowden telephoned Universal from New York: "Sign her up, he ordered, don't even wait for the screen test." Universal then gave her a seven-year contract.[9]:31
Taylor appeared in her first motion picture at the age of nine in There's One Born Every Minute (1942), her only film for Universal.[14] After less than a year, however, the studio fired Taylor for unknown reasons. Some speculate that she did not live up to Cowden's promise. Walker believes that Taylor's intuition told her "she wasn't really welcome at Universal." She learned, for instance, that her casting director complained, "The kid has nothing," after a test. Even her beautiful eyes—they were a deep blue that appeared violet[15][16] and stunned those who met her in person,[17] and a FOXC2 mutation gave Taylor double eyelashes[8][16]—did not impress him: "Her eyes are too old, she doesn't have the face of a child," he said.[9]:32


Studio publicity photo
But Walker admits that "this was not so far off the mark as it may appear now." He explains:
There was something slightly odd about Elizabeth's looks, even at this age - an expression that sometimes made people think she was older than she was. She already had her mother's air of concentration. Later on, it would prove an invaluable asset. At the time, it disconcerted people who compared her unfavorably with Shirley Temple's cute bubbling innocence or Judy Garland's plainer and more vulnerable juvenile appeal.[9]:32
Taylor signed with MGM because "the people there had been nicer to her when she went to audition," she recalled.[9]:32 MGM's production chief, Benny Thau, was to remain the "only MGM executive" she fully trusted during subsequent years, because, writes Walker, "he had, out of kindly habit, made the gesture that showed her she was loved."[9]:32 Thau remembered her as a "little dark-haired beauty...[with] those strange and lovely eyes that gave the face its central focus, oddly powerful in someone so young."[9]:34 MGM, in addition, was considered a "glamorous studio," boasting that it had "more stars than there are in heaven."
Taylor was offered a long-term contract at the beginning of 1943. Before her mother would sign it, however, she sought certainty that Taylor had a "God-given talent" to become an actress. Walker describes how they came to a decision:
[Mrs. Taylor] wanted a final sign of revelation...Was there a divine plan for her? Mrs. Taylor took her old script for The Fool, in which she had played the scene of the girl whose faith is answered by a miracle cure. Now she asked Elizabeth to read her own part, while she read the lines of the leading man. She confessed to weeping openly. She said, 'There sat my daughter playing perfectly the part of the child as I, a grown woman, had tried to do it. It seemed that she must have been in my head all those years I was acting'.[9]:38-39
Adolescent star


In National Velvet (1944)
MGM cast Taylor in Lassie Come Home (1943) with child star Roddy McDowall, with whom she would share a lifelong friendship. He later recalled regarding her beauty, "who has double eyelashes except a girl who was absolutely born to be on the big screen?"[8] Upon its release in 1943, the film received favorable attention for both McDowall and Taylor. On the basis of her performance in Lassie Come Home MGM signed Taylor to a conventional seven-year contract at $100 a week but increasing at regular intervals until it reached $750 during the seventh year. Her first assignment under her new contract at MGM was a loan-out to 20th Century Fox for the character of Helen Burns in a film version of the Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre (1944). During this period she also returned to England to appear in another McDowall picture for MGM, The White Cliffs of Dover (1944).


With Mickey Rooney in National Velvet (1944)
Taylor's persistence in seeking the role of Velvet Brown in MGM's National Velvet made her a star at the age of 12. Her character is a young girl who trains her beloved horse to win the Grand National. Velvet, which costarred fellow young actor Mickey Rooney and English newcomer Angela Lansbury, became a great success upon its release in December 1944. Many years later Taylor called it "the most exciting film" she had ever made,[7] although the film caused many of her later back problems due to her falling off a horse during filming.
Viewers and critics "fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor when they saw her in it." Walker explains why the film was popular:
Its enormous popularity rubs off on to its heroine because she expresses, with the strength of an obsession, the aspirations of people - people who have never seen a girl on horseback, or maybe even a horse race for that matter - who believe that anything is possible . . . A philosophy of life, in other words: . . . a film which . . . has acquired the status of a generational classic . . .[9]:41
The film grossed over US$4 million and MGM signed Taylor to a new long-term contract. Because of the success of Velvet she was cast in another animal film, Courage of Lassie (1946), in which Bill the dog outsmarts the Nazis. The film's succcess led to another contract for Taylor paying her $750 per week. Her roles as Mary Skinner in a loan-out to Warner Brothers' Life With Father (1947), Cynthia Bishop in Cynthia (1947), Carol Pringle in A Date with Judy (1948), and Susan Prackett in Julia Misbehaves (1948) were all successful. Taylor received a reputation as a consistently successful adolescent star, with a nickname of "One-Shot Liz" (referring to her ability to shoot a scene in one take) and a promising career. Her portrayal as Amy, in the American classic Little Women (1949) was her last adolescent role. In October 1948, Taylor sailed aboard the RMS Queen Mary to England to begin filming Conspirator, in which she would play her first adult role.
Transition into adult roles
Unlike some other child actors, Taylor made an easy transition to adult roles.[7] Before Conspirator's 1949 release, a Time cover article called her "a jewel of great price, a true star sapphire", and the leader among Hollywood's next generation of stars such as Montgomery Clift, Kirk Douglas, and Ava Gardner.[18] The film failed at the box office, but 16-year-old Taylor's portrayal of a 21-year-old debutante who unknowingly marries a communist spy played by 38-year-old Robert Taylor, was praised by critics for her first adult lead in a film. Taylor's first picture under her new salary of $2,000 per week was The Big Hangover (1950), both a critical and box office failure, that paired her with screen idol Van Johnson. The picture also failed to present Taylor with an opportunity to exhibit her newly realized sensuality.


With Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951)
Her first box office success in an adult role came as Kay Banks in the romantic comedy Father of the Bride (1950), alongside Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. The film spawned a sequel, Father's Little Dividend (1951), which Taylor's costar Spencer Tracy summarized with "boring… boring… boring". The film did well at the box office but it would be Taylor's next picture that would set the course for her career as a dramatic actress.
In late 1949, Taylor had begun filming George Stevens' A Place in the Sun. Upon its release in 1951, Taylor was hailed for her performance as Angela Vickers, a spoiled socialite who comes between George Eastman (Clift) and his poor, pregnant factory-working girlfriend Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters).[7] The film, based on Theodore Dreiser's novel, An American Tragedy, was an indictment of "the American dream" and its corrupting influences, notes biographer Kitty Kelley.[19]
Although Taylor, then only 17, was unaware of the psychological implications of the story and its powerful nuances, it became the pivotal performance of Taylor's career. Kelley explains that Stevens, its director, knew that with Elizabeth Taylor as the young and beautiful star, the "audience would understand why George Eastman (Clift) would kill for a place in the sun with her."[19] Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, allowed on the set to watch the filming, became "wide-eyed watching the little girl from National Velvet seduce Montgomery Clift in front of the camera," writes Kelley. When the scene was over, Hopper went to her, "Elizabeth, where on earth did you ever learn how to make love like that?"[19]
Critics acclaimed the film as a classic, a reputation it sustained throughout the next 50 years of cinema history. The New York Times' A.H. Weiler wrote, "Elizabeth's delineation of the rich and beauteous Angela is the top effort of her career", and the Boxoffice reviewer unequivocally stated "Miss Taylor deserves an Academy Award".


With Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Taylor became increasingly unsatisfied with the roles being offered to her at the time. While she wanted to play the lead roles in The Barefoot Contessa and I'll Cry Tomorrow, MGM continued to restrict her to mindless and somewhat forgettable films such as: a cameo as herself in Callaway Went Thataway (1951), Love Is Better Than Ever (1952), Ivanhoe (1952), The Girl Who Had Everything (1953) and Beau Brummel (1954). She had wanted to play the role of Lady Rowena in Ivanhoe, but the part was given to Joan Fontaine. Taylor was given the role of Rebecca. When Taylor became pregnant with her first child, MGM forced her through The Girl Who Had Everything (even adding two hours to her daily work schedule) so as to get one more film out of her before she became too heavily pregnant. Taylor lamented that she needed the money, as she had just bought a new house with second husband Michael Wilding and with a child on the way things would be pretty tight. Taylor had been forced by her pregnancy to turn down Elephant Walk (1954), though the role had been designed for her. Vivien Leigh, almost two decades Taylor's senior, but to whom Taylor bore a striking resemblance, got the part and went to Ceylon to shoot on location. Leigh suffered a nervous breakdown during filming, and Taylor reclaimed the role after the birth of her child Michael Wilding, Jr. in January 1953. [20]
Taylor's next screen endeavor, Rhapsody (1954), another tedious romantic drama, proved equally frustrating. Taylor portrayed Louise Durant, a beautiful rich girl in love with a temperamental violinist (Vittorio Gassman) and an earnest young pianist (John Ericson). A film critic for the New York Herald Tribune wrote: "There is beauty in the picture all right, with Miss Taylor glowing into the camera from every angle… but the dramatic pretenses are weak, despite the lofty sentences and handsome manikin poses."[citation needed]
Taylor's fourth period picture, Beau Brummell, made just after Elephant Walk and Rhapsody, cast her as the elaborately costumed Lady Patricia, which many felt was only a screen prop—a ravishing beauty whose sole purpose was to lend romantic support to the film's title star, Stewart Granger. The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) fared only slightly better than her previous pictures, with Taylor being reunited with The Big Hangover costar Van Johnson. The role of Helen Ellsworth Willis was based on that of Zelda Fitzgerald and, although pregnant with her second child, Taylor went ahead with the film, her fourth in twelve months. Although proving somewhat successful at the box office, she still yearned for meatier roles.[citation needed]
1955–1979


On the set of Giant with James Dean (1956)
Following a more substantial role opposite Rock Hudson and James Dean in George Stevens' epic Giant (1956), Taylor was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress four years in a row for Raintree County (1957)[21] opposite Montgomery Clift; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)[22] opposite Paul Newman; Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)[23] with Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn and Mercedes McCambridge; and finally winning for BUtterfield 8 (1960),[24] which co-starred then husband Eddie Fisher.[7]
In 1960, Taylor became the highest paid actress up to that time when she signed a one million dollar contract to play the title role in 20th Century Fox's lavish production of Cleopatra,[23] which was released in 1963. During the filming, she began a romance with her future husband Richard Burton, who played Mark Antony in the film. The romance received much attention from the tabloid press, as both were married to other spouses at the time.[25] By working overtime, Taylor received more than $2 million for her role.[7]


With Richard Burton in Cleopatra (1963)
Her second Academy Award, also for Best Actress in a Leading Role, was for her performance as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966),[26] playing opposite then husband Richard Burton. Taylor and Burton would appear together in six other films during the decade, among them The V.I.P.s (1963), The Sandpiper (1965), and The Taming of the Shrew (1967). By 1967 their films had earned $200 million at the box office. When Taylor and Burton considered not working for three months, the possibility caused alarm in Hollywood as "nearly half of the U.S. film industry's income" came from movies starring one or both of them. Their next films Doctor Faustus (1967), The Comedians (1967) and Boom! (1968), however, all failed at the box office.[27]


In Suddenly Last Summer (1959)
Taylor appeared in John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) opposite Marlon Brando (replacing Clift,[28] who died before production began) and Secret Ceremony (1968) opposite Mia Farrow. By the end of the decade her box-office drawing power had considerably diminished, as evidenced by the failure of The Only Game in Town (1970), with Warren Beatty.[29]
Taylor continued to star in numerous theatrical films throughout the 1970s, such as Zee and Co. (1972) with Michael Caine, Ash Wednesday (1973), The Blue Bird (1976) with Jane Fonda and Ava Gardner, and A Little Night Music (1977). With then-husband Richard Burton, she co-starred in the 1972 films Under Milk Wood and Hammersmith Is Out, and the 1973 made-for-TV movie Divorce His, Divorce Hers.
1980–2003


Taylor performing with Bob Hope at a U.S. Navy event for the USO in May 1986
Taylor starred in the 1980 mystery film The Mirror Crack'd, based on an Agatha Christie novel. In 1985, she played movie gossip columnist Louella Parsons in the TV film Malice in Wonderland opposite Jane Alexander, who played Hedda Hopper. Taylor appeared in the miniseries North and South. Her last theatrical film was 1994's The Flintstones. In 2001, she played an agent in the TV film These Old Broads. She appeared on a number of television series, including the soap operas General Hospital and All My Children, as well as the animated series The Simpsons—once as herself, and once as the voice of Maggie Simpson, uttering one word, "Daddy".


Taylor at the American Film Festival in Deauville (Normandy, France) in September 1985
Taylor also acted on the stage, making her Broadway and West End debuts in 1982 with a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. She was then in a production of Noël Coward's Private Lives (1983), in which she starred with her former husband, Richard Burton. The student-run Burton Taylor Theatre in Oxford was named for the famous couple after Burton appeared as Doctor Faustus in the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) production of the Marlowe play. Taylor played the ghostly, wordless Helen of Troy, who is entreated by Faustus to "make [him] immortal with a kiss".[citation needed]
In the early 1980s, Taylor moved to Bel Air, Los Angeles, which was her residence until her death. She also owned homes in Palm Springs, London and Hawaii.
2003–2011
In March 2003, Taylor declined to attend the 75th Annual Academy Awards, due to her opposition to the Iraq War.[30] She publicly condemned then President George W. Bush for calling on Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq, and said she feared the conflict would lead to "World War III".[31]
The February 2007 issue of Interview magazine was devoted entirely to Taylor. It celebrated her life, career and her upcoming 75th birthday.
On December 1, 2007, Taylor acted on-stage again, appearing opposite James Earl Jones in a benefit performance of the A. R. Gurney play Love Letters. The event's goal was to raise $1 million for Taylor's AIDS foundation. Tickets for the show were priced at $2,500, and more than 500 people attended. The event happened to coincide with the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike and, rather than cross the picket line, Taylor requested a "one night dispensation." The Writers Guild agreed not to picket the Paramount Pictures lot that night to allow for the performance.[32]
Activist and humanitarian

HIV/AIDS
Elizabeth Taylor devoted consistent and generous humanitarian time, advocacy efforts, and funding to HIV and AIDS-related projects and charities. She also was one of the first celebrities and public personalities to do so at a time when few acknowledged the disease, organizing and hosting the first AIDS fundraiser in 1984, to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles.[33] With over 30 years of active participation she was involved in raising more than $100 million and expanding public awareness: to fight the pandemic disease; confront its discrimination; and to expand research, treatment access, education, and government funding.[7][33]
Taylor was cofounder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) with Dr. Michael Gottlieb and Dr. Mathilde Krim in 1985.[33] Her longtime friend and former co-star Rock Hudson had disclosed having AIDS and died of it that year. She also founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF) in 1993, created to provide critically-needed support services for people with HIV/AIDS.[33] For example, in 2006 Taylor commissioned a 37-foot (11 m) "Care Van" equipped with examination tables and xray equipment, the New Orleans donation made by her Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and Macy's.[34][35] That year, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, she also donated US$40,000 to the NO/AIDS Task Force, a non-profit organization serving the community of those affected by HIV/AIDS in and around New Orleans.[35]
Taylor was honored with a special Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1992 for her HIV/AIDS humanitarian work. Speaking of that work, former President Bill Clinton said at her death, "Elizabeth's legacy will live on in many people around the world whose lives will be longer and better because of her work and the ongoing efforts of those she inspired."[36]
Judaism, Israel and Zionism
In 1959, at age 27, after nine months of study, Taylor converted from Christian Science to Judaism,[37] taking the Hebrew name Elisheba Rachel. She stated that her conversion was something she had long considered and was not related to her marriages. Taylor was a follower of Kabbalah and a member of the Kabbalah Centre.[1] After her conversion, Taylor worked for Israel and Zionism-related causes throughout her life. [38]
In 1959, her large-scale purchase of Israel Bonds triggered Arab boycotts of her films.[39] In 1962, she was barred from entering Egypt to complete Cleopatra; its government announced that "that Miss Taylor will not be allowed to come to Egypt because she has adopted the Jewish faith and 'supports Israeli causes.'" In 1974, Taylor and Richard Burton considered marrying in Israel, but could not because Burton was not Jewish.[40] Taylor helped to raise money for organizations such as the Jewish National Fund; advocated for the right of Soviet Jews to emigate to Israel and canceled a visit to the USSR because of its condemnation of Israel due to the Six-Day War; signed a letter protesting the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 of 1975; and offered herself as a replacement hostage during the 1976 Entebbe skyjacking.[39]
Personal life

Marriages
Taylor was married eight times to seven husbands. When asked why she married so often, she replied "I don't know, honey. It sure beats the hell out of me."[7] The husbands were:
Conrad "Nicky" Hilton (May 6, 1950 – January 29, 1951) The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce after nine months.[7]
Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952 – January 26, 1957) Wilding was 20 years older than Taylor.[7]
Michael Todd (February 2, 1957 – March 22, 1958) Todd's death ended Taylor's only marriage not to result in divorce. She later called Todd one of the two loves of her life, with Burton.[7]
Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 – March 6, 1964) Todd's best friend, Fisher, consoled Todd's widow, Taylor, after his death. They began an affair while Fisher was still married to Debbie Reynolds, causing a scandal.[7]
Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 – June 26, 1974) The press closely followed Burton and Taylor's relationship before, during, and after their 10 years of marriage, due to great public interest in "the most famous film star in the world and the man many believed to be the finest classical actor of his generation." Taylor hoped to focus on her marriage over her career, and gained weight in an unsuccessful attempt to not receive film roles.[7]
Richard Burton (October 10, 1975 – July 29, 1976) Sixteen months after divorcing they remarried in a private ceremony in Kasane, Botswana, but soon separated and redivorced in 1976. Burton disagreed with others about her famed beauty, acknowledging her "wonderful eyes" but saying that calling her "the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense. She has...a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she's rather short in the leg."[7] He stated, however, that when he first saw Taylor in 1952, "She was unquestionably gorgeous. I can think of no other word to describe a combination of plentitude, frugality, abundance, tightness. She was lavish. She was a dark unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much."[27]
John Warner (December 4, 1976 – November 7, 1982) As with Burton, Taylor sought to be known as the wife of her husband, a Republican[41][42][43] United States Senator from Virginia. Unhappy with her life in Washington, however, Taylor became depressed and entered the Betty Ford Clinic.[7]
Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 – October 31, 1996) Taylor and Fortensky met during another stay at the Betty Ford Clinic and were married at the Neverland Ranch.[7]
In 2007 Taylor denied rumors of a ninth marriage to her companion Jason Winters.[44] She said, "Jason Winters is one of the most wonderful men I've ever known and that's why I love him. He bought us the most beautiful house in Hawaii and we visit it as often as possible,"[45] to gossip columnist Liz Smith. Winters accompanied Taylor to Macy's Passport HIV/AIDS 2007 gala, where Taylor was honored with a humanitarian award. In 2008, Taylor and Winters were spotted celebrating the July 4 on a yacht in Santa Monica, California.[46] The couple attended the Macy's Passport HIV/AIDS gala again in 2008.
Children


Taylor with daughter Liza and husband Mike Todd, 1957
With Wilding (two sons):
Michael Howard Wilding (born 1953)
Christopher Edward Wilding (born 1955)
With Todd (one daughter):
Elizabeth Frances "Liza" Todd (born 1957)
With Burton (one daughter):
Maria Burton (born 1961; adopted 1964)
In 1971, Taylor became a grandmother at the age of 39. At the time of her death she was survived by her four children, ten grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.[47]
Friendship with Michael Jackson
Taylor and Michael Jackson developed a close friendship. On October 6, 1991, Taylor married construction worker Larry Fortensky at Jackson's Neverland Ranch.[48] In 1997, Jackson presented Taylor with the exclusively written-for-her epic song "Elizabeth, I Love You", performed on the day of her 65th birthday celebration.
In 2005, Taylor was a vocal supporter of Jackson in his trial in California on charges of sexually abusing a child.[49][50] He was eventually cleared of all charges. She encouraged Jackson to wear a Kabbalah red string as protection from the "evil-eye" during the trial.
Taylor attended Michael Jackson's private funeral on September 3, 2009.[51]
Jewelry, perfume, and fashion


Elizabeth Taylor in 1981, at a show celebrating her life.
Taylor had a passion for jewelry. She was a client of jewelry designer Shlomo Moussaieff. Over the years she owned a number of well-known pieces, two of the most famous being the 33.19-carat (6.64 g) Krupp Diamond and the 69.42-carat (13.88 g) pear-shaped Taylor-Burton Diamond, which were among many gifts from husband Richard Burton. Taylor also owned the 50-carat (10 g) La Peregrina Pearl, purchased by Burton as a Valentine's Day present in 1969. The pearl was formerly owned by Mary I of England, and Burton sought a portrait of Queen Mary wearing the pearl. Upon the purchase of such a painting, the Burtons discovered that the British National Portrait Gallery did not have an original painting of Mary, so they donated the painting to the Gallery.[52][53] Her enduring collection of jewelry has been documented in her book My Love Affair with Jewelry (2002) with photographs by the New York photographer John Bigelow Taylor (no relation).
Taylor was a pioneer in marketing a celebrity merchandise brand. She designed fine jewelry for The Elizabeth Collection, and launched three perfumes, "Passion", "White Diamonds", and "Black Pearls", which, together, earn an estimated US$200 million in annual sales. She made Christie's auction house the primary place for selling her jewelry, art, clothing, furniture and memorabilia.[54]
Taylor was a fashion icon during her years as an active film star. In addition to her own purchases, MGM costumers Edith Head and Helen Rose helped Taylor choose clothes that emphasized her face, chest, and waist. Taylor helped popularize Valentino and Halston's designs,[55] and in the 1980s Schering-Plough developed violet contact lenses, citing Taylor's eyes as inspiration.[56]
Illnesses and death
Taylor struggled with health problems much of her life,[57] and many times newspaper headlines erroneously announced that she was close to death.[7]
She is known to have smoked cigarettes into her mid-fifties.[58] She feared she had lung cancer in October 1975, after an X-ray showed spots on her lungs; she was later found not to have the disease.[59] She broke her back five times, had both her hips replaced, survived a benign brain tumor operation and skin cancer, and faced life-threatening bouts with pneumonia twice, one in 1961 requiring an emergency tracheotomy. In the 1980s, she received treatment for alcoholism.[60] She was treated for drug addiction at the Betty Ford Clinic in 1983, and again from the autumn of 1988 until early 1989.[61]
On May 30, 2006, Taylor appeared on Larry King Live to refute the claims that she had been ill, and denied the allegations that she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and was close to death.[62] Near the end of her life, however, she was reclusive and sometimes failed to make scheduled appearances due to illness or other personal reasons. She used a wheelchair and when asked about it stated that she had osteoporosis and was born with scoliosis.[63]
The mutation that gave Taylor her striking double eyelashes may also have contributed to her history of heart trouble.[16] In November 2004, Taylor announced a diagnosis of congestive heart failure, a progressive condition in which the heart is too weak to pump sufficient blood throughout the body, particularly to the lower extremities such as the ankles and feet. In 2009 she underwent cardiac surgery to replace a leaky valve.[64] In February 2011, new symptoms related to congestive heart failure caused her to be admitted into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for treatment,[65] where she remained until her death at age 79 on March 23, 2011, surrounded by her four children.[47][64]
Funeral
She was buried in a private Jewish ceremony, presided over by Rabbi Jerry Cutler, the day after she died, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Taylor is entombed in the Great Mausoleum, where public access to her tomb is restricted.[66] At her request, the funeral began 15 minutes after it was scheduled to begin; as her representative told the media "She even wanted to be late for her own funeral."[67]
List of awards and honors

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Elizabeth Taylor
Taylor won two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her performance in BUtterfield 8 in 1960, and for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966). Additionally, she received the Jean Herscholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 1992 for her work fighting AIDS.
In 1997, Taylor was honored by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) with the Life Achievement Award.[68] As Taylor could not be in attendance, Gregory Peck read the following statement on her behalf:
I’m so disappointed that I can’t be there with all of you tonight. Please know that I am watching. And this award is especially important to me because it’s given by my peers. Not only for my first career, acting -- but, for what has now become my life, the eradication of the AIDS epidemic.
As we all know, ours was one of the first industries to be directly and dramatically affected by the AIDS epidemic. And it’s heartening to me that this community has risen to the challenge. And the foundation of the Screen Actors Guild, of which I’m so proud to be a member, is no exception having made a very generous donation to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Thank you all for honoring me tonight.
Love, Elizabeth.[68]
On May 16, 2000, in a ceremony held at Buckingham Palace, Taylor was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.[69]
In 2001, Taylor received a Presidential Citizens Medal for her humanitarian work, most notably for helping to raise more than $200 million for AIDS research and bringing international attention and resources to addressing the epidemic.[68]
On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Taylor into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.[70]