Elizabeth Taylor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor DBE (born February 27, 1932) is an iconic two-time Academy Award-winning actress. She was long considered one of the most beautiful women in the world and, arguably, the most beautiful American actress of all time. Her trademark is her dazzling violet-blue eyes. Many consider her the last icon of Hollywood's golden era.
Early life and career
She was born in Hampstead, London, the second child of Francis Lenn Taylor (December 28, 1897 - November 20, 1968) and Sara Viola Warmbrodt (August 21, 1896 - September 11, 1994), who were Americans residing in Britain. Her older brother is Howard Taylor (born in 1929).
Though sometimes referred to as "Liz," she is not fond of that name and prefers her given name to be pronounced Eee-lizabeth. Her first names are in honor of her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor, who was born Elizabeth Mary Rosemond.
Taylor was born with U.S. nationality. Both of her American parents were originally from Arkansas City, Kansas. Her father was an art dealer and her mother a former actress whose stage name was Sara Sothern. Sara retired from the stage when she and Francis Taylor married in 1926 in New York.
At the age of 3, Elizabeth began taking ballet lessons. After the UK entered World War II, her parents decided to return to the United States to avoid hostilities. Her mother took the children first, while her father remained in London to wrap up matters in the art business. They settled in Los Angeles, California, where Sara's family, the Warmbrodts, were then living.
Taylor appeared in her first motion picture at the age of 9 for Universal. They let her contract drop, and she was signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her first movie with that studio was Lassie Come Home (1943), which drew favorable attention. After a couple more movies, the second on loan-out to 20th Century Fox, she appeared in her first leading role and achieved child star status playing Velvet Brown, a young girl who trains a horse to win the Grand National in Clarence Brown's movie National Velvet (1944) with Mickey Rooney. National Velvet was a big hit, grossing over $4,000,000 at the box-office, and she was signed to a long-term contract.
She attended school on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot and received a diploma from University High School in Los Angeles on January 26, 1950, the same year she was first married at age 18.
Mature career and marriages
Elizabeth Taylor won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performances in Butterfield 8 (1960), which co-starred then husband Eddie Fisher, and again for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which co-starred then-husband Richard Burton and the Supporting Actress Oscar-winner, Sandy Dennis.
Taylor was nominated for Raintree County (1957) opposite Montgomery Clift, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) opposite Paul Newman, and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) with Clift, Katharine Hepburn and Mercedes McCambridge.
In 1963, she became the highest paid movie star up until that time when she accepted $1,000,000 to play the title role in the lavish production of Cleopatra for 20th Century Fox. And it was during the filming of that movie that she worked for the first time with future husband Richard Burton, who played Mark Antony. Movie magazines, the forerunners of today's tabloids, had a field day when Taylor and Burton began an affair while filming the historical turkey; both stars were married to other people at the time. In a romantic entanglement that had tongues wagging on every continent, Taylor would trade in husband Eddie Fisher for Burton not long after Fisher had unceremoniously ditched wife Debbie Reynolds for Taylor. Years later, Burton would slyly refer to the whole mess as "la scandale". The episode cemented Taylor's reputation as a dark, hypnotic femme fatale (who was condemned by the Vatican), boosted Reynolds' career as a blonde, all-American sweetheart, and elevated Burton to the front ranks of film stars. Only Fisher did not really profit from the cascade of free publicity.
She has been married eight times to seven husbands:
* Hotel heir Conrad Hilton, Jr (May 6, 1950 - January 29, 1951) (divorced)
* Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952 - January 26, 1957) (divorced)
* Producer Mike Todd (February 2, 1957 - March 22, 1958) (widowed his death)
* Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 - March 6, 1964) (divorced)
* Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 - June 26, 1974) (divorced)
* Richard Burton (2nd marriage) (October 10, 1975 - July 29, 1976) (divorced)
* Senator John Warner (December 4, 1976 - November 7, 1982) (divorced)
* Teamster construction-equipment operator Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 - October 31, 1996) (divorced)
Taylor and Wilding had two sons, Michael Howard Wilding (born January 6, 1953), and Christopher Edward Wilding (born February 27, 1955). She and Todd had one daughter, Elizabeth Frances Todd, called "Liza," (born August 6, 1957). And in 1964, she and Fisher started adoption proceedings for a daughter, whom Burton later adopted, Maria Burton (born August 1, 1961). During her marriage to Fisher, Taylor converted to Judaism (having been born into the Christian Science faith). She remains Jewish to this day, having referred to herself as such several times.
She has also appeared a number of times on television, including the 1973 made-for-TV movie with then husband Richard Burton, titled Divorce His - Divorce Hers. In 1985, she played movie gossip columnist Louella Parsons in Malice in Wonderland opposite Jane Alexander, who played Hedda Hopper, and also appeared in the mini-series North and South. In 2001, she played an agent in These Old Broads. She has also appeared on a number of other TV shows, including the soap operas General Hospital and All My Children and the animated The Simpsons (as the voice of Maggie).
Taylor has 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 Noel Coward's Private Lives (1983), in which she starred with her former husband, Richard Burton.
After marrying Richard Burton, Taylor relinquished her American citizenship and is now a "permanent resident" of the U.S. After marrying Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia, she received a "green card" and keeps her British passport.
Other interests
Taylor has a passion for jewelry. Over the years she has owned a number of well known pieces, two of the most talked about being the 33.19 carat (6.638 g) Krupp Diamond and the 69.42 carat (13.884 g) pear shaped Taylor-Burton Diamond, which were among many dazzling gifts from husband Richard Burton. Her enduring collection of jewelry has been eternalized with her book My Love Affair with Jewelry (2002). In 2005, she partnered with Jack and Monty Abramov of Mirabelle Luxury Concepts in Los Angeles to introduce the House of Taylor Jewelry. She has also launched three perfumes, "Passion," "White Diamonds," and "Black Pearls," that together earn an estimated $200,000,000 in annual sales.
Taylor has devoted much time and energy to AIDS-related charities and fundraising. She helped start the ([1]) American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) after the death of her former co-star and friend, Rock Hudson. She also created her own AIDS foundation. By 1999, she had helped to raise an estimated $50,000,000 (USD) to fight the disease.
In the early 1980s she moved to Bel-Air, Los Angeles, California, which is her current home. The fenced and gated property is on tour maps sold at street corners and is frequently passed by tour guides.
In 1988, a bill passed the U.S. Congress expressly for the purpose of blocking deportation of Taylor's son Michael, who had renounced his American citizenship in 1971 for past possession of marijuana.
Awards and honours
Dame Elizabeth Taylor has won two Academy Awards for Best Actress. She won the first in 1961 for BUtterfield 8 and the second in 1967 for Mike Nichols' drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which many consider to be her best performance in a film.
Taylor received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1992 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The following year, 1993, she received the AFI Life Achievement Award. And in 2002, she was a Kennedy Center Honoree.
In 1999, she was awarded a DBE by the British government and Queen Elizabeth II. Though she was thrilled with this honor, Taylor cracked, "I've always been a broad, now I'm a dame."
In 2001, U.S. President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal in recognition of her commitment to philanthropy. It is the second-highest civilian honor in the United States, awarded to U.S. citizens "who have performed exemplary deeds or services" for their country or fellow citizens.
Elizabeth Taylor's hand and foot prints are immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6336 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
On November 10, 2005, Taylor received the Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in International Entertainment.
Recent years
In November 2004, Taylor announced that she had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, a terminal condition in which the heart pumps insufficient amounts of blood throughout the body. She has broken her back five times, has survived a benign brain tumor operation, skin cancer, and has faced life-threatening bouts with pneumonia twice. She is reclusive and sometimes fails to make scheduled appearances due to illness or other personal reasons. She is now apparently confined to a wheelchair to get around.
In 2005 she was a vocal supporter of her old friend, Michael Jackson (singer), in his trial in California on charges of sexually abusing a child. He was ultimately acquitted.
In recent years, Taylor has reportedly become closely attached to her pet dog, saying that she goes nowhere without her little Maltese named Sugar. In an interview with American magazine W, Taylor said she was happiest while with husbands Todd and Burton, but now has to be content with Sugar for company. She explains, "I've never loved a dog like this in my life. It's amazing. Sometimes I think there's a person in there. There's something to say for this kind of love - it's unconditional." In June 2005, Taylor's beloved dog Sugar died. However, several months later (in September) she purchased a descendant of Sugar which she named Daisy.
Taylor is reportedly in seclusion due to ill health, and is said to have made plans for her ashes to be scattered in Wales (the homeland of her two-time husband, the late actor Richard Burton) after her death and cremation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Taylor
