27th February 1932 – 23rd March 2011
The legend that is Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, well known for her acting talent, glamour and beauty and publicised private life including 8 marriages and several near death experiences. She was a keen social activist campaigning for AIDS awareness research and cure.
Elizabeth Taylor was born in Hampstead in London. She was the second child of Frances Lenn, an art dealer, and Sara Viola Warmbrodt, an actress known as ‘Sara Sothern’. Both her parents were Americans who resided in London.
Elizabeth Taylor was born with a rare mutation which some call Alexandria's Genesis which gave the pupils of her eyes a trademark violet and gave her a double row of eyelashes. This doll faced beauty helped her enter Hollywood.
Taylor showed great potential in the arts at an early age, starting dance lessons at the age of three. When her family moved back to Los Angeles California in 1939 just before World War II her career started to take off.
In America her beauty did not go unrecognised and family friends were soon urging Taylor’s mother to put her in for screen tests. The family soon started meeting well known members of the film industry two being Cheever Cowden chairman at Universal Pictures and Louis B. Mayer head of MGM, both wanted to sign her up. When Cheever heard that Louis was interested in Taylor he decided to sign her quickly without giving her a screen test and so she signed a contract with Universal.
Her first film, recorded at the age of nine was ‘There’s One Born Every Minute’ (1942) released when she was ten. Universal dropped her contract after that reportedly saying that she had nothing special and she was soon picked up by MGM. Taylor made several films with MGM but fame came when she starred in the smash hit movie ‘National Velvet’ (1944).
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Taylor starred in film after film with MGM and her career grew. She won her first Academy Award for best female actress in 1960 for her role in ‘Butterfield 8’. In 1963 she became the first movie actress to receive a whopping $1,000,000 for her role in ‘Cleopatra’. In 1966 she received her second Academy Award for best actress for her role in ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf’. In total she appeared in 75 productions her career spanning over 60 years. She even produced the world’s best selling celebrity fragrance manufactured by Elizabeth Arden 'White Diamonds' in 1991. It was the first to have any prominent success and was named after her love of jewels.
Taylor married 8 times during her lifetime, the first in 1950 to Conrad Hilton which lasted nine months. She had four children and became a grandmother at 39. She died of heart failure at 1.29am pacific time on 23rd March 2011 at the age of 79. She was succeeded by her four children, ten grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren and will be sourly missed by her devoted public.
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