Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor, in full Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, (born February 27, 1932, London, England—died March 23, 2011, Los Angeles, California, U.S.), American motion picture actress noted for her unique beauty and her portrayals of volatile and strong-willed characters.
Taylor’s American parents were residing in England at the time of her birth. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the family returned to the United States, settling in Los Angeles. Her father was an art dealer, and his business brought him into contact with members of the Hollywood elite. Though her mother, a former stage actress, initially balked at allowing the young Taylor to enter the film industry, an introduction to the chairman of Universal Pictures through one of her father’s clients led to a screen test. In 1942 Taylor made her first film, There’s One Born Every Minute. Though she was soon dropped by Universal, MGM Studios signed her to a contract and cast her in Lassie Come Home (1943). That was followed by a star-making performance in National Velvet (1944) as a young woman who rescues a horse and trains it to race.
Courage of Lassie
Courage of Lassie
Elizabeth Taylor in Courage of Lassie (1946).
© 1946 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.; photograph from a private collection
National Velvet
National Velvet
(From left) Donald Crisp, Elizabeth Taylor, and Anne Revere in National Velvet.
Copyright © 1944 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
Taylor made a smooth transition from juvenile to adult roles in the films Life with Father (1947), Father of the Bride (1950), and An American Tragedy (1951). She appeared as the frivolous wife of a writer in The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) and as an East Coast woman who marries the patriarch of a disintegrating Texas ranching family (played by Rock Hudson) in Giant (1956). In Raintree County (1957), Taylor channeled a deracinated Southern belle who marries an abolitionist (Montgomery Clift). Her mature screen persona— that of a glamorous, passionate woman unafraid of expressing love and anger—was at its apogee in film adaptations of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).
© 1958 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.; photograph from a private collection
Suddenly, Last Summer
Suddenly, Last Summer
Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).
© 1960 Columbia Pictures Corporation; photograph from a private collection
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Taylor won an Academy Award for her performance as a conflicted New York call girl in Butterfield 8 (1960), though she publicly expressed her dislike of the film. She met and fell in love with the British actor Richard Burton while they were filming Cleopatra (1963). Both were still married at the time, and their affair became a scandal. The couple was hounded by photographers and denounced as immoral in forums as diverse as the Vatican newspaper and the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. The two ultimately divorced their respective spouses and were themselves married twice (1964–74, 1975–76).
Butterfield 8
Butterfield 8
Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8 (1960).
Copyright © 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
Cleopatra
Cleopatra
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Cleopatra (1963), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
© 1963 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
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Taylor won a second Academy Award for her performance opposite Burton as the vituperative but vulnerable Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), directed by Mike Nichols from the play by Edward Albee. She costarred with him again in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (1967); the couple made five further films together. After the mid-1970s, however, Taylor appeared only intermittently in films, Broadway plays, and television films.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).
Courtesy of Warner Brothers, Inc.
Taylor’s closely scrutinized personal life presaged the advent of the tabloid frenzy of the latter decades of the 20th century. Her eight marriages provided no shortage of fodder: among her husbands were film producer Michael Todd, singer Eddie Fisher, and U.S. Sen. John Warner. An active philanthropist, Taylor helped to establish the American Foundation for AIDS Research (1985), partly motivated by the death of her friend Rock Hudson from the disease. She traveled the world as spokeswoman for the organization and in 1991 established the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation to provide direct services to those suffering from the disease. Taylor also used the allure of her public image to market lucrative perfume and costume jewelry lines. In 1993 she received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. She received the French Legion of Honour in 1987 and was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2000.
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor holding a bottle of White Diamonds from her perfume line.
PRNewsFoto/House of Taylor/AP Images
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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