Described as ‘the last of the screen goddeses,’ Elizabeth Taylor, who died at 79 last Wednesday, March 23, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, will be fondly remembered by generations to come for both her colorful private life as her memorable movies.
She was born Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor on Feb. 27, 1932, in Hampstead, Heath, England.
Her eight marriages were to Nicky Hilton in 1949 (divorced in 1951); Michael Wilding in 1952 (divorced in 1957), with two children, Michael and Christopher; Michael Todd in 1957, widowed in 1958, with one child, Elizabeth; Eddie Fisher in 1959 (divorced in 1964), with one child, Maria; Richard Burton (whom she married twice and divorced twice); Sen. John Warner; and Larry Fortensky.
She shone in several memorable films after she was introduced in There’s One Born Every Minute by Universal Pictures in 1942 and launched by MGM in 1944 in National Velvet in which she plays a girl who pretended to be a boy to compete in a horse race.
The others were: Lassie Come Home (1943), Jane Eyre (1944), Cynthia (1947), A Date With Judy (1947), Little Women (1949), Conspirator (1950, her first adult movie), Big Hangover (1950), A Place In The Sun (1951), Ivanhoe (1952), The Girl Who Has Everything (1953), Rhapsody (1954), Elephant Walk (1954) and Giant (1956, with James Dean). — RKC