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Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor DBE (born February 27, 1932) is an
iconic two-time Academy Award-winning British-American actress.
Her trademark violet eyes are framed by a double row of eyelashes. Known for her
acting skills and beauty, she is considered one of the great actresses of
Hollywood’s golden years, as well as a larger-than-life celebrity.
The American Film Institute named Taylor seventh among the Greatest Female Stars of
All Time.
 Life and
career
Taylor was born in Hampstead, London, England, the second child of Francis Lenn
Taylor (1897-1968) and Sara Viola Warmbrodt (1896-1994), who were Americans
residing in England. Taylor's older brother, Howard Taylor, was born in 1929.
Her two first names are in honor of her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor, who
was born Elizabeth Mary Rosemond. Taylor was born both a British and an American
citizen, having acquired British citizenship by being born on British soil under
the principle of Jus soli, and American citizenship through her parents under the
principle of Jus sanguinis.
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. In popular accounts, Taylor's father has been portrayed as a weak figure
who always capitulated to her mother.
At the age of three, Elizabeth began taking ballet lessons. Shortly after the
beginning of 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 nine 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. That
movie starred child star Roddy McDowall, with whom Elizabeth would share a lifelong
friendship. After a few 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 US$4 million at the box-office, and she was signed to a
long-term contract. Gene Tierney originally was offered the role in MGM's National
Velvet but production was delayed so Tierney signed with Fox. The rest is Hollywood
history.
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.
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? (film) (1966), which co-starred
then-husband Richard Burton and the Supporting Actress Oscar-winner, Sandy
Dennis.
Taylor was nominated for Raintree County (1957) with Montgomery Clift, Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof (1958) with 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 US$1 million to play the title role in the lavish production of Cleopatra
for 20th Century Fox. 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 during filming; both stars were married to other people at
the time. She was even accused by a Vatican newspaper of having descended into
"erotic vagrancy." A lot of people thought of Elizabeth Taylor as a "Scarlet
Woman." She and many others disagreed with that strongly. Richard Burton was quoted
as saying: "You'd be surprised at the morals of many women stars who are regarded
by the public as goody-two-shoes. They leap into bed with any male in grabbing
distance. That's what makes me mad when I read stuff hinting Liz is a scarlet woman
because she's been married five times. She's only had five men in her life whereas
those goody-two-shoes have lost count."
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; once as
herself, and once 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. 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. Elizabeth Taylor
played the ghostly, wordless Helen of Troy, who is entreated by Faustus to 'make
immortal with a kiss'.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Elizabeth Taylor
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