Elizabeth Taylor Biography

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor
Born: 1932-02-27
Birthplace: London, England

Race: White
Religion: Jewish
Field: Actor
Famous for: Cleopatra

Elizabeth Taylor is a English-born Academy Award winning actress.

She was born Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor in Hampstead, London, England, 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 working in Britain. Her older brother is Howard Taylor (born 1929).

Though sometimes referred to as "Liz," she is not fond of that name. She prefers her given name to be pronounced Eee-lizabeth. Her given and middle names were in honor of her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor, who was born Elizabeth Mary Rosemond.

Taylor was born with dual British and American citizenship. Her American parents were both 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 three, 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 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). This 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 MGM lot and University High School in Los Angeles, where she received her diploma 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 then 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 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.

She has been married eight times to seven husbands:

Hotel heir Nicky Hilton (married May 6, 1950-divorced January 29, 1951)
Actor Michael Wilding (married February 21, 1952-divorced January 26, 1957)
Producer Mike Todd (married February 2, 1957-his death March 22, 1958)
Singer Eddie Fisher (married May 12, 1959-divorced March 6, 1964)
Actor Richard Burton (married March 15, 1964-divorced June 26, 1974)
Actor Richard Burton (2nd Marriage) (married October 10, 1975-divorced July 29, 1976)
Senator John Warner (married December 4, 1976-divorced November 7, 1982)
Teamster construction-equipment operator Larry Fortensky (married October 6, 1991-divorced October 31, 1996)
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. She remains Jewish to this day, referring 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 stage, making her Broadway debut in a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1982), and was then in a production of Noel Coward's Private Lives (1983), in the latter 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.

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 two perfumes, "Passion" and "White Diamonds," 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 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 to fight the disease.

In the early 1980s, she moved to Bel-Air, 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 1992, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The following year, 1993, she received the AFI Life Achievement Award. And in 2002, she was a Kennedy Center Honoree.

She received the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth in 1999, and may now be addressed as "Dame Elizabeth." Though she was thrilled with this honor, Taylor cracked, "I've always been a broad, now I'm a dame."

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.

In November 2004, Taylor announced that she has 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.

In 2005, she was a vocal supporter of her old friend, Michael Jackson, in his prosecution in California on charges of sexually abusing a child, and he was ultimately acquitted, despite the controversial post-trial comments of two jurors who expressed their doubts about his innocence.

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 her Maltese dog, 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."