Elizabeth Taylor
( 1932 - 2011)Added Date: July 19, 2022
Born: February 27, 1932
Died: March 23, 2011
Country: United States
Elizabeth Taylor was an actress that became an American screen legend. She died at the age of 79 from congestive heart failure.
She was considered a great beauty, offering a provocative image of both angel and seductress; always exuding a vibrant sensuality. And yet beneath the surface there was a hint of garishness and flamboyance. She loved showy jewelry, furs, and clothes. It was her personal tribute to excess.
She came into this world as an ugly duckling, according to her American-born parents. She spent her early childhood in England, where she learned to ride horses at the age of three. When they returned to the United States in 1939, the family settled in Beverly Hills, where Ms. Taylor began her acting career.
Her striking violet-blue eyes against alabaster-white skin and soft, dark hair made a lasting artistic impression both on and off screen. She married eight times and had four children. She became a business woman selling perfume and jewelry and ultimately began to champion important social causes.
In a career spanning 70 years with more than fifty films and two Oscars for Best Actress for her performance in “Butterfield 8” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, she is still best known for her torrid romances and multiple marriages, including marrying Ricard Burton twice. Her seemingly scandalous behavior seemed to mirror her many on-screen characters.
In a lifetime filled with emotional and physical setbacks, Ms. Taylor was a survivor. She struggled with addiction – cigarettes, alcohol, prescription pain killers, and tranquilizers. Her battle with weight gain was also a lifelong challenge. She was born with scoliosis, and broke her back in 1944 while filming National Velvet; these things resulted in major back surgery in 1956. In the last two decades of her life she was plagued with many ailments, from recurring pneumonia, to hip replacement surgery, brain surgery for a benign tumor, treatments for skin cancer, and finally congestive heart failure.
Her legacy lives on as one of Hollywood’s classic film stars that catapulted her image to a new level – Elizabeth Taylor, the iconic beauty that became famous for being famous.
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