Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, better known as Elizabeth Taylor, was a British-American actress in film, theater, and television. She developed an artistic career in the United States that spanned over sixty years, during which she gained popularity primarily as an actress in Hollywood films. Her first role in cinema was in “There's One Born Every Minute” in 1942 for Universal Pictures, alongside Hugh Herbert. However, her peak popularity occurred in the mid-1940s with youth films like “National Velvet” in 1944.
From the 1950s onward, her films became increasingly important, and she was recognized for her interpretive talents in drama, solidifying her status with films such as “Father of the Bride” in 1950, “A Place in the Sun” in 1951, “Giant” in 1956, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in 1958, “Suddenly, Last Summer” in 1959, and “Butterfield 8” in 1960, for which she received a multitude of awards and distinctions. These films were directed by prestigious directors such as Vincente Minnelli and Richard Brooks, and she acted alongside actors like Spencer Tracy, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Paul Newman.
Her role as Cleopatra in the controversial homonymous film of 1963 was highly praised, as was her performance in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966), directed by Mike Nichols. In 1981, she debuted on Broadway in “The Little Foxes,” for which she received favorable reviews. In the mid-1980s, she became an activist for humanitarian causes, especially in the fight against AIDS. The rest of her career was primarily linked to television, participating in soap operas such as “General Hospital” and “All My Children,” and in comedies like “The Nanny.” She retired from the screen in 2001 with the film “These Old Broads.”
Among her various awards, she won three Academy Awards, one of which was honorary, five Golden Globes, three British BAFTA awards, and a David di Donatello. She was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, earning the title of Dame, equivalent to Sir for males. She was recognized for her spectacular and dazzling private life and her passion for jewelry. In 1999, the American Film Institute named her the seventh greatest female star in the first hundred years of American cinema.
Elizabeth Taylor was born in Hampstead, London. She was the youngest child of Francis Lenn Taylor and Sara Sothern, an American who lived in England. Her older brother, Howard Taylor, was born in 1929. Their parents were from Arkansas; Francis Taylor was an art dealer, and Sara was a former actress whose stage name was "Sara Sothern." Sothern retired from the stage in 1926 after marrying Francis in New York City. Elizabeth Taylor's names honored her paternal grandmother, Mary Elizabeth (Rosemond) Taylor. One of her maternal great-grandmothers was Swiss.
Colonel Victor Cazalet, one of her closest friends, had a significant influence on her family. A wealthy bachelor, member of Parliament, and close friend of Winston Churchill, Cazalet was a great lover of art and theater and encouraged the Taylor family to move from America. Additionally, as a Christian Scientist and lay preacher, his ties to the family were spiritual. He was also Elizabeth’s godfather. On one occasion, when she was suffering from a severe infection as a child, he stayed by her bedside for weeks. She "begged" to be in his company: “Mom, please call Victor and invite him to come sit with me.”
Biographer Alexander Walker suggests that Elizabeth converted to Judaism at 27, and her ongoing support for Israel may have been influenced by the opinions she heard at home. Walker stated that Cazalet actively campaigned for a Jewish homeland, and her mother also worked with various charitable organizations, including fundraising for Zionism. At three years old, Taylor began studying ballet. Just before World War II, her parents decided to return to the United States to avoid hostilities. She first traveled with her mother and brother to New York in April 1939, while her father stayed in London to conclude matters for his art business, arriving in November.
They settled in Los Angeles, California, where her father opened a new art gallery that featured many paintings exported from England. The gallery quickly attracted many Hollywood celebrities who admired its modern European paintings. According to Walker, the gallery “opened many doors for the Taylors, leading directly to affluent society and prestige” within the Hollywood film community.
**THE ARTISTIC CAREER OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR**
Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper introduced the Taylors to Andrea Berens, the girlfriend of John Cheever Cowdin, president and principal shareholder of Universal Pictures. Berens insisted that Sara take some time to see Cowdin with her daughter, assuring her that the impressive beauty of the child would dazzle him. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer also showed interest in Taylor, as did Louis B. Mayer, head of the studio. As a result, both Universal Pictures and MGM wanted to contract her. When Universal learned that MGM was interested in her, Cowdin quickly called Universal Pictures and offered her a seven-year contract.
Taylor appeared in her first film at the age of nine in “There's One Born Every Minute” in 1942, her only film with Universal Pictures. Some speculate that she did not meet Cowdin's expectations and that even her beautiful eyes failed to impress. Elizabeth Taylor’s violet eyes had a rare mutation resulting in a double row of eyelashes.
**ELIZABETH TAYLOR'S EARLY ROLES**
Elizabeth Taylor participated in the cast of the 1943 film “Lassie Come Home,” alongside child star Roddy McDowall, with whom she would share a lifelong friendship. The film received favorable attention for its actors, and MGM signed Taylor to a standard seven-year contract, starting at $100 a week with raises. Her first project under the new contract was a loan to 20th Century Fox to portray Helen Burns in a film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel “Jane Eyre” in 1943.
Elizabeth Taylor returned to England for the film “National Velvet” in 1944, under the MGM label. Her pursuit of the role of Velvet Brown in “National Velvet” turned her into a star at the age of 12. Her character was a girl who saves a horse from being euthanized and, with the help of a friend, competes in the Grand National. The film, co-starring young actors Mickey Rooney and newcomer Angela Lansbury, became a great success upon its release in December 1944. Many years later, Elizabeth Taylor referred to it as “the most exciting film” she ever made, although it caused her some back problems years later due to falling from a horse during filming.
Audiences and critics fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor when they saw her in the film. “National Velvet” grossed over $4 million in the United States, and MGM signed Elizabeth Taylor to a new long-term contract. Due to the success of the film, Elizabeth Taylor was cast in another film that resulted in another contract, which stipulated that she would earn $750 a week. Her roles as the neurotic Mary Skinner in “Life with Father” in 1947, Cynthia Bishop in “Cynthia” in 1947, Carol Pringle in “The Enchanted Prince” in 1948, and Susan Prackett in “Julia Misbehaves” in 1948 were successful.
Elizabeth Taylor gained a reputation as a competent and successful teenage actress, earning the nickname "One Shot" in reference to her ability to complete a scene in one take, promising a bright future ahead.
Taylor's performance in the classic “Little Women” in 1949 marked her last film as a teenager. In October 1948, Elizabeth Taylor boarded the RMS Queen Mary bound for England to begin filming “Conspirator.” Unlike other child actors, Elizabeth Taylor made an easy transition to adult films, already possessing the figure of a mature woman. “Conspirator” was a box office failure, but the story of an 18-year-old American girl who falls madly in love with a British Army officer, played by Robert Taylor, earned critical acclaim for her first adult role in a film.
Her first major box-office success in an adult role came with Kay Banks in the comedy “Father of the Bride” in 1950, alongside Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. The film led to a sequel, “Father’s Little Dividend” in 1951. The film performed well at the box office, but it would be Taylor's next film that would shape the course of her career as a dramatic actress. By late 1949, Elizabeth Taylor began filming “A Place in the Sun” directed by George Stevens. After its release in 1951, Elizabeth Taylor was acclaimed for her portrayal of Angela Vickers, a spoiled woman of high society who comes between George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) and his poor pregnant girlfriend Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters).
In 1991, the film would be included among those preserved by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being culturally or aesthetically significant. Other films she appeared in included “Ivanhoe” in 1952, with Robert Taylor and Joan Fontaine, “Elephant Walk” in 1954, and “The Last Time I Saw Paris” in 1954, where she played Helen Ellsworth Willis, based on Zelda Fitzgerald, and although she was pregnant with her second child, Taylor continued with the film. After a more substantial role alongside Rock Hudson and James Dean in the epic film “Giant” in 1956, Elizabeth Taylor was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for “The Tree of Life” in 1957, ambitiously set during the Civil War, designed to emulate the success of “Gone with the Wind.”
At the peak of her beauty, she starred alongside Paul Newman in the dramatic adaptation “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in 1958, based on the play by Tennessee Williams.
The film received several positive reviews, earning her a second nomination for Best Actress at the Academy Awards and her first nomination for Best British Actress at the BAFTA Awards. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she became one of Hollywood's biggest stars thanks to her presence in the films mentioned and others like “Suddenly, Last Summer,” which earned her first Golden Globe and another Oscar nomination alongside Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift.
Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift maintained a close friendship until the actor's death in 1966. With “BUtterfield 8” in 1960, where she played a high-class prostitute, Liz Taylor won her first Oscar for Best Actress after receiving four consecutive nominations, a record only matched by Marlon Brando. By the late 1950s, her rivalry with Marilyn Monroe, the other great star of 20th Century Fox studios, intensified, even though they specialized in different roles: Taylor opted for tortured, temperamental, and problematic characters, while Marilyn became famous as a prototype sex symbol, mostly in comedies.
Her star status was reinforced with the then most expensive film in history: “Cleopatra” in 1963. For this film, Elizabeth Taylor was the first actress to sign a contract for an astronomical sum of one million dollars. However, various incidents led her to exceed that record: the numerous delays and setbacks during filming, along with a share of the box office stipulated in her contract, resulted in her charging a salary multiplied by seven. It was during the filming of this movie that she met Richard Burton; they started a romance while both were married, which caused a massive scandal.
From the 1960s onward, her involvement in cinema gradually waned, although she still had opportunities to act in several significant films, such as "The Taming of the Shrew" directed by Franco Zeffirelli, “Reflections in a Golden Eye” with “The Sin of All of Us” featuring Marlon Brando under the direction of John Huston, and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” which is said to be her best performance alongside Richard Burton. For this role, which in some ways reflected the real-life disputes of its protagonists, Elizabeth Taylor received her second Oscar for Best Actress.
From the 1970s onward, Elizabeth Taylor's film career showed a clear decline, as she began to take on roles in television and theater. The first was her participation in the television film “Divorce His – Divorce Hers” in 1973, where she shared the screen with her then-husband Richard Burton, directed by Waris Hussein. It was a drama about a marriage between Jane and Martin Reynolds that ends after 18 years. That same year, she attended the San Sebastián International Film Festival to present her new film. During that time, she lived through a difficult season due to her recent separation from Richard Burton. Her stay was as fleeting as it was controversial, but Elizabeth Taylor displayed glimpses of her kind character, free from the capricious traits common to stars.
In 1976, she starred alongside Ava Gardner and Jane Fonda in “The Blue Bird,” a film for a young audience directed by George Cukor, which received mixed reviews and did not perform well commercially. In 1977, she acted with Diana Rigg and Len Cariou in the film adaptation of the musical “A Little Night Music,” with a script by Ingmar Bergman and directed by Harold Prince, which received negative reviews.
Years later, she starred in “The Mirror Curse” in 1980, based on a story by Agatha Christie, alongside Angela Lansbury, Tony Curtis, Kim Novak, and her personal friend Rock Hudson, under the direction of Guy Hamilton. It was a feature film that received positive reviews.
She participated in two theatrical productions on Broadway: “Perfidia” in 1981 at the Martin Beck Theater, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, and “Private Lives” in 1983, directed by Milton Katselas at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater. It is worth mentioning that she was also the executive producer of both.
In the early 1980s, Liz Taylor participated in some episodes of the popular soap operas “General Hospital” and “All My Children.” From then on, her television appearances increased significantly, starring in 1983's “Between Friends,” a telefilm written by Shellev List featuring special guest Carol Burnett, and in 1984 appearing as a guest actress in a drama series episode called “Hotel.”
In 1985, she starred in the television film “Malice in Wonderland,” a story based on the real-life rivalry of journalists Louella Parsons (portrayed by Taylor) and Hedda Hopper. The production received mixed reviews but still became one of the main television events of the year, achieving high ratings in the Nielsen Ratings.
Her next project was the miniseries “North and South” in 1985, a drama set during the Civil War based on the trilogy of novels written by John Jakes, where she played Madam Conti, the owner of a brothel. Most of her roles during this era were in television films that did not receive the critical acclaim of her earlier works but continued to be accepted by the public, including “Poker Alice” in 1987.
In 1988, Elizabeth Taylor filmed “Young Toscanini,” her first feature film released in theaters since “The Blue Bird” eight years earlier, where she portrayed opera singer Nadina Bulichoff. The film starred C. Thomas Howell and was directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Nevertheless, the feature received negative reviews and did not perform well commercially. The following year, Elizabeth Taylor returned to television.
She acted alongside Mark Harmon, Valerie Perrine, Ronnie Claire Edwards, and Rip Torn in an adaptation of “Sweet Bird of Youth,” directed by Nicolas Roeg. This telefilm updated a stage play previously brought to film with Geraldine Page and Paul Newman, based on the titular novel by Gavin Lambert. In 1989, she starred in the film “Sweet Bird of Youth,” an adaptation of the eponymous play by Tennessee Williams, directed by Nicolas Roeg, where Elizabeth Taylor portrayed a fading movie actress suffering from alcoholism and drugs.
From the 1990s onward, Elizabeth Taylor’s film career transitioned largely to television. For instance, she voiced the character Maggie Simpson in an episode of the popular Fox animated series “The Simpsons” in 1992 and made a brief cameo appearance in an episode of the sitcom starring Fran Drescher, “The Nanny,” in 1994.
Her last film appearance—also her first since her acting in “Young Toscanini” six years earlier—was in “The Flintstones” in 1994, a live-action version of the animated series from the 1960s. There, she worked alongside John Goodman, Rick Moranis, Elizabeth Perkins, and Rosie O'Donnell, among others. The film garnered mixed reactions: it was a financial success but received mostly negative reviews. For her work, Elizabeth Taylor was nominated for a Golden Raspberry in the category of Worst Supporting Actress.
Towards the end of her career, she began to receive honors and recognition for her long-standing contributions to the entertainment industry. In 1999, she received the BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2000, she was declared a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. She retired with the film “The Ladies of Hollywood” in 2001, alongside Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine, and Joan Collins. In March 2003, Taylor declined an invitation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to attend the 75th Academy Awards as a sign of her opposition to the Iraq War. On December 1, 2007, the actress participated in a benefit performance of the play “Love Letters,” where she shared the stage with James Earl Jones. Tickets cost $2,500, and the proceeds went to Taylor's charitable foundation.
**THE PERSONAL LIFE OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND HER CONVERSION TO JUDAISM**
After Elizabeth Taylor's death and the issues surrounding her considerable fortune, it was reported that the famous actress converted to Judaism at the age of 27, which was also mentioned in the biography by Northern Irish critic Alexander Walker, *Elizabeth - The Life of Elizabeth Taylor* (Weidenfeld, 1991). Although Elizabeth Taylor was born in London to a Christian family (her parents, Americans living in the British capital, belonged to the Protestant Christian Science Church), from her marriage to Eddie Fisher in 1959 until her death in 2011, Elizabeth Taylor always professed the Jewish faith. Not only that, but with the establishment of the British Mandate of Palestine, both her mother and her godfather, the influential Colonel Victor Cazalet (a personal friend of Winston Churchill), supported Zionism, which the actress did throughout her life, as well as supporting the state of Israel over the last half-century.
In 2005, Elizabeth Taylor participated in a series of trials concerning allegations of child abuse against Michael Jackson. Taylor was unwavering at all times, declaring her support for him and denying all accusations. She was very upset after the surprise death of the singer on June 25, 2009, and attended his private funeral on September 3, 2009, at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Taylor struggled with health issues throughout her life; after her divorce from Hilton, she faced severe illnesses whenever she encountered problems in her personal life. Taylor was hospitalized more than 70 times and underwent at least 20 surgeries. Newspaper headlines often erroneously announced that Taylor was close to death.
In her later years, she gained and lost significant amounts of weight, fluctuating between 54 to 82 kg in the 1980s. She began smoking in the mid-1950s and feared developing lung cancer when, in October 1975, X-ray studies showed spots on her lungs, leading to subsequent treatment to prevent disease development. Taylor broke her back five times, had two hip replacements, underwent a hysterectomy, suffered from dysentery and phlebitis, experienced esophageal perforation, survived a benign brain tumor, and skin cancer in 1997, and had bouts of pneumonia that threatened her life on two occasions.
In 1983, she admitted to being addicted to sleeping pills and painkillers for 35 years. She received treatment for her alcoholism and drug dependency, entering the Betty Ford Center for seven weeks from December 1983 to January 1984 and again from the fall of 1988 until early 1989.
On May 30, 2006, Taylor appeared on *Larry King Live* to refute claims that she had been ill and denied assertions that she had Alzheimer's disease. She began using a wheelchair and, when questioned, stated that she had osteoporosis and was born with scoliosis.
The mutation that caused Taylor's double eyelashes may also have contributed to her history of heart problems. In November 2004, Taylor announced that she suffered from congestive heart failure, a progressive disease in which the heart weakens, failing to pump enough blood throughout the body, especially to the lower extremities like her ankles and feet. In 2009, she underwent heart surgery to have a valve placed in her heart.
In February 2011, new symptoms related to her heart failure led to her hospitalization at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for treatment, where she remained until her death at the age of 79 on March 23, 2011, surrounded by her four children. She was buried in a private Jewish ceremony presided over by Rabbi Jerry Cutler, a day after her death, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Taylor is interred in the Great Mausoleum, where public access to her grave is restricted.
**THE LEGACY OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR**
Liz Taylor owes much of her celebrity to her tumultuous life, but her acting career stands as a significant value in its own right. She received two Oscars for *A Marked Woman* (1960) and *Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?* (1966), and three more nominations, all in the category of "Best Actress." Her first nomination was for the film *The Tree of Life* in 1957, and she was nominated for the next three years until she won in 1960. She achieved a record of four nominations in consecutive years, matched only by Marlon Brando. Later in her career, she received a third Oscar, an honorary one.
She was a star described by the Anglo-Saxon media as "larger than life": "a star bigger than life itself." She is a female legend remembered from classic Hollywood, thanks to her highly photogenic beauty, a long list of significant films with notable performances, and a history of turbulent love affairs.
She knew how to masterfully exploit her disturbing and undeniable sexual appeal and made headlines with her controversial romances. As a result of her affair with Richard Burton (both were married to other partners), a Vatican newspaper accused her of "erotic vagrancy," a phrase that flooded headlines worldwide. Burton came to her defense, claiming she had only five partners, all well-known, while other Hollywood divas slept with anyone on the first night (though keeping it secret). Other sources close to the actress coincide in describing her as quite conventional in love: they say that if she married eight times, it was because she was not prone to fleeting affairs and wanted to formalize each new relationship with marriage.
She is likely the actress who has been declared "the most beautiful woman in the world" more times than any other, surpassing even the so-called "most beautiful animal in the world," Ava Gardner. Her face became a symbol of perfection for decades, from her teenage years in the 1940s to her maturity in the 1970s.
As famous for her film career as for her love life, Liz Taylor has been the target of tabloid press attention due to her constant divorces and marriages and her health problems: excessive alcohol consumption, obesity (she weighed nearly 90 kilograms despite her short stature), a back injury that required several surgeries, and a brain tumor. In her later years, she attended public events in a wheelchair.
She was also well-known for her humanitarian work in the fight against AIDS following the death of her friend Rock Hudson; she collaborated with an organization dedicated to combating and researching this serious disease. For this reason, she was awarded the Princess of Asturias Concord Award in 1992. Additionally, that same year, she participated in a concert in tribute to Freddie Mercury, speaking about the necessary prevention needed to combat AIDS.
0 Comments