Elizabeth Taylor Biography
Table of Contents
Elizabeth Taylor born Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, was a British-American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian. She was born on February 27th, 1932 in London to American parents, Sara Viola Warmbrodt (Sara Sothern) and Francis Lenn Taylor.
Her mother, Sara, was a former stage actor and her father, Francis, an art dealer. As soon as she could walk she was given ballet lessons, and at the age of three she danced with her class in front of the royal family. In 1939, a few months before the outbreak of war, the family moved to Hollywood, where her father opened an art gallery much patronised by the film colony.
She made her screen debut, at the age of 10, in There’s One Born Every Minute (1942), at Universal. However, it was MGM who launched her career proper with Lassie Come Home (1943), and for whom most of her films were made. When Sara Taylor heard that the studio was looking for a young girl to play Velvet Brown, who wins the Grand National disguised as a boy in National Velvet (1945), she brought her daughter to see the producer Pandro S Berman. He thought her too thin and fragile for the part, although she could ride well. But three months later, after rigid training from her mother, she was able to change Berman’s mind.
Elizabeth Taylor Husbands – Elizabeth Taylor Marriages – Elizabeth Taylor Spouse
Elizabeth Taylor has been in eight marriages. Her debut marriage was to Nicky Hilton (Conrad Hilton, Jr.), heir to the Hilton Hotels chain, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills on May 6, 1950. She was 18 when she married Nicky. She was granted a divorce in January 1951, eight months after their wedding.
Taylor married her second husband, British actor Michael Wilding—a man 20 years her senior—in a low-key ceremony at Caxton Hall in London on February 21, 1952. She had first met him in 1948 while filming The Conspirator in England, and their relationship began when she returned to film Ivanhoe in 1951. They had two sons, Michael Howard (born January 6, 1953) and Christopher Edward (born February 27, 1955). Taylor and Wilding announced their separation in July 1956, and were divorced in January 1957.
Taylor married her third husband, theater and film producer Mike Todd, in Acapulco, Mexico, on February 2, 1957.They had one daughter, Elizabeth “Liza” Frances (born August 6, 1957). Mike Todd’s death in a plane crash on March 22, 1958, left Taylor devastated. She was comforted by Todd’s and her friend, singer Eddie Fisher, with whom she soon began an affair.[178] As Fisher was still married to actress Debbie Reynolds, the affair resulted in a public scandal, with Taylor being branded a “homewrecker”. Taylor and Fisher were married at the Temple Beth Sholom in Las Vegas on May 12, 1959.
While filming Cleopatra in Italy in 1962, Taylor began an affair with her co-star, Welsh actor Richard Burton, although Burton was also married. Taylor was granted a divorce from Fisher on March 6, 1964, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and married Burton nine days later in a private ceremony at the Ritz-Carlton Montreal. They divorced for the first time in June 1974, but reconciled and remarried in Kasane, Botswana, on October 10, 1975. The second marriage lasted less than a year, ending in divorce in July 1976.
Soon after her final divorce from Burton, Taylor met her sixth husband, John Warner, a Republican politician from Virginia. They were married on December 4, 1976. Taylor and Warner separated in December 1981, and divorced a year later in November 1982.
After the divorce from Warner, Taylor was engaged to Mexican lawyer Victor Luna in 1983–1984 and New York businessman Dennis Stein in 1985.
She met her seventh and last husband, construction worker Larry Fortensky, at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. They were married at the Neverland Ranch of her longtime friend Michael Jackson on October 6, 1991. Taylor and Fortensky divorced in October 1996.
Elizabeth Taylor Children
Together with Michael Wilding, they had two sons, Michael Howard (born January 6, 1953) and Christopher Edward (born February 27, 1955). She had one daughter, Elizabeth “Liza” Frances (born August 6, 1957) with Mike Todd. When married to Burton, she adopted Maria Burton (born August 1, 1961), a German orphan whose adoption process Taylor had begun while married to Fisher.
Elizabeth Taylor Age – Elizabeth Taylor Age at Death
She was born on February 27th, 1932. She died at the age of 79 on March 23, 2011 at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Elizabeth Taylor Movies
- There’s One Born Every Minute
- Lassie Come Home
- Jane Eyre
- The White Cliffs of Dover
- National Velvet Velvet Brown
- Courage of Lassie
- Life with Father
- Cynthia (aka The Rich Full Life)
- A Date with Judy
- Julia Misbehaves
- Little Women
- Conspirator
- The Big Hangover
- Father of the Bride
- Father’s Little Dividend
- A Place in the Sun
- Quo Vadis
- Callaway Went Thataway
- Love Is Better Than Ever
- Ivanhoe Rebecca
- The Girl Who Had Everything
- Rhapsody
- Elephant Walk
- Beau Brummell
- The Last Time I Saw Paris
- Giant
- Raintree County
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
- Suddenly, Last Summer
- Scent of Mystery
- BUtterfield 8
- Cleopatra
- The V.I.P.s
- The Sandpiper
- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- The Taming of the Shrew Katharina
- Doctor Faustus
- Reflections in a Golden Eye
- The Comedians
- Boom!
- Secret Ceremony
- Anne of the Thousand Days
- The Only Game in Town
- X,Y, and Zee
- Under Milk Wood
- Hammersmith Is Out
- Divorce His, Divorce Hers
- Night Watch
- Ash Wednesday
- Identikit
- The Blue Bird
- Mother
- Witch
- Maternal Love
- Victory at Entebbe
- A Little Night Music
- Winter Kills
- The Mirror Crack’d
- Between Friends
- Hotel
- Malice in Wonderland
- There Must Be a Pony
- Poker Alice
- Young Toscanini
- Sweet Bird of Youth
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers
- The Simpsons
- The Flintstones
Elizabeth Taylor Perfume
Her perfumes include Passion, White Diamonds, and Black Pearls, that together earn an estimated $200 million in annual sales. Created in 1991, White Diamonds perfume features top notes of neroli, lily and tuberose. Black Pearls perfume for women is spicy with accompanying fruity notes of citrus and melons. Other fragrances include Forever Elizabeth perfume and Elizabeth Taylor Gardenia perfume for women. In the Fall of 2006, Dame Elizabeth Taylor celebrated the 15th anniversary of her White Diamonds perfume, one of the top-10 best selling fragrances for more than a decade.