Elizabeth Taylor Dead at 79
Elizabeth Taylor died yesterday, March 23 at the age of 79 from congestive heart failure. The legend leaves behind a legacy full of onscreen roles, jewelry campaigns and a life unmatched. Let's remember:
Born - Hampstead, London on Feb. 27th, 1932
First Movie Role - There's One Born Every Minute (1942) which propelled her career with MGM and subsequent early roles in Lassie Come Home (1943) and National Velvet (1944).
First Wedding - May 6, 1950 to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton, Jr (last only a year)
Second Husband - British Actor Michael Wilding, two sons Michael (born 1953) & Christopher Wilding (born 1955).
Third Husband - Mike Todd, married in 1957 and the father of her daughter Liza (born 1957). She said "I have had two great loves in my life. Mike Todd was the first", but he died in a plane crash in 1958.
First Oscar Nomination - Recovering from the death of Mike Todd, she continued filming Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman and earned an Oscar nomination for the role.
Fourth Husband - Singer Eddie Fischer married in 1959 after a scandalous affair.
First Oscar Win - 1960's BUtterfield 8 for her role as a promiscuous model.
Cleopatra - The 1963 film was a milestone in the industry, when Taylor was the first actor in history to be paid $1 million. The studio almost went bankrupted and there was a lawsuit, but they settled. The film remains the most expensive movie ever made ($44 million in 1963 = ~$287 million in 2011)
Fifth & Sixth Husband - While on the set of Cleopatra, Taylor fellin in love with Welsh actor Richard Burton (her co-star) and married him 9 days after her divorce from Eddie Fisher in 1964. They divorced (1974) and remarried (1975), then divorced again (1976). They adopted a daughter in 1963, Maria Burton.
2nd Oscar Win - 1966's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, again co-starring her then husband, Richard Burton.
Seventh Husband - Taylor became a politician's wife when she married Senator John Warner, a Republican from Virginia in 1976.
Rehab - Family & Friends urged an unhappy Taylor into the Betty Ford Center for abusing alcohol and perscription pills.
Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation - started in 1985 when her Giant co-star Rock Hudson died of the disease to help the American Foundation for AIDS Research. It later earned her accolades such as the second-highest civilian honor in the nation, the Presidential Citizen's Medal, in 2001.
Eighth (and Last) Husband - Larry Fortensky and Taylor met during her second stint in rehab, married in 1991 at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, with Michael in the wedding party. They divorced in 1996.
Health Scares - in 1997 Taylor survived a surgery for a benign brain tumor and also suffered from bouts of pneumonia, scoliosis and congestive heart failure, but fought through it all.
Dame of England - 2000 she was deemed a dame of the British Empire
And not to forget a Jewelry & Perfume Goddess...
"I'm a survivor," she once said, "a living example of what people can go through and survive."
Born - Hampstead, London on Feb. 27th, 1932
First Movie Role - There's One Born Every Minute (1942) which propelled her career with MGM and subsequent early roles in Lassie Come Home (1943) and National Velvet (1944).
First Wedding - May 6, 1950 to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton, Jr (last only a year)
Second Husband - British Actor Michael Wilding, two sons Michael (born 1953) & Christopher Wilding (born 1955).
Third Husband - Mike Todd, married in 1957 and the father of her daughter Liza (born 1957). She said "I have had two great loves in my life. Mike Todd was the first", but he died in a plane crash in 1958.
First Oscar Nomination - Recovering from the death of Mike Todd, she continued filming Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman and earned an Oscar nomination for the role.
Fourth Husband - Singer Eddie Fischer married in 1959 after a scandalous affair.
First Oscar Win - 1960's BUtterfield 8 for her role as a promiscuous model.
Cleopatra - The 1963 film was a milestone in the industry, when Taylor was the first actor in history to be paid $1 million. The studio almost went bankrupted and there was a lawsuit, but they settled. The film remains the most expensive movie ever made ($44 million in 1963 = ~$287 million in 2011)
Fifth & Sixth Husband - While on the set of Cleopatra, Taylor fellin in love with Welsh actor Richard Burton (her co-star) and married him 9 days after her divorce from Eddie Fisher in 1964. They divorced (1974) and remarried (1975), then divorced again (1976). They adopted a daughter in 1963, Maria Burton.
2nd Oscar Win - 1966's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, again co-starring her then husband, Richard Burton.
Seventh Husband - Taylor became a politician's wife when she married Senator John Warner, a Republican from Virginia in 1976.
Rehab - Family & Friends urged an unhappy Taylor into the Betty Ford Center for abusing alcohol and perscription pills.
Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation - started in 1985 when her Giant co-star Rock Hudson died of the disease to help the American Foundation for AIDS Research. It later earned her accolades such as the second-highest civilian honor in the nation, the Presidential Citizen's Medal, in 2001.
Eighth (and Last) Husband - Larry Fortensky and Taylor met during her second stint in rehab, married in 1991 at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, with Michael in the wedding party. They divorced in 1996.
Health Scares - in 1997 Taylor survived a surgery for a benign brain tumor and also suffered from bouts of pneumonia, scoliosis and congestive heart failure, but fought through it all.
Dame of England - 2000 she was deemed a dame of the British Empire
And not to forget a Jewelry & Perfume Goddess...
"So much to do, so little done, such things to be." ~ Elizabeth Taylor
