Actors - Elizabeth Taylor

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	Actors - Elizabeth Taylor

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor DBE (born February 27 1932) is an iconic two-time Academy Award-winning actress. She was long considered one of the most beautiful women in the world and, arguably, the most beautiful American actress of all time. Her trademark is her dazzling violet-blue eyes. Many consider her the last icon of Hollywood's golden era.

Early life and career

She was born in Hampstead, London, 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 residing in Britain. Her older brother is Howard Taylor (born in 1929).

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

Taylor was born with U.S. nationality. Both of her American parents were 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 3, 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 9 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), which 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 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot and received a diploma from University High School in Los Angeles on January 26, 1950, the same year she was first married at age 18.

Mature career and marriages

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 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 Clift, 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. Movie magazines, the forerunners of today's tabloids, had a field day when Taylor and Burton began an affair during filming; both stars were married to other people at the time. In a romantic entanglement that had tongues wagging on every continent, Taylor would trade in husband Eddie Fisher for Burton not long after Fisher had unceremoniously ditched wife Debbie Reynolds for Taylor. Years later, Burton would slyly refer to the whole mess as "la scandale". The episode cemented Taylor's reputation as a dark, hypnotic femme fatale (who was condemned by the Vatican), boosted Reynolds' career as a blonde, all-American sweetheart, and elevated Burton to the front ranks of film stars. Only Fisher did not really profit from the cascade of free publicity.

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Actors - Elizabeth Taylor

Early life and career

Mature career and marriages

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