Best Known As: Film Actor

Gist:  Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, DBE (born 27 February 1932), also known as Liz Taylor, is an English-born British-American actress. Known for her acting skills and beauty, as well as her Hollywood lifestyle, including many marriages, Taylor is considered one of the great actresses of Hollywood's golden years, as well as a larger-than-life celebrity.

The American Film Institute named Taylor seventh among the Greatest Female Stars of All Time.

Life Facts:  When released in 1949, Conspirator bombed at the box office, but Taylor's portrayal of 21-year-old debutante Melinda Grayton (keeping in mind that Taylor was only 16 at the time of filming) who unknowingly marries a communist spy (played by 38-year-old Robert Taylor), was praised by critics for her first adult lead in a film, even though the public didn't seem ready to accept her in adult roles. Taylor's first picture under her new salary of $2,000 per week was The Big Hangover (1950), both a critical and box office failure, that paired her with screen idol Van Johnson. The picture also failed to present Taylor with an opportunity to exhibit her newly-realized sensuality. Her first box office success in an adult role came as Kay Banks in the romantic comedy Father of the Bride (1950), alongside Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. The film spawned a sequel, Father's Little Dividend (1951), which Taylor's costar Spencer Tracy summarised with "boring...boring...boring." The film was received well at the box office but it would be Taylor's next picture that would set the course for her career as a dramatic actress.

In late 1949, Taylor had begun filming George Stevens' A Place In The Sun. Upon its release in 1951, Taylor was hailed for her performance as Angela Vickers, a spoilt socialite who comes between George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) and his poor, pregnant factory-working girlfriend Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters).

The film became the pivotal performance of Taylor's career as critics acclaimed it as a classic, a reputation it sustained throughout the next 50 years of cinema history. The New York Times' A.H. Weiler wrote, "Elizabeth's delineation of the rich and beauteous Angela is the top effort of her career," and the Boxoffice reviewer unequivocally stated "Miss Taylor deserves an Academy Award." "If you were considered pretty, you might as well have been a waitress trying to act - you were treated with no respect at all", she later bitterly reflected.

Even with such critical success as an actress, Taylor was increasingly unsatisfied with the roles being offered to her at the time. While she wanted to play the leads in The Barefoot Contessa and I'll Cry Tomorrow, MGM continued to restrict her to mindless and somewhat forgettable films such as: a cameo as herself in Callaway Went Thataway (1951), Love Is Better Than Ever (1952), Ivanhoe (1952), The Girl Who Had Everything (1953) and Beau Brummel (1954).

Taylor had made it perfectly clear that she wanted to play the role of Lady Rowena in Ivanhoe, but the part had already been given to Joan Fontaine and she was handed the thankless role of Rebecca. When she became pregnant with her first child, MGM forced her through The Girl Who Had Everything (even adding two hours to her daily work schedule) so as to get one more film out of her before she became too heavily pregnant. Taylor lamented that she needed the money, as she had just bought a new house with second husband Michael Wilding and with a child on the way things would be pretty tight. Taylor had been forced by her pregnancy to turn down Elephant Walk (1954), though the role had been designed for her. Vivien Leigh, to whom Taylor bore a striking resemblance, got the part and went to Ceylon to shoot on location. Leigh had a nervous breakdown during filming, and Taylor finally reclaimed the role after the birth of her child Michael Wilding, Jr. in January 1953.

Taylor's next screen endeavor, Rhapsody (1954), another tedious romantic drama, proved equally frustrating. Taylor portrayed Louise Durant, a beautiful rich girl in love with a temperamental violinist (Vittorio Gassman) and an earnest young pianist (John Ericson). A film critic for the New York Herald Tribune wrote: "There is beauty in the picture all right, with Miss Taylor glowing into the camera from every angle...but the dramatic pretenses are weak, despite the lofty sentences and handsome manikin poses."

Taylor's fourth period picture, Beau Brummell, made just after Elephant Walk and Rhapsody, cast her as the elaborately costumed Lady Patricia, which many felt was only a screen prop ? a ravishing beauty whose sole purpose was to lend romantic support to the film's title star, Stewart Granger.

The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) fared only slightly better than her previous pictures, with Taylor being reunited with The Big Hangover costar Van Johnson. The role of Helen Ellsworth Willis was based on that of Zelda Fitzgerald and, although pregnant with her second child, Taylor went ahead with the film, her fourth in twelve months. Although proving somewhat successful at the box office, she still yearned for meatier roles.

Taylor has a passion for jewelry. She is a client of well-known jewelry designer, Shlomo Moussaieff. Over the years she has owned a number of well-known pieces, two of the most talked-about being the Krupp Diamond and the pear-shaped Taylor-Burton Diamond, which were among many gifts from husband Richard Burton. Taylor also owns the La Peregrina Pearl, purchased by Burton as a Valentine's Day present in 1969. The pearl was formerly owned by Mary I of England, and Burton sought a portrait of Queen Mary wearing the pearl. Upon the purchase of the painting, the Burtons discovered that the British National Portrait Gallery did not have an original painting of Mary, so they donated the painting to the Gallery. Her enduring collection of jewelry has been documented in her book My Love Affair with Jewelry (2002) with photographs by the New York photographer John Bigelow Taylor (no relation).

Taylor started designing jewels for the The Elizabeth Collection, creating fine jewelry with elegance and flair. The Elizabeth Taylor collection by Piranesi is sold at Christie's. She has also launched three perfumes, "Passion," "White Diamonds," and "Black Pearls," that together earn an estimated US$200 million in annual sales. In fall 2006, Taylor celebrated the 15th anniversary of her White Diamonds perfume, one of the top 10 best selling fragrances for more than the past decade.

Taylor has devoted much time and energy to AIDS-related charities and fundraising. She helped start the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) after the death of her former costar and friend, Rock Hudson. She also created her own AIDS foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF). By 1999, she had helped to raise an estimated US$50 million to fight the disease.

In 2006, Taylor commissioned a "Care Van" equipped with examination tables and X Ray equipment and also donated US$40,000 to the New Orleans Aids task force, a charity designed for the New Orleans population with AIDS and HIV. The NO/AIDS task force estimated that about 7,400 residents were infected with HIV before Hurricane Katrina. The donation of the van was made by the Elizabeth Taylor HIV/AIDS Foundation and Macy's.

In the early 1980s, Taylor moved to Bel Air, California, which is her current home. She also owns homes in Palm Springs, London and Hawaii. The fenced and gated property is on tour maps sold at street corners and is frequently passed by tour guides.

Taylor was also a fan of the soap opera General Hospital. In fact, she was cast as the first Helena Cassadine, matriarch of the Cassadine family.

Taylor is a supporter of Kabbalah and member of the Kabbalah Centre. She encouraged long-time friend Michael Jackson to wear a red string as protection from the evil-eye during his 2005 trial for molestation, where he was eventually cleared of all charges. On October 6, 1991, Taylor had married construction worker Larry Fortensky at Jackson's Neverland Ranch. In 1997, Jackson presented Taylor with the exclusively written-for-her epic song "Elizabeth, I Love You", performed on the day of her 65th birthday celebration.

In October 2007, Taylor won a legal battle, over a Vincent van Gogh painting in her possession, when the US Supreme Court refused to reconsider a legal suit filed by four persons claiming that the artwork belongs to one of their Jewish ancestors,

regardless of any statute of limitations.

Taylor went to the Hollywood Bowl June 8, 2009, to hear Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in concert, her first night out in months. Taylor, bound to a wheelchair by scoliosis, said her mind and soul "were transported by his beauty, his voice, his inner being." The actress posted online messages through the Twitter social network after the Italian tenor's concert Monday night.

"I went to see Andrea Bocelli last night. The first time I've been out in months. The Hollywood Bowl allowed me to use my wheelchair," she said.

* Spoto, Donald (1995). A Passion For Life: The Biography of Elizabeth Taylor. New York: HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-017657-1

Career Facts:  Lassie Come Home starred child star Roddy McDowall, with whom Taylor would share a lifelong friendship. Upon its release in 1943, the film received favorable attention for both McDowall and Taylor. On the basis for her performance in Lassie Come Home MGM signed Taylor to a conventional seven-year contract at $100 a week but increasing at regular intervals until it reached a hefty $750 during the seventh year. Her first assignment under her new contract at MGM was a loan-out to 20th Century Fox for the character of Helen Burrows in a film version of the Charlotte Bronte novel Jane Eyre (1944). During this period she also returned to England to appear in another Roddy McDowall picture for MGM, The White Cliffs of Dover (1944). But it was Taylor's persistence in campaigning for the role of Velvet Brown in MGM's National Velvet that skyrocketed Taylor to stardom at the tender age of 12. Taylor's character, Velvet Brown, is a young girl who trains her beloved horse to win the Grand National. National Velvet, which also costarred beloved American favorite Mickey Rooney and English newcomer Angela Lansbury, became an overwhelming success upon its release in December 1944 and altered Taylor's life forever. Also, many of her back problems have been traced to when she hurt her back falling off a horse during the filming of National Velvet.

National Velvet grossed over US$4 million at the box office and Taylor was signed to a new long-term contract that raised her salary to $30,000 per year. To capitalize on the box office success of Velvet, Taylor was shoved into another animal opus, Courage of Lassie, in which the popular canine, cast as an Allied combatant in World War II , regularly outsmarts the Nazis, with Taylor going through another outdoors role. The 1946 success of Courage of Lassie led to another contract drawn up for Taylor earning her $750 per week, her mother $250, as well as a $1,500 bonus. Her roles as Mary Skinner in a loan-out to Warner Brothers' Life With Father (1947), Cynthia Bishop in Cynthia (1947), Carol Pringle in A Date with Judy (1948) and Susan Prackett in Julia Misbehaves (1948) all proved to be successful. Her reputation as a bankable adolescent star and nickname of "One-Shot Liz" (referring to her ability to shoot a scene in one take) promised her a full and bright career with Metro. Taylor's portrayal as Amy, in the American classic Little Women (1949) would prove to be her last adolescent role. In October 1948, she sailed aboard the RMS Queen Mary travelling to England where she would begin filming on Conspirator, where she would play her first adult role.

Taylor has a passion for jewelry. She is a client of well-known jewelry designer, Shlomo Moussaieff. Over the years she has owned a number of well-known pieces, two of the most talked-about being the Krupp Diamond and the pear-shaped Taylor-Burton Diamond, which were among many gifts from husband Richard Burton. Taylor also owns the La Peregrina Pearl, purchased by Burton as a Valentine's Day present in 1969. The pearl was formerly owned by Mary I of England, and Burton sought a portrait of Queen Mary wearing the pearl. Upon the purchase of the painting, the Burtons discovered that the British National Portrait Gallery did not have an original painting of Mary, so they donated the painting to the Gallery. Her enduring collection of jewelry has been documented in her book My Love Affair with Jewelry (2002) with photographs by the New York photographer John Bigelow Taylor (no relation).

Taylor started designing jewels for the The Elizabeth Collection, creating fine jewelry with elegance and flair. The Elizabeth Taylor collection by Piranesi is sold at Christie's. She has also launched three perfumes, "Passion," "White Diamonds," and "Black Pearls," that together earn an estimated US$200 million in annual sales. In fall 2006, Taylor celebrated the 15th anniversary of her White Diamonds perfume, one of the top 10 best selling fragrances for more than the past decade.

Taylor has devoted much time and energy to AIDS-related charities and fundraising. She helped start the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) after the death of her former costar and friend, Rock Hudson. She also created her own AIDS foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF). By 1999, she had helped to raise an estimated US$50 million to fight the disease.

In 2006, Taylor commissioned a "Care Van" equipped with examination tables and X Ray equipment and also donated US$40,000 to the New Orleans Aids task force, a charity designed for the New Orleans population with AIDS and HIV. The NO/AIDS task force estimated that about 7,400 residents were infected with HIV before Hurricane Katrina. The donation of the van was made by the Elizabeth Taylor HIV/AIDS Foundation and Macy's.

In the early 1980s, Taylor moved to Bel Air, California, which is her current home. She also owns homes in Palm Springs, London and Hawaii. The fenced and gated property is on tour maps sold at street corners and is frequently passed by tour guides.

Taylor was also a fan of the soap opera General Hospital. In fact, she was cast as the first Helena Cassadine, matriarch of the Cassadine family.

Taylor is a supporter of Kabbalah and member of the Kabbalah Centre. She encouraged long-time friend Michael Jackson to wear a red string as protection from the evil-eye during his 2005 trial for molestation, where he was eventually cleared of all charges. On October 6, 1991, Taylor had married construction worker Larry Fortensky at Jackson's Neverland Ranch. In 1997, Jackson presented Taylor with the exclusively written-for-her epic song "Elizabeth, I Love You", performed on the day of her 65th birthday celebration.

In October 2007, Taylor won a legal battle, over a Vincent van Gogh painting in her possession, when the US Supreme Court refused to reconsider a legal suit filed by four persons claiming that the artwork belongs to one of their Jewish ancestors,

regardless of any statute of limitations.

Taylor went to the Hollywood Bowl June 8, 2009, to hear Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in concert, her first night out in months. Taylor, bound to a wheelchair by scoliosis, said her mind and soul "were transported by his beauty, his voice, his inner being." The actress posted online messages through the Twitter social network after the Italian tenor's concert Monday night.

"I went to see Andrea Bocelli last night. The first time I've been out in months. The Hollywood Bowl allowed me to use my wheelchair," she said.

*List of notable brain tumor patients