PLEASURE WORLD

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Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London, England on February 27, 1932. Although her mother had a brief career stint as a stage actress in the US, her parents were actually art dealers from St. Louis, Missouri and relocated to London to open a gallery. Eventually, the Taylors moved back to the States and settled in Los Angeles just before war broke out in Europe in 1939.

Following a screen test for Universal Studios, nine-year-old Elizabeth was signed to a contract, and made her screen debut at in 1942′s There’s One Born Every Minute. She was signed to MGM in 1942, and it was there that she had early success as a child actor.

Velvet-eyed beauty

In 1944, at the tender age of 12, Elizabeth landed her first lead role in National Velvet. The film established the young girl with the sparkling, violet eyes as a bona fide star. More parts followed and by 1949, she had graduated to her first adult role, as the romantic lead in Conspirator.

Elizabeth was a grown 18-year-old when she married hotel heir Nicky Hilton in May 1950, the same year she starred in the classic, Father of the Bride. Hilton was the first in a series of seven husbands, and the marriage lasted less than nine months. In 1951, while on loan to Paramount, she received her first serious notice by critics for her performance in A Place In The Sun, directed by George Stevens.

Taylor wed for the second time in February 1952. With husband Michael Wilding, a British actor twenty years her senior, she had two sons. Michael Jr. was born in 1953, and Christopher in 1955. She continued to appear in a series of films for MGM during these years, but it wasn’t until she reunited with Stevens in 1956′s Giant (also starring James Dean, in his final screen appearance), that a new phase in her career commenced.

Men loved to watch her purr

The actress divorced for the second time on January 30, 1957. Three days later, she married movie producer Mike Todd in Acapulco. Todd was 24 years her senior, but Taylor acknowledges that of all her marriages, this was her happiest. The couple had a daughter, Elizabeth “Liza” Todd in August of that year.

Elizabeth Taylor received her first Oscar nod as Best Actress for 1957′s Raintree County. Four days before the ceremony, Todd, flying in his private plane named “The Lucky Liz,” was killed when the plane crashed over New Mexico.

Taylor had already begun working on her next film, appearing as Maggie “The Cat” in 1958′s Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, opposite newcomer Paul Newman, and received a second Oscar nomination.

It wasn’t long after mourning the loss of husband number three that Taylor wed again. Eddie Fisher had been a popular singer in the early 1950s. He was one of the late Mike Todd’s closest friends, and best man at Liz and Mike’s wedding. He divorced actress Debbie Reynolds to marry Liz, and the press vilified Elizabeth for having broken up their marriage when the couple wed in May 1959.

That same year, Taylor received a third Oscar nomination for 1959′s Suddenly, Last Summer. While Oscar eluded her for a third time, she was honored with the Golden Globe for Best Actress.

For her next role, Taylor reluctantly starred as a prostitute in 1960′s Butterfield 8, fulfilling contractual obligations to MGM. Again she was nominated for Best Actress by the Motion Picture Academy, but few, including Liz herself, thought she could win with this role.

Queen of the nile… and hollywood

Taylor was in London filming Cleopatra when she became seriously ill and needed an emergency tracheotomy in order to save her life. Taylor survived, and a few weeks later, showed up at the Oscar ceremony. To the astonishment of many, her name was announced as the winner in her category. Elizabeth hobbled up to the stage on crutches, with the surgical scar still visible on her throat.

Cleopatra was the most expensive film ever produced up to that point and making Hollywood history, Elizabeth Taylor became the highest paid movie star when she asked for and received a million dollars to star as the Queen of the Nile. It was also on the set of that film where she met her future fifth husband, Richard Burton.

Cleopatra finally premiered in 1963, but didn’t do well at the box office. She again co-starred with Burton in The V.I.P.s in 1963, and divorced Eddie Fisher in March 1964; nine days later, she and Burton were married.

Liz and Dick were hounded by the media, particularly the tabloid press. Hollywood’s golden couple teamed up once again for 1965′s The Sandpiper and in 1966′s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?. It was an unglamorous role in which Taylor played an overweight, loudmouth alcoholic.

Both Taylor and Burton were nominated by the Academy for their highly intense performances and Elizabeth took home her second Oscar for the role. She next appeared with Marlon Brando in Reflections In A Golden Eye in 1967. That same year, she reunited with Burton for the drama The Comedians.

Taylor continued to appear in a series of films that did poorly at the box office, including Dr. Faustus and Under Milk Wood, which all co-starred her husband.

In 1972, Taylor was awarded the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival for her part in Hammersmith Is Out.

A twist of fate

The title of Taylor and Burton’s next project proved prophetic. In 1972, the pair starred in a made-for-TV movie entitled Divorce His – Divorce Hers. In June 1974, after ten years of marriage, the star couple divorced. Sixteen months later, they remarried; ten months after that, they were divorced for a second time. In December 1976, Liz married husband number six, Virginia Senator John Warner; they divorced in 1982.

Taylor appeared in a handful of feature films over the next several years, including 1980′s The Mirror Crack’d, in which she played an aging movie star. Throughout the 1980s, Taylor appeared in several made-for-TV movies, including 1985′s Malice In Wonderland and 1987′s Poker Alice.

In 1985, Taylor became the chairperson for the first major AIDS benefit. Her crusade in the fight against the disease intensified following the death of her close friend Rock Hudson later that year.

In 1987, Taylor launched a line of perfumes, commencing with “Passion.” Other fragrances followed, including “White Diamonds,” “Diamonds and Emeralds” and “Black Pearls.”

Taylor married again in 1991. She had met construction worker Larry Fortensky, 20 years her junior, while in rehab. They divorced in 1996.

Taylor became the voice of Maggie Simpson in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons, when Maggie uttered her first word. She received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1992 Oscar ceremony and took home the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 1993. Taylor returned to the big screen to play Fred’s mother-in-law, Pearl Slaghoople, in 1994′s feature film The Flintstones.

Great honors for a great actress

In February 1997, Taylor experienced another health scare when she underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. One of Taylor’s more recent performances was in 2001, when she appeared in the made-for-TV movie These Old Broads along with Shirley MacLaine and Debbie Reynolds, whose marriage she had broken up some four decades prior. Two years after being made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000, Elizabeth Taylor received the Kennedy Center Honors.

With a career and life marked by tragedy, success, irony, and ups and downs, Elizabeth Taylor is a veritable movie legend.

Filmography and various appearances

Taylor has appeared in numerous movies and television shows from 1942 through 2003

To buy a cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?