This Week we Celebrate the life of Liz Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Born: Feb 27, 1932
Died: Mar 23, 2011
Liz Taylor, famous for several movie rolls and charitable ways has died at the age of 79. Taylor was a two time Oscar winner for her roles in “Butterfield 8” (1960) and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” (1966). Hailed in her prime as one of the world’s most beautiful women she rose from child actor to a champion for a number of charitable causes most notable the AIDS foundation.Her championship of the AIDS foundation comes directly from her friendship with screen legend Rock Hudson who died of aids in 1985.
Elizabeth Taylor spent her younger years staring in movies; at the age of nine Taylor appeared in her first motion picture “There’s One Born Every Minute” (1942). Even at a young age Taylor signature features, her deep blue eyes that appeared violet and her double eyelashes wooed those who saw her. In 1943 Taylor stared in “Lassie Come Home” with child star Roddy McDowall, with whom a lifelong friendship would develop. But it was not until age 12 that Elizabeth Taylor became a house hold name.
Starring along side Mickey Rooney, Taylor played the role of Velvet Brown in MGM’s “National Velvet” Her character, a young girl who trains her horse to win the Grand National was a huge success. Taylor later called the time spent doing the movie as “the most exciting film” she ever made. Taylor played in several movies after National Velvet but it was not until her role in “Father of the Bride” (1950) her first box office success that her transition from child actor to adult actor started to blossom.
At one time Elizabeth Taylor was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress four years in a row for her roles in “Braintree County” (1957), “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958), “Suddenly, Last Summer” (1959) and “Butterfield 8” (1960) which she won the award for.
In 1960 Taylor became the highest paid actress at that time with a record contract of one million dollars to play the title role in “Cleopatra”. Married eight times to several well know performers, Eddie Fisher, Conrad Hilton Jr., non were as famous as her two marriages to Richard Burton in 1964, and then again in 1975.
While famous for her films and weddings Taylor was also a generous humanitarian. She has given her time and money to funding HIV and AIDS related projects and charities. Taylor was one of the first celebrities to acknowledge the disease when few would. She established the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993 and donated money to the NO/AIDS task force in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina. In Nov of 2004 Taylor announced she had congestive heart failure and on March 23, 2011 Elizabeth Taylor finally succumb to complications related to congestive heart failure, Elizabeth Taylor was 79. The Story Place.