Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British and American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. She then became the world's highest-paid movie star in the 1960s, remaining a well-known public figure for the rest of her life. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her seventh on its list of the greatest female screen legends.
Born in London to socially prominent American parents, Taylor moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1939 at the age of seven. She made her acting debut with a minor role in the Universal Pictures film There's One Born Every Minute (1942), but the studio ended her contract after a year. She was then signed by MGM and became a popular teen star after appearing in National Velvet (1944). She transitioned to mature roles in the 1950s, starring in the comedy Father of the Bride (1950) and receiving critical acclaim for her performance in the drama A Place in the Sun (1951). One of MGM's most bankable stars, she starred in the historical adventure epic Ivanhoe (1952) with Robert Taylor and Joan Fontaine. Taylor resented the studio's control and many casting choices.
Taylor wished to end her career in the early 1950s but began receiving more enjoyable roles. The epic drama Giant (1956) followed. She also starred in several critically and commercially successful films in the following years. These included two film adaptations of plays by Tennessee Williams: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959); Taylor won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for the latter. Although she disliked her role as a call girl in BUtterfield 8 (1960), her last film for MGM, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the performance.
Her best-known role was in Cleopatra (1963), which received multiple Academy Awards nominations—winning four—and a lavish production budget and schedule. Taylor's acting career began to decline in the late 1960s, although she continued to star in films until the mid-1970s. Taylor married her Cleopatra co-star Richard Burton in 1964, together with whom she starred in 11 films, including The V.I.P.s (1963), The Sandpiper (1965), The Taming of the Shrew (1967), and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Taylor received the best reviews of her career for Woolf, winning her second Academy Award and several other awards for her performance.
Taylor's private life has been subject to intense media scrutiny and controversy, especially her marriages to Eddie Fisher and Burton, with Taylor starting the relationship with the former while he was married to another person, and with the latter while both were married to other people. She and Burton, dubbed "Liz and Dick", divorced in 1974 but reconciled soon after, remarrying in 1975. The second marriage ended in divorce in 1976, after which she focused on supporting the career of her sixth husband, United States Senator John Warner. In the 1980s, she acted in her first substantial stage roles and in several television films and series. She became the second celebrity to launch a perfume brand after Sophia Loren. Taylor was one of the first celebrities to take part in HIV/AIDS activism. She co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985 and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991. From the early 1990s until her death in 2011, she dedicated her time to philanthropy, for which she received several accolades, including the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2002.
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born on February 27, 1932, at Heathwood, her family's home at 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb, northwest London, England. She received dual British and American citizenship at birth, as her parents, art dealer Francis Lenn Taylor (1897–1968) and stage actress Sara Sothern (1895–1994), were US citizens, originally from Arkansas City, Kansas. Through her father's family, she descended from the Taylors of Virginia and was a third great-granddaughter of Joseph Taylor.
They had moved to London in 1929 and opened an art gallery on Bond Street; their first child, a son named Howard (died 2020), was born the same year. Their social circle included artists such as Augustus John and Laura Knight, and politicians such as Colonel Victor Cazalet. Cazalet was Taylor's unofficial godfather and an important influence in her early life. She was enrolled in Byron House School, a Montessori school in Highgate, and was raised according to the teachings of Christian Science, the religion of her mother and Cazalet.
In early 1939, fears of impending war in Europe grew for the Taylor family. US ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy contacted Francis, urging him to return to the US with his family. Sara and the children left first in April 1939 aboard the liner SS Manhattan and moved in with Taylor's maternal grandfather in Pasadena, California. Francis remained in London to close the gallery and joined them in December. In early 1940, he opened a new gallery in Los Angeles. After briefly living with the Chapman family in Pacific Palisades in northwestern Los Angeles, the Taylors settled in Beverly Hills, where the two children were enrolled in Hawthorne School.
1941–1949: Early roles and teenage stardom
In California, Taylor's mother was frequently told that her daughter should audition for films. Taylor's eyes in particular drew attention; they were blue, to the extent of appearing violet, and were rimmed by dark double eyelashes caused by a genetic mutation. Sara was initially opposed to Taylor appearing in films, but after the outbreak of war in Europe made return there unlikely, she began to view the film industry as a way of assimilating to American society. Francis Taylor's Beverly Hills gallery had gained clients from the film industry soon after opening, helped by the endorsement of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, a friend of the Cazalets. Through a client and a school friend's father, Taylor auditioned for both Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in early 1941. Both studios offered Taylor contracts, and Sara Taylor chose to accept Universal's offer.
Taylor began her contract in April 1941 and was cast in a small role in There's One Born Every Minute (1942). She did not receive other roles, and her contract was terminated after a year. Universal's casting director explained her dislike of Taylor, stating that "the kid has nothing ... her eyes are too old, she doesn't have the face of a child". Biographer Alexander Walker agrees that Taylor looked different from the child stars of the era, such as Shirley Temple and Judy Garland. Taylor later said that, "apparently, I used to frighten grown ups, because I was totally direct". Taylor received another opportunity in late 1942, when her father's acquaintance, MGM producer Samuel Marx, arranged for her to audition for a minor role in Lassie Come Home (1943), which required a child actress with an English accent. After a trial contract of three months, she was given a standard seven-year contract in January 1943. Following Lassie, she appeared in minor uncredited roles in two other films set in England – Jane Eyre (1943) playing Helen Burns, and The White Cliffs of Dover (1944).
Taylor was cast in her first starring role at the age of 12, when she was chosen to play a girl who wants to compete as a jockey in the exclusively male Grand National in National Velvet. She later called it "the most exciting film" of her career. Since 1937, MGM had been looking for a suitable actress with a British accent and the ability to ride horses. Gene Tierney (12 years older than Taylor) was the first option, but finally they decided on Taylor at the recommendation of White Cliffs director Clarence Brown, who knew she had the necessary skills. At that time Taylor was deemed too short for the role, so filming was delayed several months in order for her to grow an inch or two. In the interim Taylor spent her time practicing her horseback riding. In MGM's effort developing Taylor into a film star, they required her to wear braces to straighten her teeth and have two of her baby teeth pulled out. The studio also wanted to dye her hair and change the shape of her eyebrows, even proposing that she use the screen name "Virginia", but Taylor and her parents refused.