MSN Movies Legend #8 - Elizabeth Taylor

Born in 1932 to an American art dealer and an English actress, Elizabeth Taylor spent her early years in London before leaving for Los Angeles at the onset of World War II. There she was soon spotted by the studios, making her film debut at the age of nine and scoring a huge hit shortly afterwards in 1943’s canine caper Lassie Come Home. National Velvet followed the following year, Taylor’s turn as a juvenile jockey establishing her as one of that decade’s most successful child stars. ("Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses," she’d later quip.)

Little Women and Father of the Bride saw her make the leap into adult roles, the young Taylor’s dependability earning her the nickname “One-Shot Liz.” Playing Montgomery Clift’s love interest in A Place in the Sun boosted her profile further, leading to a major role opposite Rock Hudson and James Dean in Giant. Her next three films – Civil War yarn Raintree County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer – all brought her Oscar nominations, although it was playing a call girl in Butterfield 8 – and the fact she had recently survived a life-threatening illness – that eventually won her the award.

 

By now, of course, Taylor’s private life was the stuff of legend, her marriages to hotel heir Conrad Hilton, actor Michael Wilding, producer Michael Todd and crooner Eddie Fisher having made her a tabloid staple. All that was nothing, though, to the headlines generated by her turbulent relationship with her Cleopatra co-star Richard Burton, who she would marry twice and make 11 films with. One of them, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, won her her second Oscar and remains the last film of note in a life increasingly dominated by persistent ill health and tireless charity work.

 

Finest Moment:
When Elizabeth Taylor was made a dame in 1999, chances are it wasn’t for playing the Queen of the Nile in Cleopatra. Bizarrely, though, this four-hour flop remains her most iconic vehicle, Liz emerging from the rubble with her reputation pretty much intact. The handsome costumes, striking make-up and preposterous hairdos help, combining with her scenery-chomping melodramatics to create a performance that is literally larger than life. Who cares if the troubled production almost ruined the studio that financed it? If some of the sets look familiar, incidentally, it might be because they were later reused in Carry On Cleo.

 

In Her Own Words:
"If someone's dumb enough to offer me a million dollars to make a picture, I’m certainly not dumb enough to turn it down."

 

Gallery: The full list of MSN Movies Legends





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