Key figures: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Mike Todd, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Rock Hudson, Michael Jackson, Larry Fortensky
Summary
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, one of cinema’s most iconic and glamorous actresses, died on March 23, 2011, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at age 79, succumbing to congestive heart failure. She had been hospitalized for approximately six weeks before her death, suffering from a heart condition she had been managing for years. Born on February 27, 1932, in Hampstead, London, to American parents, Taylor rose to stardom as a child actress in National Velvet (1944) at age 12 and became the defining Hollywood icon of the 1950s and 1960s. Her career spanned over seven decades, during which she appeared in more than 50 films, won two Academy Awards, and set numerous records in cinema history, including becoming the first actor to earn $1 million for a single film role for her title role in Cleopatra (1963).
Taylor’s dramatic range and magnetic screen presence earned her lasting recognition. The American Film Institute ranked her seventh among cinema’s greatest female legends in its 1999 survey. Her most celebrated performance came in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which critics regarded as the most demanding work of her career and earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her eight marriages, high-profile relationships — particularly with co-star Richard Burton, whom she married and divorced twice — and advocacy for HIV/AIDS research captivated global audiences across five decades and defined celebrity culture of the era.
Career Highlights
Child Stardom and Early Career (1942–1950)
Taylor made her film debut at age 10 in There’s One Born Every Minute (Universal Pictures, 1942). Her career gained momentum with Lassie Come Home (MGM, 1943) and reached its first peak with National Velvet (1944), in which she played Velvet Brown, a young girl who trains a horse to compete in the Grand National. The role required Taylor to lose weight, grow four inches, and learn to ride horses — she committed fully to the physical demands and the resulting performance turned her into one of Hollywood’s most promising young stars. The film grossed more than $4 million in its initial release, an extraordinary figure for the era.
MGM kept Taylor under contract throughout the late 1940s, casting her in Father of the Bride (1950) alongside Spencer Tracy, a performance that demonstrated her transition from child star to leading adult actress. By 18, she was already one of the studio’s most bankable names.
Peak Hollywood Career (1951–1966)
Taylor’s performances in A Place in the Sun (1951, with Montgomery Clift), Giant (1956, with James Dean and Rock Hudson), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958, with Paul Newman) established her as one of Hollywood’s most serious dramatic actresses. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Raintree County (1957), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), and BUtterfield 8 (1960), winning for the last. Her first Oscar win was widely regarded at the time as partly a sympathy vote following a near-fatal bout of pneumonia in March 1960 that had left her requiring a tracheotomy and a week on the critical list.
The production of Cleopatra (1963), shot in Rome over 1961–1962, was one of Hollywood’s most notoriously troubled productions. Originally budgeted at $2 million, costs escalated to approximately $31 million — making it the most expensive film ever produced at that time. Taylor’s $1 million fee was unprecedented; her studio also provided a percentage of the gross. The film’s production was plagued by delays, a change of director (from Rouben Mamoulian to Joseph L. Mankiewicz), and illness — Taylor was hospitalized nine times during filming. It was on the Roman set that her romance with co-star Richard Burton began, generating some of the most intense tabloid coverage of the twentieth century.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), directed by Mike Nichols, saw Taylor play Martha, an acidic, middle-aged academic’s wife engaged in psychological warfare with her husband George, played by Burton. Taylor gained approximately 25 pounds for the role and wore aging makeup. She won her second Academy Award for Best Actress; the film also earned Taylor the BAFTA Film Award and was praised by critics as the finest dramatic work of either her or Burton’s career.
Later Career and Legacy Work
After the critical heights of the mid-1960s, Taylor’s film output became more selective. She appeared in The Taming of the Shrew (1967, with Burton), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967, with Marlon Brando), and X, Y and Zee (1972). She made a celebrated stage debut in The Little Foxes (1981) and appeared in Private Lives (1983) on Broadway opposite Burton — their final stage work together. She made occasional television appearances in later decades, including a celebrated voice cameo on The Simpsons, for which she voiced Maggie Simpson’s first word — “Daddy” — in the episode “Lisa’s First Word” (1992).
Personal Life and Marriages
Taylor married eight times across her life, a pattern that attracted as much tabloid fascination as her film career:
- Conrad Hilton Jr. (May 6, 1950 – January 29, 1951) — hotel heir; divorced
- Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952 – January 26, 1957) — British actor; two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher
- Mike Todd (February 2, 1957 – March 22, 1958) — producer; son Liza; Todd died in a plane crash less than two years into the marriage
- Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 – March 6, 1964) — singer; Taylor’s decision to leave her late husband’s best friend for Fisher generated enormous public controversy
- Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 – June 26, 1974) — actor; daughter Maria (adopted); the defining romance of both their lives
- Richard Burton (October 10, 1975 – July 29, 1976) — remarried; divorced again after ten months
- John Warner (December 4, 1976 – November 7, 1982) — U.S. Senator from Virginia; Taylor campaigned actively for him
- Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 – October 31, 1996) — construction worker; met in rehab at the Betty Ford Center; the wedding was held at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch
Taylor and Richard Burton’s relationship generated extraordinary public fascination during the 1960s and 1970s. Their affair began during the filming of Cleopatra in 1962 — both were married to others at the time — and generated international scandal. Vatican Radio condemned their relationship; the U.S. Congress debated whether Taylor, though British-born, should be denied re-entry to the United States. Their first marriage lasted ten years; they remained deeply connected until Burton’s death in 1984.
AIDS Activism
Taylor was among the first major Hollywood celebrities to publicly support people living with HIV/AIDS at a time when the disease carried profound social stigma and many of her peers avoided any association with it. Her activism was rooted in personal friendship: her close friend Rock Hudson, with whom she had co-starred in Giant (1956), was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984 and died on October 2, 1985. Hudson’s death shocked Hollywood and the public alike — he was the first major celebrity to die of AIDS-related complications and was credited with bringing the epidemic to mainstream American awareness.
In 1985, Taylor co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) alongside Dr. Mathilde Krim and helped organize fundraisers that brought in millions of dollars at a time when federal funding for AIDS research was severely limited. She testified before Congress three times, lobbying for increased NIH funding and advocating for people with AIDS to be treated with dignity. In 1991, she established the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF) to focus specifically on direct care and support services for people living with HIV/AIDS, including medication assistance, housing, and counseling.
Taylor raised more than $270 million for HIV/AIDS causes over her lifetime. At her death, ETAF continued operating independently, continuing to fund direct-care programs. Taylor’s advocacy is credited with helping shift public perception of AIDS from a disease associated with shame to a medical emergency deserving compassion and research funding.
Death and Public Response
Taylor died at 7:27 a.m. on March 23, 2011, with her four children — Michael Wilding Jr., Christopher Wilding, Liza Todd, and Maria Burton — present at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Her publicist, Sally Morrison, confirmed the death publicly. She was buried on March 26, 2011, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, in a private funeral attended by family and close friends.
Tributes came from across the entertainment world and beyond. President Barack Obama released a statement saying Taylor “captivated audiences from the time she was a child.” Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair described her as “a truly remarkable actress, a remarkable woman.” Michael Jackson’s estate released a statement noting that Taylor had been among Jackson’s closest friends and confidants, visiting him regularly during his family’s time of need.
Significance
Beyond her unparalleled contribution to cinema, Taylor pioneered celebrity activism for social causes and demonstrated that stardom could be wielded deliberately in service of marginalized communities. Her earliest AIDS advocacy in 1985 came at a time when President Ronald Reagan had not yet publicly mentioned the AIDS epidemic — a silence that activists found unconscionable — making Taylor’s public stance politically consequential as well as personally brave. She lobbied Congress for research funding, sat with dying patients, and publicly embraced HIV-positive individuals at a moment when many feared even casual contact.
Her death on March 23, 2011, marked the end of Hollywood’s classical studio era. She was one of the last surviving major stars of the 1950s and 1960s contract system — one who had navigated the studio apparatus, transcended its limitations, and ultimately outlasted it. Her life had encompassed Hollywood’s golden age, the tabloid era, the AIDS crisis, and the celebrity culture of the social media age, while remaining on her own terms throughout.
Sources
- Elizabeth Taylor - Wikipedia
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[Elizabeth Taylor Biography, Movies, Academy Awards, & Facts Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-Taylor) - Hollywood Icon Elizabeth Taylor Dies at 79 - ABC News
- Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation — History
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[Rock Hudson and AIDS: How the Actor’s Diagnosis Changed Everything History.com](https://www.history.com/news/rock-hudson-aids-diagnosis-impact)