STORY HIGHLIGHTS RIP Elizabeth Taylor dead at 79
Taylor died in Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai hospital
She was acclaimed for her adorableness and abounding marriages
Later in life, the extra was accepted for her accommodating work
"Showbiz Tonight" will be alive at 11 a.m. ET with the best recent and a attending aback at the alluring activity and bequest of Elizabeth Taylor.
(CNN) -- Elizabeth Taylor, the allegorical extra acclaimed for her beauty, her developed lifestyle, her accommodating endeavors and her abounding marriages, has died, her arranger told CNN Wednesday. She was 79.
RIP Elizabeth Taylor dead at 79
Taylor died "peacefully today in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles," said a account from her publicist. She was ailing six weeks ago with congestive affection failure, "a action with which she had struggled for abounding years. Admitting she had afresh suffered a cardinal of complications, her action had counterbalanced and it was hoped that she would be able to acknowledgment home. Sadly, this was not to be."
Though a backstab Oscar champ -- for "Butterfield 8" (1960) and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1966) -- Taylor was added acclaimed for artlessly actuality Elizabeth Taylor: sexy, glamorous, tempestuous, fragile, consistently abaft courtiers, media and fans. She wasn't aloft arena to that angel -- she had a aroma alleged "White Diamonds" -- or biting it.
"I am a actual committed wife," she already said. "And I should be committed too -- for actuality affiliated so abounding times."
RIP Elizabeth Taylor dead at 79
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She was hailed, in her prime, as the world's best admirable and adorable woman. Her activity with amateur Richard Burton, which began on the set of the blur "Cleopatra," fueled a paparazzi blitz incomparable in its time. The two afterwards affiliated -- alert -- accouterment account columns and cine magazines with a abundance of material.
But Taylor could additionally be an able and arresting actress. Her agonizing achievement in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1966), adverse Burton, showed her as shrewish, plain, acrimonious -- the complete adverse of her real-life image.
She additionally gave aciculate performances in "Giant" (1956), "Raintree County" (1957), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958) -- three films that helped body her acceptability as a common sex attribute -- "The Sandpiper" (1965) and "Reflections in a Golden Eye" (1967).
Taylor was a best for a cardinal of accommodating causes, conspicuously the action adjoin AIDS. She founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation afterwards the afterlife of her acquaintance Rock Hudson, and bashed both her time and money into its work, abnormally as her acting career waned in the 1980s. The BBC already acclaimed that her alms assignment had grossed as abundant as her blur career.
Acting and romance
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was built-in February 27, 1932, in London, the babe of two affluent American art dealers, Francis and Sara Taylor. Her mother was a above extra who had accustomed up the career aback she married, but encouraged her babe in the pursuit. Indeed, Elizabeth Taylor and her mother were to abide acutely abutting until the latter's afterlife in 1994, at age 99.
Just afterwards Apple War II began, her parents confused aback to the United States and acclimatized in Los Angeles, area Francis Taylor catered to a high-level clientele. Young Elizabeth was acclaimed aboriginal on for her looks: According to one conceivably counterfeit story, she was spotted by a aptitude advance who appropriate her for Bonnie Blue Butler in "Gone With the Wind," but the abstraction was reportedly attack bottomward by her father.
Nevertheless, she eventually fabricated her admission for Universal, which placed her in 1942's "There's One Built-in Every Minute." Taylor was again active by MGM, which was to be her home for about two decades, and fabricated "Lassie Come Home," adverse Roddy McDowall. The amateur became a adherent friend.
But it was Taylor's abutting film, 1944's "National Velvet," that fabricated her a star. The news of a babe in applause with her horse acceptable her accessible applause -- and her equine co-star, The Pie. (Her added co-star, Mickey Rooney, was taken.) For the blow of the 1940s, she was an MGM regular, some of her films winners -- the 1949 adaptation of "Little Women" -- and others, bound forgotten, such as "Julia Misbehaves."
In 1950, Taylor angry 18 and had her aboriginal hit as an adult, the archetypal "Father of the Bride," in which she played Spencer Tracy's soon-to-be-married daughter. Real activity mirrored art aback Taylor absitively to ally auberge beneficiary Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr., but the alliance wasn't about as acknowledged as the film: it lasted aloof eight months.
Critical acclamation accustomed with Taylor's abutting film, "A Place in the Sun," based on the Theodore Dreiser atypical "An American Tragedy." Taylor played the admirable woman pursued by Montgomery Clift, who kills his abundant adherent (Shelley Winters) while boating. The blur accustomed nine Academy Award nominations, but Taylor was shut out.
It wasn't until 1958 that Taylor accustomed her aboriginal Oscar nomination, for 1957's "Raintree County." By then, she was an alike bigger brilliant than before, and accepted as abundant for her off-screen romances as her on-screen talent.
She affiliated amateur Michael Wilding -- 20 years her chief -- in 1952, a alliance that lasted bristles years and produced two children, and again Hollywood ambassador Mike Todd a anniversary afterwards her annulment from Wilding. And afterwards some apathetic assignment in the aboriginal '50s, she was actualization in some acclaimed films, conspicuously 1956's "Giant" adverse James Dean and Rock Hudson. Todd appropriate her for the role of Maggie the Cat in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958), and Taylor aflame up the screen, spending a acceptable allotment of the cine artful about in a slip.
Todd died in a alike blast in March 1958. Upon his death, Taylor was comforted by Todd's best friend, amateur and accompanist Eddie Fisher. The abating angry into an affair, complete with adventurous headlines, which bankrupt afar Fisher's alliance to "America's sweetheart," extra Debbie Reynolds. Taylor was now "the added woman," abominable as a homewrecker -- and, based on box appointment returns, added accepted than ever.
Fisher and Taylor affiliated in 1959 and appeared adverse anniversary added in the abutting year's "BUtterfield 8," with Taylor casting as a sexually cannibal affair girl. Admitting she awful the film, her achievement -- and a abrupt case of pneumonia that threatened her activity -- arrive the accord of the Motion Account Academy, and she assuredly won an Oscar. "I absent to a tracheotomy," adolescent appointee Shirley MacLaine quipped.
Liz 'n' Dick
In 1960, now conceivably the best acclaimed extra in the world, Taylor was offered the advance in 20th Century Fox's assembly of "Cleopatra." Taylor accepted $1 actor -- the accomplished fee accepted by an extra up to that time. Ambassador Walter Wanger agreed, and the chance of "Cleopatra" -- which would absorb the showbiz apple in means alien in the aboriginal '60s -- began. (Fisher's ex-wife, Reynolds, would become the additional woman to accomplish $1 actor for a picture.)
The cine seemed absorbed by a curse. Taylor's illnesses -- there were added than one -- acquired delays, affected casting changes and bidding the assembly to move from London to Rome. The aboriginal director, old Hollywood duke Rouben Mamoulian, was affected out and replaced by Joseph Mankiewicz ("All About Eve"). Weather wiped out canicule of filming and activity agitation undid more, blame the budget, which was originally about $5 million, to $44 actor -- about $300 actor in 2010 dollars, added than "Avatar."
And again there was one of the fresh actors, Richard Burton, who was casting as Marc Antony aback Stephen Boyd had to leave the production.
Burton, who was already accepted as abundant for his amour means as his Shakespearean expertise, had initially anticipation little of Taylor above her beauty. But he was bound smitten: "He approved to end it, but he kept axis about and advancing aback to her," Mankiewicz's son Tom told Taylor biographer William J. Mann. "He aloof couldn't advice himself. He couldn't get abundant of her."
The two were inseparable -- and actual about so. Pictures of the brace assuredly prompted Burton's ability wife, Sybil -- who had attempted suicide -- to book for divorce. Account columnist Hedda Hopper, both acquaintance and foe to Taylor over the years, alleged her "sick." The Vatican appear a bulletin directed at her, adage she was accusable of "erotic vagrancy." A U.S. congresswoman alike alien a bill banning Taylor and Burton -- or "Liz 'n' Dick," as they were acceptable accepted -- from the United States. In response, Taylor asserted, "I will never go aback to America."
But America couldn't get abundant of "Le Scandale." "Cleopatra" absolutely did able-bodied at the box appointment -- admitting not able-bodied abundant to anon escape its red ink: it took three years for 20th Century Fox to accomplish its money back, and Taylor and Burton were now the "It" brace of the moment.
The two affiliated in 1964, their every move a headline. Burton bought Taylor jewels, furs, baubles. The two acquired near-riots aback they appeared in public. Burton's bout of "Hamlet" awash out and their movies calm -- "The V.I.P.s," "The Sandpiper," alike the grim, groundbreaking "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" -- were hits, the closing additionally nominated for 10 Oscars. Taylor accustomed a best extra bays for her achievement as the agitated Martha; Burton was nominated for his achievement as the aged George.
Eventually, however, the moviegoing accessible annoyed of the bifold act. Taylor and Burton fabricated four added films calm -- "The Taming of the Shrew," "Doctor Faustus," "The Comedians" and the appropriately blue-blooded bomb "Boom!" -- but none had the success of their beforehand work. At the aforementioned time, a fresh bearing was latching on to a adolescent accumulation of stars; Taylor, admitting still in her 30s, seemed allotment of addition time.
Woman of charity
The actress' career connected to languish as she entered her 40s. Such films as "The Only Game in Town," "X, Y and Zee" and "Ash Wednesday" did annihilation for her reputation. Her alliance to Burton additionally faltered; the two afar in 1974, and admitting they remarried the abutting year, the additional attack concluded nine months later.
Indeed, Taylor was starting to become a bulk of mockery. During a fund-raising banquet for her sixth husband, U.S. Senator John Warner, R-Virginia, Taylor afraid on a craven bone. The incident, including a bulked-up Taylor, was atrociously parodied on "Saturday Night Live," with John Belushi arena Taylor.
But the allure of actuality Elizabeth Taylor never faded. She was a "guest" at the much-watched Luke-Laura "General Hospital" bells in 1983 and launched several aroma lines, starting with Passion afterwards in the decade.
Most notably, however, she adherent herself to charity. In 1985, she organized a account banquet to accession money for her acquaintance Rock Hudson, who was dying of AIDS. The activity eventually led to the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR); in 1991, she began the Elizabeth Taylor HIV/AIDS Foundation.
source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/03/23/obit.elizabeth.taylor/index.html?npt=NP1
source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/03/23/obit.elizabeth.taylor/index.html?npt=NP1
