TAYLOR, ELIZABETH

TAYLOR, ELIZABETH (1932– ), U.S. actress. Taylor was born in London, England, to American art dealer Francis and actress Sara Taylor (stage name Sara Sothern). The family moved to Los Angeles in 1939, where with her mother's encouragement, Elizabeth appeared in her first film, There's One Born Every Minute (1942). A year later she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she appeared in Lassie Come Home (1943). In 1943, she starred in National Velvet with Mickey Rooney; during the filming a horse riding accident left her with a broken back and the pain would plague her for the rest of her life. Critical acclaim for the film led to roles in Little Women (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), and A Place in the Sun (1951). In 1950, she married hotel heir Conrad Hilton Jr., divorcing him less than a year later in 1951. In 1952, she married British actor Michael Wilding, divorcing him in 1957. In 1956, she starred opposite James Dean in Giant, and received her first Oscar nomination for Raintree Country (1957). She married producer michael todd in 1957. Taylor turned to Todd's rabbi, Max Nussbaum of Temple Israel of Hollywood, to convert her to Judaism in early 1959, taking the Hebrew name Elisheba Rachel. On March 24, 1958, Todd was killed in a plane crash in New Mexico. A grief-stricken Taylor poured her emotions into playing Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), which earned her a second Oscar nod. While on the set, she met eddie fisher , and following Fisher's divorce from Debbie Reynolds, the two were married by Rabbi Nussbaum at Temple Beth Shalom in Las Vegas on May 12, 1959, with Mike Todd, Jr., as best man. Suddenly Last Summer (1959) earned her a third Academy Award nomination. One year later, her turn as a call girl in Butterfield 8 (1960) won Taylor her first best actress Oscar. In 1961, Taylor signed with 20th Century Fox for $1 million to star in Cleopatra (1963). Taylor had an affair with co-star Richard Burton during the shoot that the Vatican even addressed. In 1962, a distraught Taylor attempted suicide. But following a divorce from Fisher, Taylor married recently divorced Burton on March 15, 1964. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) earned Taylor her second Oscar. Taylor divorced Burton in 1974, remarried him in 1975, but divorced again a year later. She married Republican Senate hopeful John Warner in 1976, but the two divorced following media scrutiny of her weight gain. Taylor turned to Broadway, where she appeared in Little Foxes (1981) and later in Private Lives (1983) with Burton. In 1983, Taylor admitted herself to the Betty Ford Clinic for alcohol addiction. After many of her friends, including Rock Hudson, died of AIDS, Taylor became the first celebrity to support AIDS research and co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research. In 1988, she returned to the Betty Ford Clinic, where she met 40-year-old construction worker Larry Fortensky, whom she married in 1991 and divorced in 1996. In 2000, Queen Elizabeth dubbed Taylor Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. (Adam Wills (2nd ed.)