Taylor was born in
Hampstead, a wealthy district of north-west
London, the second child of
Francis Lenn Taylor (1897 – 1968) and
Sara Viola Warmbrodt (1896 – 1994), who were
Americans residing in
England. Taylor's older brother, Howard Taylor, was born in 1929.
Her two first names are in honor of her
paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor, who was born Elizabeth Mary Rosemond. Taylor was born both a British subject and an American citizen, the former by being born on British soil under the principle of
Jus soli, and the latter through her parents under the principle of
Jus sanguinis.
Both of her American parents were originally from
Arkansas City,
Kansas. Her father was an art dealer and her mother a former actress whose
stage name was
Sara Sothern. Sara retired from the
stage when she and Francis Taylor married in 1926 in
New York. In popular accounts, Taylor's father has been portrayed as a weak figure who always capitulated to her mother.
At the age of three, Elizabeth began taking ballet lessons. Shortly after the beginning of
World War II, her parents decided to return to the
United States to avoid hostilities. Her mother took the children first, while her father remained in London to wrap up matters in the art business. They settled in
Los Angeles,
California, where Sara's family, the Warmbrodts, were then living.
Taylor appeared in her first
motion picture at the age of nine for
Universal. They let her
contract drop, and she was signed with
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her first movie with that
studio was
Lassie Come Home (1943), which drew favorable attention. That movie starred child star
Roddy McDowall, with whom Elizabeth would share a lifelong friendship. After a few more movies, the second on loan-out to
20th Century Fox, she appeared in her first leading role and achieved child
star status playing Velvet Brown, a young girl who trains a horse to win the
Grand National in
Clarence Brown's movie
National Velvet (1944) with
Mickey Rooney.
National Velvet was a big hit, grossing over
US$4 million at the box-office, and she was signed to a long-term contract.
Gene Tierney originally was offered the role in MGM's
National Velvet but production was delayed so Tierney signed with Fox. The rest is Hollywood history.
She attended school on the
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot and received a diploma from
University High School in Los Angeles on
January 26,
1950, the same year she was first married at age 18.
Elizabeth Taylor won the
Academy Award for
Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performances in
BUtterfield 8 (1960), which co-starred then husband
Eddie Fisher, and again for
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (film) (1966), which co-starred then-husband
Richard Burton and the Supporting Actress Oscar-winner,
Sandy Dennis.
Taylor was nominated for
Raintree County (1957) with
Montgomery Clift,
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) with
Paul Newman, and
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) with Clift,
Katharine Hepburn and
Mercedes McCambridge.
In 1963, she became the highest paid
movie star up until that time when she accepted US$1 million to play the title role in the lavish production of
Cleopatra for
20th Century Fox. It was during the filming of that movie that she worked for the first time with future husband
Richard Burton, who played
Mark Antony. Movie magazines, the forerunners of today's
tabloids, had a field day when Taylor and Burton began an affair during filming; both stars were married to other people at the time. She was even accused by a Vatican newspaper of having descended into "erotic vagrancy." A lot of people thought of Elizabeth Taylor as a "Scarlet Woman." She and many others disagreed with that strongly. Richard Burton was quoted as saying: "You'd be surprised at the morals of many women stars who are regarded by the public as goody-two-shoes. They leap into bed with any male in grabbing distance. That's what makes me mad when I read stuff hinting Liz is a scarlet woman because she's been married five times. She's only had five men in her life whereas those goody-two-shoes have lost count."
She has also appeared a number of times on
television, including the
1973 made-for-TV movie with then husband
Richard Burton, titled
Divorce His - Divorce Hers. In
1985, she played movie
gossip columnist Louella Parsons in
Malice in Wonderland opposite
Jane Alexander, who played
Hedda Hopper, and also appeared in the mini-series
North and South. In
2001, she played an agent in
These Old Broads. She has also appeared on a number of other TV shows, including the
soap operas
General Hospital and
All My Children and the animated
The Simpsons; once as herself, and the other as the voice of
Maggie.
Taylor has also acted on the
stage, making her
Broadway and
West End debuts in 1982 with a revival of
Lillian Hellman's
The Little Foxes. She was then in a production of
Noel Coward's
Private Lives (1983), in which she starred with her former husband,
Richard Burton. The student-run
Burton Taylor Theatre in Oxford was named for the famous couple after Burton appeared as Doctor Faustus in the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) production of the Marlowe play. Elizabeth Taylor played the ghostly, wordless Helen of Troy, who is entreated by Faustus to 'make [him] immortal with a kiss'.
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