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LEADING LADY

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An actress, a philanthropist and a Hollywood legend known equally ane of the about beautiful women in the world, Elizabeth Taylor — who died of congestive heart failure at historic period 79 on March 23, 2011 — left behind a legacy every bit as colorful every bit any of her screen roles. "Elizabeth is bigger than life," her friend, songwriter Carol Bayer Sager, in one case told PEOPLE of the star. "She'southward the closest thing we have in America to royalty."

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A STAR IS BORN

A STAR IS Built-in

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Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in Hampstead, London, on Feb. 27, 1932, to art dealer Francis Taylor and Sara, a quondam phase actress. Her unique beauty inspired her mother to put her into show business organization, and by age three Elizabeth was taking ballet lessons. "I never could kick upwardly my heels similar other kids; there were too many restraints," Taylor wrote in her 1988 memoir Elizabeth Takes Off. "My life was overscheduled and overdisciplined."

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'NATIONAL' TREASURE

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Taylor appeared in her first movie, the 1942 comedy At that place'southward One Born Every Minute, when she was 9 years former. MGM noticed her potential — and remarkable violet-colored eyes — and signed her for 1943's Lassie Come Home. The following year, she made her star-making turn in National Velvet (pictured), playing the adamant Velvet Dark-brown, who takes her equus caballus all the mode to the K National.

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Here COMES THE Helpmate

HERE COMES THE Bride

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At only 18, Taylor married hotel heir Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr. in Beverly Hills. MGM paid for the May 6, 1950, ceremony and lavish reception at the Bel-Air Country Order equally the studio promoted its star's movie, Begetter of the Bride. Just there was no fairytale ending. "The honeymoon and the human relationship were both over by the time we returned," Taylor wrote about Hilton's drinking and abusive beliefs in Elizabeth Takes Off. In less than one year, the marriage was over.

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FAITHFUL FRIEND

True-blue FRIEND

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In 1951, the actress became a leading lady when she costarred with Montgomery Clift in A Identify in the Sun (pictured on the set). The two forged a close bond; her indelible Hollywood friendships would subsequently become a argument. When Giant costar Rock Hudson died of AIDS in 1985, she helped get-go the American Foundation for AIDS Research and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. "I want to do all I can because I have to live with me," Taylor told PEOPLE well-nigh her activism.

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TRUE LOVE

Truthful Love

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Taylor married for the third time, in 1957, to movie producer Mike Todd — who was 25 years her senior. "I have had two great loves in my life. Mike Todd was the commencement," Taylor afterwards wrote. Her happiness would be short-lived: Todd's plane, the Liz, crashed on March 22, 1958, killing him. "I honestly didn't think I would survive and didn't much care if I did not," she later said of mourning the father of her daughter, Liza.

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'HOT' ZONE

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Afterwards Todd's death, a reluctant Taylor connected filming the 1958 screen adaptation of the Tennessee Williams stage classic Cat on a Hot Tin can Roof. Playing southern siren Maggie the Cat, the actress sizzled in her signature function equally a love-starved wife reverse Paul Newman — and earned an Oscar nomination. "I'm proud of my operation, and I feel information technology helped me to recover gradually from Mike's death instead of drowning in my sorrow," she wrote about the film.

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MATERNAL ROLE

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Taylor took pride in her big and loving family: She was the mother of four children, the grandmother of 10 and the cracking-grandmother of several. "My best friends," she chosen her kids — including sons Michael and Christopher Wilding (pictured circa 1956), from her second union to British histrion Michael Wilding; daughter Liza Todd; and Maria Burton, whom she later adopted with married man Richard Burton.

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DOMESTIC DRAMA

Hollywood couple Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds were close friends of Taylor and Mike Todd. But after Todd's death, the crooner and Taylor establish solace in each other — and started a scandalous affair. Fisher ultimately left Reynolds and married Taylor in May 1959. "The press fabricated much of Eddie'south leaving his married woman, Debbie Reynolds, but their union was in trouble long before I hit the scene," Taylor later insisted.

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ROMANTIC TRIANGLE

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"When I saw him on the ready of Cleopatra, I vicious in dearest and I have loved him ever since," Taylor later said of Welsh player Richard Burton, her costar in the 1963 film. The pair'due south lightning-hot romance became a tabloid cover story and she married him 9 days subsequently divorcing Eddie Fisher in March 1964. The Battling Burtons — as they were known for their infamous fights — tried their manus at wedded bliss twice. "For some reason, the earth has always been amused past us two maniacs," Burton one time said.

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QUEEN OF THE NILE

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"It was probably the most chaotic time in my life," Taylor told Vanity Fair nigh the epic Cleopatra, for which Taylor became the get-go actor in history to be paid $1 one thousand thousand. When production ran into overtime (partly thanks to her explosive romance with Burton), Taylor's salary hit $iv meg-plus, and the near bankrupt studio sued her. In fourth dimension, both sides settled, but the film — at a whopping $44 million ($287 meg in current dollars) — was for many years the nigh expensive movie always made.

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A Alter OF HEART

WEIGHTY MATTERS

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Taylor went from movie star to politician'southward married woman when she married Sen. John Warner (R.-Va.) in 1976. During their marriage, an unhappy Taylor (at club Studio 54 with Liza Minnelli and Betty Ford in 1979) was abusing alcohol and prescription pills. Family ultimately urged the actress to check into the Betty Ford Center on Dec. 5, 1983. "My children, my brother, a few intimate friends made me face up the facts," she after wrote.

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Gilt MOMENT

GOLDEN MOMENT

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In 1992, a radiant Taylor received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the University Awards. The actress had a long history with Oscar: In addition to several nominations, she won her first gold statue for her office as a promiscuous model in 1960's Butterfield 8 — despite having herself criticized the quality of the movie. Her second, in 1966, was for Who'southward Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which costarred Richard Burton.

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FAST FRIENDS

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

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In June 2006, Taylor told Larry Male monarch that she had sleepovers with close friend Michael Jackson (together in 2001) and his nephews. "We were all in the bed watching television," she said. "There was nada aberrant about it. Nosotros laughed like children and we watched a lot of Walt Disney." Of her bond with Jackson: "We both had horrible childhoods. Working at the age of 9 was not a childhood for me — and he started at 3."

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SEAL OF APPROVAL

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In 2001, President Clinton awarded Taylor the second-highest civilian laurels in the nation, the Presidential Denizen's Medal, in recognition of her commitment to AIDS activism. Taylor was also feted at the 25th annual Kennedy Eye Honors in 2002. Besides being honored for her philanthropic work and acting career, Taylor as well constitute enormous success as a businesswoman with her White Diamonds fragrance and House of Taylor jewelry line.

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GRANDE DAME

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Taylor received the British Academy of Film and Telly Arts' honour for artistic excellence at a ceremony with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in 2005. Bars to a wheelchair post-obit two hip replacements, Taylor — who was made a matriarch in 2000 by Prime Minister Tony Blair — survived surgery for a benign brain tumor in 1997 and also suffered bouts of pneumonia, scoliosis and congestive centre failure. But as she told Larry King in 2006: "If (people) want to hear that I'yard dead, pitiful, folks. I'm not. And I don't plan on information technology."

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'LIFE OF HER Party'

'LIFE OF HER PARTY'

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Battling reports of her declining health, the and so-76-year-former (in Beverly Hills in 2008) spent an evening out at favorite watering hole The Abbey, a popular gay bar in Due west Hollywood, with martini in manus. "Even if she was non equally strong as the concluding time she was here, she was in one case once more the life of her small party," an onlooker said of the star. Three years later, she said her final farewell.

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