Elizabeth Taylor
Ever since National Velvet, Liz has been a "national treasure..."
Born in London to American parents on February 27, 1932, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor moved to Beverly Hills with her family at age seven just before WWII. Radiant even as a child, a family friend noticed the extraordinary Miss Taylor and suggested a screen test which quickly led to her debut at age 10 in 1942's There's One Born Every Minute. Just two years later, after Lassie Comes Home
(1943) and National Velvet
(1944) with co-star Mickey Rooney, Liz was an overnight child star. Her success continued through the '40s and into the '50s and her list of co-stars began to look pretty much like a stroll down the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Liz gave noteworthy performances alongside William Powell and Irene Dunne in Life with Father (1947), Father of the Bride (1950) co-starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett and its sequel Father's Little Dividend (1951), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) with Van Johnson and Giant with James Dean and Rock Hudson. And it was only a matter of time before the Oscar�� nods began to pour in. And the matter of time was quickly at hand.
Nominated for Best Actress for four straight years beginning in 1958 with Raintree County
alongside frequent co-star Montgomery Clift, then Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1958) with Paul Newman, Suddenly Last Summer
(1959) with Montgomery Clift and Katharine Hepburn, and finishing up with her first Oscar�� win for Butterfield 8
(1960) co-starring future husband Eddie Fisher-the fourth in a long line of famous men with whom she would tie the knot. In fact, her personal escapades were in the news almost as much as her acting triumphs.
|
The 1960s brought a whole new charge to Liz's career as she skyrocketed to astro-levels with a string of movies that would define her as Hollywood's quintessential goddess. Her stormy, on-again-off-again marriage to the legendary Richard Burton grew from an undeniable on-screen chemistry that would fuel the fire in a string of 12 box office hits they made together that included The V.I.P.s
(1963), Cleopatra
(1963), The Sandpiper
(1965), The Taming of the Shrew
(1967), Anne of the Thousand Days
(1969) and the alcohol-soaked, multi-Oscar�� nominated Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which earned Liz her second Best Actress win.
Three husbands and dozens of films and TV appearances later, the raven-haired beauty with the piercing blue eyes, garnered her Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1993 as well as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her tireless work to help AIDS victims along with being named a Dame by Queen Elizabeth in 1999.
Critics' Choice Video is proud to present dozens of classics by this cinematic legend...a national treasure for sure...the one and only...Elizabeth Taylor. |
|
