Taylor, Elizabeth

Taylor, Elizabeth, 1932–, Anglo-American film actress, b. London. Regarded as one of the world's most beautiful women, Taylor went from child star to a series of ladylike roles to playing worldly, sometimes shrewish women. She won Academy Awards for her work in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Her other films include National Velvet (1944), A Place in the Sun (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Cleopatra (1963), and The Mirror Crack'd (1979). She has also appeared on Broadway in such productions as The Little Foxes (1981). Taylor has been married nine times, twice to Richard Burton, with whom she co-starred in many films. She has been active in raising money for AIDS research, and was made a Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire, in 2000.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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