Stage and Screen Icon Elizabeth Taylor Dies at 79

Two-time Oscar winning actress Elizabeth Taylor has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79. The violet-eyed star, who had been hospitalized at Los Angeles Cedars-Sinai Hospital, passed away on March 23 surrounded by her children.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London, England, on February 27, 1932 to American parents. When war began brewing in Europe, the family relocated to Los Angeles where the beautiful young Elizabeth began acting in films at the age of ten. Her breakout role came in 1944’s National Velvet. In her 70-year career, Taylor starred in more than 50 films, including hits like Giant, opposite James Dean and Cleopatra, as well as the defining film versions of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She won Oscars for her roles in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Butterfield 8.

Perhaps paving her way to Broadway, Taylor starred as Desiree Armfeldt in the 1977 film version of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, directed by legendary stage director Harold Prince. She went on to make her Broadway debut as Regina Giddens in a 1981 revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, for which she earned a Best Actress Tony Award nomination. Taylor's other Broadway credits include Private Lives (opposite ex-husband Richard Burton) and The Corn Is Green.

Off-screen, Taylor was well-known for her somewhat eccentric personal life, including her eight marriages. After her first marriage to hotel heir Conrad Hilton, Jr. ended, Taylor’s husbands included Michael Wilding, Michael Todd, Eddie Fisher, John Warner and most recently Larry Fortensky in 1991, but her longest union was with fellow thespian Richard Burton. The pair married in March 1964, divorced in June 1974 and remarried in October 1975 for a union that lasted one year. Together, Burton and Taylor co-starred in 11 classic movies, such as Virginia Woolf, The Taming of the Shrew and Cleopatra.

Late in her life, Taylor became known as a social activist as well as a film star. After the death of her friend and Giant co-star Rock Hudson, she helped found the American Foundation for AIDS Research and devoted herself to raising money for it. Along with Julie Andrews, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II on New Year's Eve, 1999.

In addition to her children, Taylor is survived by 10 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.