Elizabeth Taylor, whose acting talent and made-for-tabloids personal life combined to make her one of Hollywood's most alluring and lasting figures, died Wednesday at age 79. Taylor's publicist, Sally Morrison, confirmed that she died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for six weeks.
Taylor's four children, Michael and Christopher Wilding, Liza Todd and Maria Burton, were by her side at the end.
"My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love," Michael Wilding said in a statement. "We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."
The 'Cleopatra' star was hospitalized last month for heart failure, and also underwent heart surgery in 2009.
In a recent Harper's Bazaar interview with super-fan Kim Kardashian, Taylor opened up about her many husbands, jewels and philanthropic work.
"I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands," Taylor told the 30-year-old Kardashian sister. "For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else. I have been supremely lucky in my life in that I have known great love, and of course I am the temporary custodian of some incredible and beautiful things. But I have never felt more alive than when I watched my children delight in something, never more alive than when I have watched a great artist perform, and never richer than when I have scored a big check to fight AIDS."
Taylor made her on-screen debut at the age of nine in the film 'There's One Born Every Minute,' but first came to national attention in the film 'Lassie Come Home,' opposite lifelong friend Roddy McDowall. Her star-making role, however, came a few years later, when a then-12-year-old Taylor took on the titular role of Velvet Brown in 1944's 'National Velvet' – a film that in 2003 was selected for entry to the prestigious National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
After a string of successful films as a teenager, Taylor transitioned to adult roles with turns in hits like 'Father of the Bride' (1950) and George Stevens' 'A Place in the Sun' (1951), co-starring Montgomery Clift. Her well-reviewed turn in 'Place' established Taylor as an actress to be reckoned with, and would propel her into more dramatic fair like the 1956 epic 'Giant,' opposite James Dean and Rock Hudson, and 'Raintree County,' the 1957 film that earned her the first of five Best Actress Oscar nominations.
Following 'County,' Taylor starred in a pair of classic Tennessee Williams adaptations, 1958's steamy 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,' with Paul Newman, and 'Suddenly, Last Summer' (1959), both of which earned her Academy Award nominations.
By 1960, Taylor was arguably the most famous actress in the world, a status reflected by her paycheck for 20th Century Fox's 'Cleopatra,' Joseph Mankiewicz's massive telling of the love affair between the legendary queen of Egypt and Roman warrior Marc Anthony (Richard Burton). Taylor was paid $1 million for the part, making her the highest paid actress in the world and the first to be paid a million dollars for a single role. The production of 'Cleopatra' was famously troubled -- Taylor became very ill on set, requiring a tracheotomy to save her life, and the production ran enormously over budget following production delays, swelling the budget to $44 million (roughly equal to $310 million today). When the film was finally released in 1963, it became that year's highest grossing film, though at $26 million, it failed to recoup its cost.
Taylor won her first Best Actress Oscar for her turn in 1960's 'Butterfield 8,' which co-starred her then-husband Eddie Fisher. Taylor famously left Fisher for her 'Cleopatra' co-star Burton, which at the time was perhaps the biggest celebrity scandal in history, and with whom she would go on to make several films together, including 'The V.I.P.s' (1963), 'The Sandpiper' (1965), 'The Taming of the Shrew' (1967), 'Doctor Faustus' (1967), 'The Comedians' (1967)' 'Boom!' (1968), 'Under Milk Wood' (1972) and 'Hammersmith Is Out' (1972).
The pair's most acclaimed film together was far and away 1966's Mike Nichols-directed classic 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' The film brought Taylor her second Best Actress Academy Award for her turn as Martha opposite Burton's George in the adaptation of the famed play by Edward Albee.
Though Taylor's film career began to taper in the late '70s, she continued to appear periodically in a variety of well-received TV movies and miniseries, from 'North and South' (1985) and 'Sweet Bird of Youth' (1987) to 'The Simpsons' (Taylor famously voiced Lisa Simpsons' first word) and most recently 'These Old Broads' (2001), with Debbie Reynolds and Shirley MacLaine.
Taylor's last theatrical film was the hit 1994 live-action remake of 'The Flintstones,' where she played Wilma's meddling mother, Pearl Slaghoople.
In her later years when acting roles became less frequent, she was a spokeswoman for humanitarian causes, notably AIDS research. That work gained her a special Oscar in 1993.
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