Born with Scoliosis While filming National Velvet in 1944, then 12-year-old Taylor was thrown off a horse and hurt her back. However it was not that injury but scoliosis, or a curvature in her spine that she was born with, that was responsible for the chronic back pain she faced throughout her life.
Liz Taylor's head-turning looks may, at least partly, have been due to a rare genetic mutation that resulted in her having two rows of eyelashes on each eyelid rather than one. The technical term for this disorder is distichiasis.
In her 79 years she suffered from injuries, scoliosis and skin cancer, and endured more than 30 surgeries. In the months leading up to her death Wednesday, those who knew her said she was wheelchair-bound with dark bruises on her arms.
Later, while under sedation for a caesarean section, she was given a tubal ligation without her knowledge. As a child actress and product of the MGM studio system, Elizabeth was given pills to pep her up and pills to calm her down – starting her on a path that would see her in and out of rehab in later years.
Burton and Taylor filming Sandpiper. The most beautiful woman in the world was born with a pelt of black hair covering her skin, the result of a condition called hypertrichosis. Her mother remembered that even her "ears were covered with thick black fuzz." She looked like a monkey.
Did Elizabeth Taylor really have violet colored eyes?
Did Elizabeth Taylor have violet eyes? These days, thanks to colored contact lenses, anyone can have violet-colored eyes . Taylor didn't come by her purple peepers that way; the first tinted contact lenses weren't commercially available until 1983. Taylor's eye color was the real deal.
Did Elizabeth Taylor have a child with Richard Burton?
Richard Burton
Though their fiery first marriage fizzled, Taylor and Burton (who had adopted a daughter, Maria, born in 1961) gave wedded bliss another shot — briefly — and remarried on Oct. 10, 1975. Some joked that Burton simply wanted to be near all the jewelry he had given his ex.
What was so special about Elizabeth Taylor's eyes?
Taylor also had a rare genetic defect that resulted in her having two layers of eyelashes, which really helped give her colorful eyes that dramatic pop.
And, well, she must have loved playing that part, because Liz would infamously walk down the aisle eight times (to seven husbands, marrying Richard Burton twice) over the next 40 years. Her first wedding took place in 1950, at the age of 18, and she didn't stop until her last stint as bride in 1991, at the age of 59.
We did a little digging to answer these questions and here's what we found: Her eye color was actually natural — for the most part. Colored contacts weren't commercially available until 1983, so Taylor wasn't faking it. However, she was born with a very specific and rare amount of the pigment melanin.
From her marriages, the actress had four children and 10 grandchildren. It is believed that her trust passed the majority of her assets to her children, grandchildren as well as to various charities.
Taylor's twin-set of lashes are thought to be the result of a genetic mutation at the FOXC2 gene. (Funny that a woman most men would describe as "foxy" was possibly affected by the FOXC2 gene!) An extra row of eyelashes is known medically as distichiasis (pronounced dis-tic-key-i-asis) and it's a rare disorder.
Elizabeth Taylor died March 23, 2011 at the age of 79 of congestive heart failure. She also suffered from a lifetime of poor health and crippling accidents. Though she quit smoking in 1990, she was a heavy smoker for 40 years.
All other terms of Taylor's revocable living trust have remained private, as intended. It's rumored that the trust passed the majority of her assets to her children, grandchildren, and to various charities. Taylor's AIDS work saw her address the General Assembly at the United Nations.
While Elizabeth Taylor made headlines with her violet eyes, her eyes were in fact blue. Blue eyes get their color from light that is coming in and being reflected out, so it is not surprising that they appeared as assorted colors based on lighting conditions.
Violet eyes are sometimes found in people with albinism, which affects only one person out of every 20,000. But even people with albinism usually have blue eyes, hazel eyes, green eyes, or brown eyes. This is why it's believed that less than 1% of people in the world have naturally violet eyes.
The American Film Institute named her seventh on its Female Legends list. Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born February 27, 1932, in Hampstead, England, the second child of Americans residing in England, art dealer Francis Lenn Taylor and actress Sara Viola Warmbrodt.
