Many of her problems, she said, stemmed from taking so much prescription medication in her life. She had another bout with pneumonia in April 1990 and for several days was hooked up to a ventilator to aid her breathing.
In 1961 she almost died after contracting pneumonia and required an emergency tracheotomy, and in 2000 another bout of pneumonia left her clinging to life. Doctors diagnosed a benign brain tumour in 1997, which was successfully removed. She was treated for skin cancer in 2002.
Elizabeth's well known dismissal of public opinion in regard to her personal life came to her aid on more than one occasion. Such inattention to celebrity social norms would serve her well when she was forced to come to terms with an addiction to sleeping pills and alcohol.
In 1976, the year that she and Richard Burton decided to marry a second time, the actress got a third death scare when an X-ray revealed black dots on her lung. The dots turned out to be remnants of tuberculosis that she never knew she had.
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.
Elizabeth Taylor was one of the most beautiful actresses to ever grace the silver screen. But while her looks may have been unparalleled, there was one woman she worried might lead her love Richard Burton astray — Sophia Loren.
She was married eight times to seven men, converted to Judaism, endured several serious illnesses, and led a jet set lifestyle, including assembling one of the most expensive private collections of jewelry in the world. After many years of ill health, Taylor died from congestive heart failure in 2011, at the age of 79.
But like all great eras, Taylor's youthful eating habits came to an end. During her fifth marriage she ballooned to over 180 pounds—then dieted down to 122.
Did Elizabeth Taylor have a child with Richard Burton?
Together, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton did not produce biological offspring. However, their love story was enriched by the adoption of Maria Burton-Carroll born in 1961.
Burton and Taylor had an instant connection and attraction to one another and although married to other people (she to Eddie Fisher, he to Sybil Williams), they couldn't contain their feelings and started an extravagant and scandalous love affair.
Out of all the roles she played, being a mother was her favorite one. As Elizabeth said herself, about her four children, “They make me the proudest of anything that I've ever done.” Elizabeth shared her two eldest sons, Michael Wilding Jr.
Elizabeth Taylor lived a long life that included many romances in addition to her eight marriages. But in the end, she only ever spoke of one great love. That, of course, was Richard Burton. Late in life she would say, "After Richard, the men in my life were just there to hold the coat, to open the door.
There is no denying that the on-screen magic felt between Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift translated into a lifetime of friendship. A Place in the Sun, Raintree County, and Suddenly, Last Summer, are some of the films responsible for bringing the Hollywood stars' platonic passion out of the shadows.
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. Makeup can bring out certain colors in the eye, Kaplan adds.
Sergeant Tom Lorenz, a police spokesman, said Taylor was placed in the great mausoleum in Forest Lawn memorial park but in a different wing from Jackson. "There's nowhere in the world where more famous people are laid to rest," Lorenz was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times.
He suffered from arthritis, dermatitis and, inevitably, cirrhosis of the liver. Although his death came as a major surprise for many of his fans, Burton had been complaining for some time about severe neck pains and he eventually succumbed to a massive brain haemorrhage.
Did Elizabeth Taylor go to Richard Burton's funeral?
The actor died from a brain haemorrhage in August 1984 in Geneva, Switzerland. Taylor was asked to stay away from the funeral because Burton's family feared her presence would create a media circus.
Throughout his lifetime, Burton was married four times. He was married to actor Sybil Christopher from 1949 until 1963. Burton married Taylor for the first time in 1964 and divorced in 1974. The two married for a second time in 1975 until they divorced again in 1976.
Having met at Mocambo nightclub — per Entertainment Weekly — in Los Angeles the year before, Taylor was only 18 when she wed then-23-year-old hotel heir Conrad "Nicky" Hilton on May 6, 1950. However, the ill-fated eight-month marriage began crumbling even before their 14-week European honeymoon was over.
