Elizabeth Taylor Elizabeth Taylor, born in 1932, American actor, an internationally celebrated and award-winning performer.

Elizabeth Taylor Elizabeth Taylor, born in 1932, American actor, an internationally celebrated and award-winning performer. Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London, England, of American parents. She returned to the United States in 1939. Taylor was noticed by talent scouts at the age of ten and made her motion-picture debut the same year in There's One Born Every Minute. In 1943 she signed a long-term contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio. As a child performer Taylor made a number of successful pictures, among them Lassie, Come Home (1943), Jane Eyre (1944), National Velvet (1944), Life with Father (1947), A Date with Judy (1948), and Little Women (1949). As Taylor began to mature, she made Father of the Bride (1950) and Father's Little Dividend (1957), both for director Vincente Minnelli. She then achieved stardom with her performance in A Place in the Sun (1951). Her other films of the 1950s, by which time she had gained an international reputation, include Ivanhoe (1952), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), Giant (1956), Raintree County (1957), and her two roles in film adaptations of plays by American playwright Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), which rank among Taylor's best performances. For her role in Butterfield 8 (1960) she won her first Academy Award for best actress. Taylor won her second Academy Award for her performance as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). She also gave strong performances in The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), and Secret Ceremony (1968). During the 1970s Taylor was plagued by problems with alcohol and marital complications, and her acting career suffered. Although she made a number of appearances in television movies during the 1970s and 1980s, gave a delightful screen performance in The Mirror Crack'd (1980), and ventured into theater with a role in the revival of American playwright Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes in 1981, she increasingly pursued other interests, including a new career as a cosmetics entrepreneur and a crusade as an AIDS activist. In 1993 Taylor received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her activism, and in the same year she was honored by the American Film Institute with its Life Achievement Award. She was named a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1999 and honored by the Kennedy Center for her contribution to the cultural life of the United States in 2002. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.