Elizabeth Taylor

Born in London in 1932 to socially prominent American parents, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor moved to Los Angeles at seven and signed with MGM after a false start at Universal. National Velvet made her a teen star in 1944; by the 1950s she'd transitioned to mature roles in Father of the Bride, A Place in the Sun, and Giant, resenting the studio's control but becoming one of its top earners. She won her first Oscar for BUtterfield 8 in 1960, a role she disliked, then starred in the lavish Cleopatra in 1963, where she met Richard Burton and began a relationship that detonated both their marriages. The two married in 1964, made eleven films together including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - which earned her a second Academy Award in 1966 - and divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, then divorced again in 1976. Her film career faded by the mid-1970s, but in 1985 she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research and spent her final decades in philanthropy until her death in 2011.