Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (27 February 1932 – 23 March 2011) was an actress born in London to American parents, who rose to prominence in Hollywood as a child star in films including Lassie Come Home (1943) and National Velvet (1944) before establishing herself as a leading adult performer in dramas such as A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Cleopatra (1963). She received two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for portraying a call girl in BUtterfield 8 (1960) and the emotionally volatile Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Taylor's personal life drew extensive media scrutiny due to her eight marriages to seven men—beginning at age 18 with hotel heir Conrad Hilton Jr. and including two unions with actor Richard Burton amid their highly publicized affair during the production of Cleopatra—as well as struggles with addiction and health issues stemming from chronic back pain and other ailments. Later in her career, she pivoted to philanthropy, becoming one of the earliest high-profile celebrities to advocate against HIV/AIDS stigma following the death of her friend Rock Hudson in 1985; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) that year and launched the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991 to fund treatment and support for those affected.

Taylor was raised as a Christian Scientist and converted to Judaism (Reform Branch) in 1959. Although two of her husbands – Mike Todd and Eddie Fisher – were Jewish, Taylor stated that she did not convert because of them, and had wanted to do so "for a long time", and that there was "comfort and dignity and hope for me in this ancient religion that [has] survived for four thousand years....