Screen legend Elizbeth Taylor the violet-eyed film goddess whose sultry screen life was often upstaged by her stormy personal life, died Wednesday at age 79. She died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, publicist Sally Morrison said. Taylor had extraordinary grace, fame and wealth, and won three Oscars, including a special one for her humanitarian work. But she was tortured by ill health, failed romances and personal tragedy.
Her eight marriages — including two to actor Richard Burton and a lifelong battle with substance abuse, physical ailments and overeating made Taylor as popular in supermarket tabloids as in classic film festivals.
Taylor disclosed in November 2004 that she had congestive heart failure. But she still periodically dismissed reports that she was at death's door, saying she used a wheelchair only because of chronic back problems that began at age 12 when she fell from a horse.
The London-born actress was a star at age 12, a bride and a divorcee at 18, a screen goddess at 19 and a widow at 26. She appeared in more than 50 films, and won Oscars for her performances in "Butterfield 8" (1960) and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), in which she starred opposite Burton.
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