Elizabeth Taylor’s legend was larger than life, yet her story began simply
Elizabeth Taylor’s life began far from the Hollywood spotlight that would one day define her. Born in Britain to an art dealer father and an ex-actress mother, her childhood was steeped in culture and refinement. When she was just seven, her family moved to America. With legal dual nationality—British and American—she would one day become one of the most famous women on the planet, adored on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.
Her fame, however, transcended borders. Barry Norman, the legendary British film critic, once remarked of her marriage to Richard Burton that it would have been impossible to show her photo to a thousand random people from every walk of life without every one of them knowing who she was. Hyperbolic? Perhaps. But even so, one cannot deny the truth that Elizabeth Taylor was as close to universally recognized as any human being could ever be.
The world saw her as a dazzling star—Cleopatra in jewels and eyeliner, a woman whose violet eyes seemed to hold both fire and sadness, a living emblem of Hollywood’s golden age. Yet those who knew her behind the curtain of fame often told a different story, one of a woman far more grounded and human than her legend suggested.
Turner Classic Movies — International Women’s Day: Actresses Who Became…
A man who once served as her driver in the UK remembered her not as the untouchable screen goddess, but as someone down-to-earth, level-headed, and deeply loyal. Each year, on the anniversary of Richard Burton’s death, she would travel quietly to Wales to visit his family. She insisted on spending time with them not in lavish hotels or exclusive estates, but in the warmth of their local pub. There, she laughed, swapped stories, and—much to everyone’s delight—bought her share of drinks. For all her diamonds and designer gowns, she had no qualms about being one of the crowd, raising a glass in memory of the man she had loved so fiercely.
This girl spent $26,000 just on lip enhancement and became the woman with the biggest lips
She was, as the driver recalled, “a real one of a kind.”
For many, Elizabeth Taylor was a figure glimpsed only on silver screens or glossy magazine covers. But every now and then, an ordinary person was given the chance to encounter her magic in the flesh. In the late 1970s, one such meeting took place in London. A teenager of seventeen, standing in a world still new and uncertain, suddenly found himself in her presence.
Divorce His, Divorce Hers, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, 1973 Poster Print – Posterazzi
What words could possibly have been spoken in that moment? None seemed enough. He simply stood there, gazing at her in awe. For Elizabeth Taylor was not merely beautiful. She was luminous. She carried with her the aura of someone larger than life, and yet, paradoxically, so unmistakably human.
That was the paradox of Elizabeth Taylor. To the world, she was the embodiment of glamour—seven husbands, legendary jewels, roles that cemented her as one of the greatest actresses in history. But to those who brushed shoulders with her, she was something more: a woman with warmth, humor, loyalty, and an ability to slip into the most ordinary of settings without pretense.
Fame of her kind is rare. Humanity of her kind is rarer still. And Elizabeth Taylor, impossibly, possessed both.