AllMovie

Part of the Biography television series from A&E, this documentary reviews the film career and notorious personal life of celebrated actress Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor moved with her family from England to Los Angeles, to escape the havoc of World War II. She made her screen debut at the age of 10 in the 1942 film There's One Born Every Minute. In 1944, Taylor's performance as a young equestrian in National Velvet made her a bona fide child star. She won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in Butterfield 8. At the height of her marketability as an actress, Taylor agreed to star in an upcoming film, Cleopatra, for the then-record salary of $1 million. By the time she earned her first adult role, however, Taylor's personal life had begun to rival her film career for the public's fascination: in 1950, at age 18, she embarked on the first of eight marriages. In 1966, she and husband Richard Burton starred together in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Taylor's performance won her a second Best Actress Oscar and cemented her reputation as a serious actress as well as one of the top box office draws of the 1960s. In the 1990s her limited acting career took a backseat to her pursuit of humanitarian causes--most notably AIDS research.