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Richard Burton was one of the most influential actors of the 60s and one of the highest-paid actors at the time. He was known for his signature baritone voice and became a Shakespearean actor. He played Hamlet in the 1964 Broadway production of the popular play by William Shakespeare, where his performance was lauded by the general public.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in 1963’s Cleopatra

He has also been nominated for an Oscar many times in his career for his great performances in many films. However, his most popular aspect that made headlines was his turbulent relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. Now, a new book based on their life together suggests that Taylor is responsible for the downfall of Burton’s time as a classical actor.

Meeting Elizabeth Taylor Reportedly Put an End to Richard Burton’s Broadway Career Richard Burton as Hamlet in the 1964 Broadway play of the same name...

There aren’t a lot of precedents in pop music for the pairing of Billie Eilish and Finneas, when it comes to brother-and-sister performing or songwriting duos. But in the world of music for films, it might not be too soon to start considering a comparison with a very famous married duo: Alan and Marilyn Bergman, the long-reigning king and queen of movie theme songs. The Bergmans weren’t a fully self-contained songwriting unit; they primarily worked as lyricists, joining up with outside composers like Michel Legrand or Marvin Hamlisch on Oscar-winning material like “The Windmills of Your Mind,” “The Way We Were” and the song score of “Yentl.” But it’s their names that are synonymous with film songs like few others’. Could it be that the O’Connells are following in their footsteps?

It’s much too soon to tell, with only a handful of movie songs to...

Jon Hamm is a married man.

According to multiple reports and images that surfaced over the weekend, Hamm wed actress Anna Osceola on June 25 during a ceremony held at Anderson Canyon in Big Sur, a site that was featured in the finale of Mad Men, the critically acclaimed TV series that made Hamm a star. The location served as a stand-in for the Esalen Institute in the episode, and it has also been seen in The Sandpiper and National Geographic’s Big Sur: Wild California.

Per TMZ, the couple walked down the aisle to the theme song from the 1967’s James Bond franchise entry You Only Live Twice, and they did so in front of a starry guest list that included good friend Tina Fey, (newlywed) Billy Crudup, Paul Rudd, Mad Men co-star John Slattery, Larry David, Brooke Shields and others.

A representative for Hamm declined comment.

Per People, Hamm,...

Jim Mahoney was one of Hollywood’s go-to guys. He spent 60+ years in public relations, guiding the images of Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Christie Brinkley, Peggy Lee, and hundreds more.

He was on the front lines when Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped, and was at the party at Peter Lawford’s house the night Marilyn Monroe died. He was also there with the Rat Pack in Las Vegas.

Now age 95, Mahoney has captured all of that in a memoir, Get Mahoney!: A Hollywood Insider’s Memoir. “Get Mahoney!” was the phrase often used when stars and their handlers knew trouble was brewing and needed to keep their names out of the press. Mahoney was good at his job, and frequently referred to himself as a better “suppress” agent than press agent.

“It was about ‘taming the lion’ – both the press and the clients themselves,...

Tony Bennett has been part of the pop cultural landscape for over seven decades. The 96-year-old scored his first hit song, “Because of You,” in 1951, the year he made his first TV appearances on a long-forgotten variety series “Star of the Family.” He recorded his signature tune, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ in 1962. Other hits included “Rags to Riches,” which Martin Scorsese used brilliantly on the soundtrack of his 1990 masterpiece “Goodfellas” and the Oscar-winning “The Shadow of Your Smile” from 1965’s “The Sandpiper.”

Unlike the crooners Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, movie success eluded Bennett. Just check out his film debut in the overstuff 1966 turkey “The Oscar.” His career waned. Rock was hot and Bennett wasn’t. He stopped recording in the late 1970s and was in lot of debt. He turned to drugs but a near death drowning experience in his bathtub changed his life and lifestyle.

The past 12 months have been outstanding for H.E.R. Not only did she pick up two Grammys at the 2021 ceremony including Song of the Year for “I Can’t Breathe,” she also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song a few weeks later for “Fight For You” from “Judas and the Black Messiah.” “Fight For You” was then submitted to the 2022 Grammys, and it has been nominated for Song of the Year, Best Traditional R&b Performance, and Best Song Written for Visual Media. Now it’s the front-runner for the latter two according to Gold Derby’s odds. But just how common (or uncommon) is it for Oscar-winning songs to have Grammys to their name as well?

SEEBest Adele songs, ranked: Her 20 greatest hits, including ’30’ songs you’re crying to right now

The first Oscar-winning song to win at the Grammys was “Moon River,” written by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer,...

Johnny Mandel, an Oscar winner and composer of the “M*A*S*H” theme song, has died at the age of 94.

His death was confirmed by his close friend and musician, Michael Feinstein, on Facebook.

“A dear friend and extraordinary composer arranger and all-around brilliant talent Johnny Mandel just passed away,” Feinstein wrote. “The world will never be quite the same without his humor, wit and wry view of life and the human condition. He was truly beyond compare, and nobody could write or arrange the way he did. Lord will we miss him. Let’s celebrate him with his music! He would like that.”

Also Read: Carl Reiner, 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' Creator and Hollywood Legend, Dies at 98

Mandel won an Oscar and a Grammy for his original song, “The Shadow of Your Smile,” for the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton film “The Sandpiper” in 1966.

He is also known...

Johnny Mandel, the Oscar and Grammy winning composer whose noted work included composing the Mash theme, has died at the age of 94. Details of his death have not been disclosed but his friend and fellow musician Michael Feinstein confirmed the news on Facebook, as did numerous others close to Mandel.

“A dear friend and extraordinary composer arranger and all-around brilliant talent Johnny Mandel just passed away,” Feinstein wrote on his official page. “The world will never be quite the same without his humor, wit and wry view of life and the human condition. He was truly beyond compare, and nobody could write or arrange the way he did. Lord will we miss him. Let’s celebrate him with his music! He would like that.”

Born in New York in 1925, Mandel studied music and played in numerous bands before beginning composing and arranging orchestral scores for the likes of Michael Jackson,...

Johnny Mandel, the prolific composer and arranger who worked with Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Barbra Streisand and more — and famously composed the theme song for M*A*S*H — has died, Variety reports. He was 94.

No specifics about Mandel’s death have been revealed. The news was shared by singer and friend Michael Feinstein on Facebook early Tuesday morning: “A dear friend and extraordinary composer-arranger and all-around brilliant talent Johnny Mandel just passed away. The world will never be quite the same without his humor, wit and wry view of life and the human condition.

Johnny Mandel, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning songwriter of “The Shadow of Your Smile,” “Emily” and the theme from “Mash,” has died. He was 94.

“I was so sad to learn that a hero of mine, Johnny Mandel, passed away,” wrote Michael Buble on Twitter. “He was a genius and one of my favorite writers, arrangers, and personalities. He was a beast.”

“A dear friend and extraordinary composer arranger and all-around brilliant talent, Johnny Mandel, just passed away,” wrote Michael Feinstein on Facebook. “The world will never be quite the same without his humor, wit and wry view of life and the human condition. He was truly beyond compare, and nobody could write or arrange the way he did. Lord will we miss him. Let’s celebrate him with his music! He would like that.”

Mandel was considered one of the finest arrangers of the second half of the 20th century, providing...

Jack Sheldon, a jazz trumpeter who had a career as a TV performer in the 1960s and ’70s and sang classic “Schoolhouse Rock” tunes, died on Dec. 27 at age 88, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Long recognized for his trumpet playing, Sheldon was also a singer and TV performer. He lent his gentle voice to classic “Schoolhouse Rock” animated shorts such as “Conjunction Junction” and “I’m Just a Bill.”

For nearly two decades on “The Merv Griffin Show,” he not only performed in the band but served as an on-camera foil to the host.

He even co-starred in the mid-’60s CBS sitcom “The Cara Williams Show” and then headlined his own series, “Run, Buddy Run,” which lasted just a single season in the late ’60s.

As a trumpeter, he may be best remembered for his work on “The Shadow of Your Smile,” the theme to the 1965 Elizabeth Taylor-...

Jack Sheldon, known to children as one of the voices of “Schoolhouse Rocks” and adults as a master trumpeter who served as music director on “The Merv Griffin Show,” has died at age 88.

Sheldon was the sidekick as well as MD on Griffin’s talk show for 18 years. But his own discography as a band leader added up to more than 20 albums, starting in the late ’50s, when he was part of the west coast bebop movement, continuing through his last release in 2007.

“To all Jack Sheldon fans,” Cynthia Jimenez wrote on the musician’s Facebook page, “on behalf of my sister Dianne Jimenez [his longtime manager], sadly, Jack passed away on December 27. May he rest in peace with all the Jazz Cats in heaven!” No cause of death was given.

Sheldon’s film work included one of the renditions of “The Long Goodbye” heard in the Robert Altman movie of that name,...

Jack Sheldon, the stand-out jazz trumpeter and affable Merv Griffin sidekick whose gave voice to the Schoolhouse Rock classics I’m Just a Bill and Conjunction Junction, has died. He was 88.

Sheldon’s face and name were most recognizable to fans of The Merv Griffin Show thanks to his 16-year sidekick stint but his trumpeting reached its greatest acclaim via the big screen with the forlorn Oscar- and Grammy-winning song The Shadow of Your Smile from The Sandpiper (1965).

Sheldon’s voice, however, became a signature part of Saturday morning cartoons for years thanks to two beloved installments of the oft-repeated Schoolhouse Rock educational series of animated shorts. The ABC series was ramping up its second season when it brought Sheldon in and the charismatic jazzman delivered winning performances both as the dedicated train conductor from Conjunction Junction (1974) and lonely piece of proposed legislation in the civics-minded I’m Just a Bill.

Jack Sheldon, the extraordinary West Coast jazz trumpeter and singer who played "The Shadow of Your Smile" for the big screen, served as Merv Griffin's sidekick and voiced characters on Schoolhouse Rock!, has died. He was 88.

Sheldon died Friday of natural causes in his Hollywood Hills home, Dianne Jimenez, his longtime manager and partner, announced. 

Sheldon performed the haunting "The Shadow of Your Smile" on the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton drama The Sandpiper (1965), and the tune, written by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster, won the Grammy Award for song of the year and the Academy ...

Jack Sheldon, the extraordinary West Coast jazz trumpeter and singer who played "The Shadow of Your Smile" for the big screen, served as Merv Griffin's sidekick and voiced characters on Schoolhouse Rock!, has died. He was 88.

Sheldon died Friday of natural causes in his Hollywood Hills home, Dianne Jimenez, his longtime manager and partner, announced. 

Sheldon performed the haunting "The Shadow of Your Smile" on the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton drama The Sandpiper (1965), and the tune, written by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster, won the Grammy Award for song of the year and the Academy ...

Ludwig Göransson’s Grammy wins Sunday night broke yet another record: The Swedish composer and collaborative partner with Childish Gambino became the first artist to win song of the year and best score soundtrack for projects in entirely different music genres.

Göransson won for his “Black Panther” score and shared the song of the year Grammy with Donald Glover for co-writing the Childish Gambino song “This Is America.”

He’d also been nominated for a third award, best R&B song, for co-penning another Childish Gambino song, “Feels Like Summer.”

There have been five occasions in Grammy history when the same composer won song of the year as well as original score: Ernest Gold, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Marvin Hamlisch and Alan Menken.

But all of those instances involved a song and the movie that spawned it. Göransson won for a movie score but also managed to win for a...

This article marks Part 10 of the Gold Derby series analyzing 84 years of Best Original Song at the Oscars. Join us as we look back at the timeless tunes recognized in this category, the results of each race and the overall rankings of the winners.

The 1965 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:

“The Ballad of Cat Ballou” from “Cat Ballou”

“The Sweetheart Tree” from “The Great Race”

“The Shadow of Your Smile” from “The Sandpiper”

“I Will Wait for You” from “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”

“What’s New, Pussycat” from “What’s New, Pussycat”

Won: “The Shadow of Your Smile” from “The Sandpiper”

Should’ve won: “The Ballad of Cat Ballou” from “Cat Ballou”

On February 15, 1965, at the mere age of 45, Nat King Cole, unimpeachably one of the all-time great vocalists and jazz pianists, died of lung cancer. Cole tunes were nominated on three occasions at the Oscars – in 1950 (for...

Producer whose hirings and firings resulted in a string of hit TV shows and films of the 1960s and 70s

Martin Ransohoff, who has died aged 90, was a hands-on film producer, who had to fire directors and actors from time to time. These cruel-to-be-kind executive decisions were justified by his having a string of hits in the 1960s and 70s. Ransohoff is also remembered for having discovered the actor Sharon Tate, whom he introduced to her future husband, the director Roman Polanski.

Tate was 20 and had previously worked in television and magazine advertisements when she met Ransohoff, the chairman of the production company Filmways in 1963. Although she had no acting experience, Ransohoff signed her to a seven-year contract, taking three years to groom her for stardom. In the meantime, he gave her small parts in his company’s television productions of Mister Ed and The Beverly Hillbillies, and walk-on roles...

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Filmways Television co-founder and film/TV producer Martin Ransohoff has died. He was 90 years old and passed away at his home in Bel-Air, according to his family. Ransohoff had a long list of film and TV credits, including The Cincinnati Kid – a film on which he fired director Sam Peckinpah – as well as Save the Tiger, The Sandpiper (with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton), Catch 22, Jagged Edge, The Americanization of Emily, Silver Streak, Ice Station Zebra, and TV…...

Filmways Television co-founder and film/TV producer Martin Ransohoff has died. He was 90 years old and passed away at his home in Bel-Air, according to his family. Ransohoff had a long list of film and TV credits, including The Cincinnati Kid – a film on which he fired director Sam Peckinpah – as well as Save the Tiger, The Sandpiper (with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton), Catch 22, Jagged Edge, The Americanization of Emily, Silver Streak, Ice Station Zebra, and TV…...

Stand back, watch the fur fly and don't forget to duck -- this is surely the most psychologically toxic play ever adapted for film. The legends Liz and Dick are terrific, and Mike Nichols conquers the screen in his first job of direction. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1966 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 131 min. / Street Date May 3, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis. Cinematography Haskell Wexler Film Editor Sam O'Steen Original Music Alex North Written by Ernest Lehman from the play by Edward Albee Produced by Ernest Lehman Directed by Mike Nichols

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I remember what my reaction was, when I was younger, to movies adapted from plays: no matter how brilliant the dialogue, the thought of people standing around rooms talking was stultifying. Even for great epics and action pictures, I tended to go into a...

By Terence Johnson

Managing Editor

One of the bright spots this past film year was the success of Disney’s Frozen. On the strength of it’s more modern princesses and an infectious score, the film set box office records and has garnered two Oscar nominations, Animated Feature and Best Original Song for “Let It Go”, its infectious hit. In honor of Frozen’s nomination, we figured it was time to take a look at the history of animated movies in Original Song.

The history of animated films picking up nominations and wins in Best Original Song is a tale as old as time (see what I did there?). Since the 1930s, animated films have won this award 13 times and over 50 nominations, which you can see below. This is an even greater feat when you think about the consideration that animated films get when lists of musicals are made (they...

‘Montezuma’: Steven Spielberg next movie (or at least a Spielberg movie some time in the future)? Will Steven Spielberg next tackle the life and times of Aztec king Montezuma, from a screenplay by none other than former Hollywood Ten member Dalton Trumbo? If so, that won’t be the first time that Spielberg has adapted a Trumbo screenplay (more on that below). Anyhow, following Lincoln, which earned Spielberg his seventh Best Director Academy Award nomination, the Jaws, E.T., Schindler’s List, and Saving Private Ryan filmmaker has had his name attached to — and then detached from — a couple of projects. First, there was Drew Goddard’s adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson’s novel Robopocalypse, which isn’t a RoboCop spin-off but a sci-fier about a smart robot who reaches the (perfectly logical) conclusion that the only way to save the planet is to get rid of human beings. Robopocalypse,...

With Cannes screening Cleopatra (marking its 50th anniversary) two nights ago and yesterday’s re-release screenings at 75 theaters countrywide, we’re feeling the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton love. The twice-divorced, Vatican-condemned couple continues to capture the public’s imagination and interest. In the past three years, we’ve seen Sam Kashner’s Furious Love and Richard Burton’s diaries become bestsellers, Liz & Dick being the most notable thing in Lifetime’s line-up, and John le Carré writing in The New Yorker just last month about working with Burton on The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and those are just a few things that spring to mind. Although their film collaborations have gotten a bit of a bum-rap over the years (somewhat deservedly), here are five Taylor-Burton films that we think are worth watching, out of the eleven that they made together. Feel free to share your own...

Blu-ray Release Date: May 21, 2013

Price: Blu-ray $24.99, Blu-ray Digibook $34.99

Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Elizabeth Taylor is Cleopatra.

Twentieth Century Fox’s legendary 1963 epic historical film drama Cleopatra—you know, the one starrig Elizabeth Taylor (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Richard Burton (The Sandpiper) and Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady) that almost put the studio out of business—finally makes its Blu-ray debut!

Acknowledging the film’s 50th anniversary, the complete 243-minute premiere version of Cleopatra arrives in two formats: As a two-disc Blu-ray and as a double-disc, picture-filled Blu-ray Digibook.

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the historical epic was the highest grossing film of 1963, though it nearly bankrupted Fox with its unprecedented production cost of $42 million (which is the equivalent to some $300 million today). In addition to elaborate sets and costumes, production delays and the relocation of principal filming from London to Rome added to the skyrocketing budget.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are rumored to be interested in remaking the movie The Sandpiper. The original movie, which was released in 1965, starred real-life couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. According to Examiner, the couple have been eyeing a film that they could star in together now that the Twilight franchise has come to an end. The Sandpiper centers on a single mother who has an affair with the married headmaster at her son's school. Both Stewart and Pattinson (more)...

For all you Twi-hards that have sunk into a depression, trying to accept the fact that Bella and Edward won’t ever take the silver screen again, we have some uplifting news for you! Rob and Kristen will reportedly star in a new movie together!

The dynamic couple is back in action — their love life is on the mend and a new report reveals that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are scoping out a future movie project that they plan to star in together.

Rob and Kristen might just be one of the most talked about couples in Hollywood. Some even feel that they might be on the road to creating a powerful partnership in business and love — just like the late Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Rob and Kristen have been offered many options to appear as a couple on screen, more so now than ever before. They are...

Turner Classic Movies' Summer Under the Stars showcases many renowned actors, and this time, part of it belongs to Eva Marie Saint.

Each August, the channel presents its festival that devotes a full day to the work of a given performer, and the actress who earned an Oscar for her movie debut opposite Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront" gets her turn Sunday, Aug. 19.

Weekend daytime host Ben Mankiewicz -- who has appeared with Saint at TCM-sponsored showings of "North by Northwest" in recent months -- will comment on the afternoon attractions, while Robert Osborne introduces the evening features.

"I've been doing some things for TCM, and it's been terrific," Saint tells Zap2it. "All the people involved are so good, and I'm so pleased about this [tribute]. You don't sit home every day looking at your resume, but even I was a little impressed by this list. All of the films stand on their own,...

Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon Melancholia, A Separation Screenplay, Runner-Up Jeannie Berlin: National Society of Film Critics' Surprises Two interesting omissions from the Nsfc roster: critics' fave Michelle Williams (for portraying Marilyn Monroe in Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn) and George Clooney (for his stressed out father in Alexander Payne's The Descendants) weren't among the critics' top three actresses/actors. Dunst and Yun were followed by New York Film Critics winner Meryl Streep for her Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady; Brad Pitt was followed by Gary Oldman in Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Jean Dujardin in Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist. Dujardin, in fact, was The Artist's sole representative in the Nsfc 2011 roster. For the record the other runners-up were Christopher Plummer (Mike Mills' Beginners) and Patton Oswalt (Jason Reitman's Young Adult...

Hollywood film producer and veteran studio executive

The Hollywood studio executive and producer John Calley, who has died aged 81, once characterised running a film studio as "a guy lying in a bed in a rented apartment in Century City at four in the morning in a foetal position trying to decide whether or not to say yes to a $175m budget for Spider-Man. In the end, it comes down to one guy who has to use his gut."

When Calley was production chief at Warner Bros in the 1970s, it was his gut instinct that led him to green-light such hit movies as A Clockwork Orange, The Towering Inferno, The Exorcist, Dog Day Afternoon, Dirty Harry, All the President's Men, Blazing Saddles, Superman and Chariots of Fire. However, in 1980, when he was about to sign a new seven-year contract worth $21m, he decided to give it all up. "I wasn't enjoying it,...

Kate Winslet (Titanic) as Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra) Kate Winslet just recently played Joan Crawford — well, if you want to be technical about it, she played the title role in Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce, a remake of Michael Curtiz's 1945 noirish melodrama starring Joan Crawford. Now, with the assistance of thick black eyebrows, Academy Award winner Kate Winslet (The Reader) plays two-time Academy Award winner Elizabeth Taylor (Butterfield 8, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) in the latest issue of V magazine. Winslet may look sort of drag-queenish in the above photo, but so did Taylor after starring in the mammoth Cleopatra — what with on-screen roles in overblown fare such as The Sandpiper and Boom!, and off-screen roles as Richard Burton's (two-time) wife and the bearer of iceberg-sized diamonds. And speaking of diamonds … Taylor's jewelry, valued at $30 million, will be auctioned at Christie's in New York on December 13-14. In...

"At least you can see they're really trying to make a good festival," commented, with typical dry wit, one of the (very) few international colleagues the Brigade considers at least something of a crypto-Ferronian. Hard to argue with that, as Locarno's program still shows the signs of having to battle back and forth with the two heaviest lifters on the festival calendar, Cannes and Venice—yet mostly, the Ferroni Brigade had a grand time this year.

Of course, more often then not, when dispirited acquaintances met a merry Brigadier in between screenings, the answer to their inevitable question would be: "Coming from (and returning to) a retrospective, of course!"—but also among new films, we ended up with more truly interesting stuff than in the previous year. Not all of it true donkey material, for different reasons. Nevertheless, there were quite a few Ferronian pleasures out there, some of them more touching than others,...

Father of the Bride

After the legendary Elizabeth Taylor died last month, DVD sets of her films were inevitable, and Warner Home Video has scheduled the first one in its TCM Greatest Classic Films line. The DVD set TCM Greatest Classic Films: Legends — Elizabeth Taylor will be released on July 12.

The two-disc package will include four of Taylor’s best movies:

Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play starring Taylor as frustrated Southern belle wife Maggie the Cat and Paul Newman (The Hustler) as her disillusioned ex-athlete husband.

Father of the Bride (1950), in which Taylor is the bride and Spencer Tracy (State of the Union) is her harried father in this comic celebration of an American rite (and wrongs) of passage.

Butterfield 8 (1960), which won Taylor won her first Best Actress Academy Award, as she played a call girl whose life comes with a complete set of emotional baggage,...

Philip French remembers the child star turned Oscar-winning actress, who was as celebrated as much for her tempestuous relationships as her movies

For people like myself, born in Britain in the inter-war years and growing up during the second world war, Elizabeth Taylor will always be thought of as the youngest of four British evacuees who brought their immaculate English accents to Hollywood and became an essential part of a corner of Tinseltown that was forever England. She and Peter Lawford were transported across the Atlantic by their parents as war clouds gathered over Europe and were put under contract by MGM in the early 1940s. Roddy McDowall followed when bombs began to fall on Britain, as did Angela Lansbury who was also signed by MGM. McDowall was the first to attain stardom, playing the Welsh miner's son in How Green Was My Valley and then appearing in MGM's children's classic,...

Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor started her film career as a child, hitting it big when she starred as a 12-year-old girl hoping to become a jockey in "National Velvet." The violet-eyed beauty went on to star in some of cinema's classics, including "Giant," "Cleopatra" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Take a look back at her filmography, along with great quotes and trivia!

The Best Elizabeth Taylor Movies'National Velvet' (1944)

Velvet Brown (Elizabeth Taylor...

The last film star and expert survivor – David Thomson celebrates the life of Elizabeth Taylor

She was her own montage: seven husbands, eight marriages, diamonds beyond the counting, scandals like forgotten promises, two Oscars for films that showed the immense creative journey she could take, soaring as if on a single breath from the ridiculous Butterfield 8 (playing a hopelessly old-fashioned Hollywood "whore") to Martha in Edward Albee's and Mike Nichols's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a defiant wreck out of the true heartland of American tragedy. She had the range, nerve and instinct that only Bette Davis had had before – and like Davis, Taylor was monster and empress, sweetheart and scold, idiot and wise woman. We went in awe of her, but with one word or a knowing smile she assured us she was one of us. So beautiful, she could go crazy, too – and then move on.

On the set of Giant, not recognising her, I asked her on a date. She turned me down, but with a grace and humour I never forgot

When people say, "She's got everything", I've got one answer – I haven't had tomorrow.

– Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor may have been "the most beautiful woman in the world" but the great thing is that she didn't always look it. During the filming of Giant, my duty as a Hollywood agent was to hang around Warner Brothers to pick off dissatisfied clients from rival agents and keep an ear open for money-making gossip. In the picture's lunch break for studio workers, who were setting up interiors and closeups, I got my taco and beans from the on-lot catering coach and at a plank table sat opposite a quite ordinarily attractive, freckle-faced woman, her hair in a bandanna, who I assumed was a makeup person...

Child actor who became a Hollywood film star known for her dazzling beauty and her eight marriages

The film star Elizabeth Taylor, who has died of heart failure aged 79, was in the public eye from the age of 11 and remained there even decades after her last hit movie. She managed to keep people fascinated, by her incandescent beauty, her courage, her open-natured character, her self-deprecating humour, her eight marriages (two of them to the actor Richard Burton), her many brushes with death, her seesawing weight, her diamonds and her humanitarian causes, all of which often obscured the reason why she was famous in the first place – she had a tantalising screen presence, in films including A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Butterfield 8 (1961), Cleopatra (1963) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

Taylor was born in Hampstead, north London, of American parents. Her mother, Sara, was...

Much has been made of Elizabeth Taylor's beauty, but the MGM star had considerable acting chops to match. Below, my top 5 clips of Taylor's career.

This one from The V.I.P.s (1963) illustrates the tormented relationship between Taylor and her twice-married, twice-divorced husband, the very great, very alcoholic Richard Burton. His love letters to the violet-eyed star were published this past summer in Vanity Fair and we were obsessed with them.

Two years later, they're in love again in The Sandpiper. Guess Burton eased up on the sauce, at least temporarily:

read more...

As the whole industry mourns Elizabeth Taylor, friends of the actress — who passed away Wednesday of congestive heart failure — are paying tribute to one of Hollywood’s most vibrant legends via statements. Here’s what Taylor’s colleagues and acquaintances are saying about their dearly departed friend.

Barbra Streisand, friend: “It’s the end of an era. It wasn’t just her beauty or her stardom. It was her humanitarianism. She put a face on HIV/AIDS. She was funny. She was generous. She made her life count.”

Mike Nichols, who directed Taylor in 1966′s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?...

The actor Elizabeth Taylor has died aged 79. Here we look back over her work, from early roles in National Velvet and Little Women to her defining appearances opposite Richard Burton

News: Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79

Gallery: A career in pictures

It's difficult to think of a better argument for the separate-but-equal value of the terms "actor" and "film star" than the career of Elizabeth Taylor. If that reads as a slight on her ability, it shouldn't. Taylor was a sporadically marvellous performer, one who rarely superseded her director or material but who could, with those factors working in her favour, surpass some of her more gifted peers' capacity for reckless emotional danger.

She was the rare actor who was as interesting on a bad day as on a good one, and not just for her mesmeric physical beauty: like any great film star, she was as compelled by her own screen presence as we were,...

The Queen is dead. Elizabeth Taylor, who died today at the age of 79, was officially a Dame of the British Empire. She was also Hollywood royalty. That phrase is wheeled out regularly by unimaginative broadcasters every time a Hollywood octogenarian — or even nonagenarian – departs for that dressing room in the sky. But though Taylor didn’t even make it to 80, her fame and (at times) her notoriety really did transcend all boundaries. With eight husbands, two Oscars, more than 50 movies and several premature obituaries to her name, she was rarely out of the news.

Born in Hampstead, North London, to American parents, Taylor relocated to Los Angeles during World War II. She made her screen debut in 1942′s There’s One Born Every Minute, but her real breakthrough came at MGM with Lassie Come Home (1943), in which she ignored that famous maxim about never working with animals and Roddy McDowall.

A legend has passed, as today we're mourning Elizabeth Taylor. Whether it was her iconic turn in "Cleopatra" or "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," in classics such as "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," or even in my personal childhood favorite "National Velvet," Taylor was one of the Hollywood greats. She'll most certainly be missed.

Of all her famous roles, though, the one that holds the most special place in my heart is when she starred opposite her then-husband Richard Burton in 1967's "The Taming of the Shrew." It captured everything we've come to know and love about Taylor, and is still just as much fun to watch.

The Passion

If you thought Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart had good chemistry, just wait until you see Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Shakespeare's two main characters, Kate and Petruchio, are supposed to butt heads as it is in this play, but...

Elizabeth Taylor, one of the last great screen legends and winner of two Academy Awards, died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles of complications from congestive heart failure; she was 79. The actress had been hospitalized for the past few weeks, celebrating her birthday on February 27th (the same day as this year's Academy Awards) while at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with friends and family. Her four children, two sons and two daughters, were by her side as she passed.

A striking brunette beauty with violet eyes who embodied both innocence and seductiveness, and was known for her flamboyant private life and numerous marriages as well as her acting career, Taylor was the epitome of Hollywood glamour, and was one of the last legendary stars who could still command headlines and standing ovations in her later years. Born to American parents in England in 1932, Taylor's family decamped to Los Angeles as World War II escalated in the late 1930s. Even as a child, her amazing good looks -- her eyes were amplified by a double set of eyelashes, a mutation she was born with -- garnered the attention of family friends in Hollywood, and she undertook a screen test at 10 years old with Universal Studios. She appeared in only one film for the studio (There's One Born Every Minute) before they dropped her; Taylor was quickly picked up by MGM, the studio that would make her a young star.

Her second film was Lassie Come Home (1943), co-starring Roddy McDowall, who would become a lifelong friend. She assayed a few other roles (including a noteworthy cameo in 1943's Jane Eyre) but campaigned for the part that would make her a bona fide child star: the young Velvet Brown, who trained a champion racehorse to win the Grand National, in National Velvet. The box office smash launched Taylor's career, and MGM immediately put her to work in a number of juvenile roles, most notably in Life With Father (1947) and as Amy in 1949's Little Women. As she blossomed into a young woman, she began to outgrow the roles she was assigned, often playing women far older than her actual age. She scored another hit alongside Spencer Tracy as the young daughter preparing for marriage in Father of the Bride (1950), but her career officially entered adulthood with George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951), as a seductive rich girl who bedazzles Montgomery Clift to the degree that he kills his pregnant girlfriend (Shelley Winters). The film was hailed as an instant classic, and Taylor's performance, still considered one of her best, launched the next part of her career.

Frustrated by MGM's insistence at putting her in period pieces (some were hits notwithstanding, including 1952's Ivanhoe), Taylor looked to expand her career, and took on the lead role in Elephant Walk (1954) when Vivian Leigh dropped out after suffering a nervous breakdown. As her career climbed in the 1950s, so did Taylor's celebrity: she married hotel heir Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr. in 1950, and divorced him within a year. She then married British actor Michael Wilding in 1952, with whom she had two sons, though that marriage ended in divorce in 1957, after she embarked on an affair with the man who would be her next husband, producer Michael Todd (who won an Oscar for Around the World in 80 Days). As her personal life made headlines, she appeared alongside James Dean and Rock Hudson in Giant (1956), and received her first Academy Award nomination for Raintree County in 1957. Roles in two Tennessee Williams adaptations followed -- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly Last Summer (1959), both considered two of her best performances -- earning her two more Oscar nominations, just as tragedy and notoriety would strike her life.

Todd, whom she married in 1957 and had a daughter with, died in a plane crash in 1958 in New Mexico, leaving a bereft Taylor alone at the height of her stardom. Adored by millions, she went from lovely widow to heartless home-wrecker in the tabloids after starting an affair with Eddie Fisher, Todd's best friend and at the time husband of screen darling Debbie Reynolds. The relationship was splashed across newspapers as Fisher left Reynolds and their two children (including a young Carrie Fisher) for Taylor. The two appeared together in 1960's Butterfield 8, where Taylor played prostitute Gloria Wandrous in a performance that was considered good but nowhere near her previous films, and earned her another Oscar nomination. As the Academy Awards ceremony approached, Taylor was thrust into the headlines again when a life-threatening case of pneumonia required an emergency tracheotomy, leaving her with a legendary scar on her neck. Popular opinion swung yet again as newspapers and fans feared for her life, and the illness was credited with helping her win her first Oscar for Butterfield 8.

Taylor was now the biggest female star in the world, in terms of film and popularity, and her notoriety was only about to increase. Twentieth Century Fox, making a small biopic about the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, tried to offer Taylor the part; she laughed them off, saying she would do it for $1 million, a then-unheard of sum for an actress. The studio took her seriously, and soon she was signed to a million-dollar contract (the first for an actress) and a movie that would soon balloon out of control as filming started. Initially set to film in England with Peter Finch and Rex Harrison as Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, the movie encountered numerous problems and after a first shutdown was moved to Italy, with director Joseph L. Manckiewicz at the helm. Finch left and was replaced by acclaimed stage actor and rising movie star Richard Burton.

The rest was cinematic and tabloid history, as Taylor and Burton, whose electric chemistry was apparent to all on set, embarked on quite possibly the most famous Hollywood affair ever, while the filming of the epic movie took on gargantuan proportions and its budget increased exponentially. After the dust settled, Fox was saddled with a three-hour-plus film that, despite starring the two actors whose every move was hounded by photographers and reporters, was considered a bomb. The 1963 film almost sunk the studio (which only rebounded thanks to the megahit The Sound of Music two years later), while Burton and Taylor emerged from the wreckage relatively unscathed and ultimately married in 1964.

However, despite carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, the newly married couple made two marginally successful films, The V.I.P.s (1963) and The Sandpiper (1965), both glossy soap operas that made money but hardly challenged their talents. That opportunity would come with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), the adaptation of the Edward Albee play directed by first-time filmmaker Mike Nichols. As the beleaguered professor George and his shrewish wife Martha, whose mind games played havoc one fateful night with a younger faculty couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis), the two gave perhaps their best screen performances ever, tearing into the roles -- and each other -- with a gusto never seen in their previous pairings. They both received Oscar nominations, but only Taylor won, her second and final Academy Award.

A successful adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew (1967) followed, but the couple's next films were a string of notorious bombs, including Doctor Faustus, The Comedians, and the so-bad-it's-good Boom. Though still one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Taylor's cinematic output in the 1970s became somewhat dismal, as her fraying marriage with Burton took center stage in the press, as did her weight gain after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The couple divorced in June 1974, only to remarry briefly in October 1975; by then, Taylor was more celebrity than movie star, still appearing occasionally onscreen and in television, but to less acclaim.

Taylor married U.S. Senator John Warner at the end of 1976, and during the late 1970s and 1980s played the politician's wife, and her unsatisfying life led her to depression, drinking, overeating and ultimately a visit to the Betty Ford Center. After TV and stage appearances during the 1980s (including a reunion in 1983 with Burton for a production of Private Lives), Taylor found another, surprising role, that of social activist as longtime friend Rock Hudson died of complications from AIDS in 1985. She threw herself into fund-raising work, raising by some accounts $50 million to fight the disease, helping found the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR).

Though later generations only saw Taylor on television in films like Malice in Wonderland, and the mini-series North and South, and in her final screen appearance as the mother of Wilma in the live-action movie adaptation of The Flintstones, she remained a tabloid fixture through her marriage to construction worker Larry Fortensky (her eighth and final husband), her friendship with singer Michael Jackson, and her continual charity work, which was only sidelined by hospital visits after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2004. She is survived by four children -- two sons with Michael Wilding, a daughter with Michael Todd, and another daughter adopted with Richard Burton -- and nine grandchildren.

--Mark Englehart...

Veteran actress Eva Marie Saint is grateful she was never as well known as her North By Northwest co-star Cary Grant, insisting she "couldn't have coped" with his level of fame.

Saint struggled to comprehend the attention Grant attracted when the pair went to see a show during a break in filming their 1959 Alfred Hitchcock thriller.

And the Oscar winner admits the outing made her feel fortunate to be able to live a normal life.

She tells Vanity Fair magazine, "A buzz went up in the audience the moment he (Grant) was recognised. It was like a wave of adulation rolling round the theater. I found it overwhelming and a little scary. I was thrown by it. And I asked him, 'How do you handle this, because I know I couldn't?' It was almost as if he were talking about someone else when he said, 'They'll tell their friends tomorrow that they saw Cary Grant. It makes them happy!'

"I know I couldn't have coped with that kind of fame. And I've never had it - thank the Lord! People recognise me, but I wanted a normal life. I remember when I was with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on The Sandpiper - they were so famous they couldn't go anywhere."...

This week’s Wamg Top 10 is having a look at all the on and off-screen couples of Hollywood. The Drew Barrymore/Justin Long romantic-comedy, Going The Distance, comes out next Friday on September 3rd, so we thought we’d give it a go with our list of favorite “Work and Play Couples.” Let us know what you think and who you would put on the list in the comments section below.

Honorable Mention: Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz

Lucille Ball was a rising star under contract to Rko Studios when she was cast as the female lead in the film version of the Broadway smash Too Many Girls. Prior to the start of filming she was introduced to the young Cuban singer who had taken New York City by storm, Desi Arnaz. Stories from several sources in that Rko office said that sparks flew when they locked eyes on each other.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor had an emotional evening at Buckingham Palace Thursday at a gala to mark the 60th anniversary of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

It was announced at the gala that a bronze bust of her great love, Richard Burton, will be donated to the college in Cardiff, while its new theatre will be named after him.

Dame Elizabeth, 78, presented the bust to the Prince of Wales and said: “Richard would have been so deeply touched by this great honor, as am I. It’s wonderful to be here and join in this celebration, along with many others who remember and respect Richard with so much love in their hearts.”

When the Prince asked her whether she thought it was a good likeness of Burton, she burst into tears and finally replied: “Marvellous.”

Burton, who died in 1984, was Miss Taylor’s fifth and sixth husband. They...