Elizabeth Taylor is Dead at 79

After a lengthy battle with congestive heart failure, Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylorhas passed away at the age of 79.

The actress had been hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for treatment since February.  Taylor has been plagued with medical conditions since birth, also including scoliosis, a benign brain tumor, skin cancer, and two bouts with debilitating pneumonia.  She was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2004, a condition in which the heart becomes too weak to pumpblood to the extremities.

One of the last remaining stars of Old Hollywood glamour, Taylor is perhaps known for her personal life as much as her long, storied career.  An actress since the age of nine, Taylor would eventually appear in over 50 films, including classicsCat on a Hot Tin Roof,Giant, and the famously expensive epic Cleopatra, which made her the first actress to earn seven figures for a role. She won two Academy Awards for“Best Actress,” playing the leads in 1960’s Butterfield 8and 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Taylor was married eight times, including a brief liaison with hotel heir Nicky Hilton, a Virginia senator, and twice in a tumultuous on-and-off relationship with herCleopatraco-star, Richard Burton.

As her acting career waned, Taylor became a vocal advocate for AIDs research after the death of her long-time friend andGiantco-star, Rock Hudson.  She helped establish The American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) in 1985, an organization dedicated to research, treatment, and advocacy for AIDs and HIV patients.  Taylor later founded her own organization, the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF).

Elizabeth Taylor is survived by her four children, 10 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

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