Elizabeth Taylor was once a Hollywood icon and movie actress noted for her unique beauty and portrayal of strong-willed characters. She started her career as a child star in the early 1940s before making her way into stardom the following decade.
Apart from her acting prowess, Taylor had many shocking revelations in life that fed the tabloids. She had seven husbands, was a Judaism convert, and even contracted a serious illness.
Elizabeth Taylor’s Dramatic Hollywood Transformation
One of the many things people noticed about Elizabeth Taylor was her appearance and personality. She was different from the rest of her co-child stars, and in her 1987 interview with Rolling Stone, the British-American star shared:
“When I was a child in England they always used to say to my mother — and it used to bother me — that I was an ‘old soul.’ I had no idea what that meant, but apparently, I used to frighten grown-ups, because I was totally direct.”
As someone who wanted to make a successful career, Taylor agreed to MGM changing her entire look. She transformed into a new star, almost unrecognizable from her original self. She revealed in the same interview:
“I had black hair — it was photographed blue-black it was so dark — and thick bushy eyebrows. And my mother and father had to stop them from dying my hair and plucking out my eyebrows. The studio even wanted to change my name to Virginia.”
The studio wanted her to have a Joan Crawford-like mouth the first time she wore lipstick. The actress, who was only 15 at the time, did not realize the absurdity of what she had gotten herself into. In the end, she came to her senses and realized:
“God must have had some reason for giving me bushy eyebrows and black hair. I guess I must have been pretty sure of my sense of identity. It was me. I accepted it all my life, and I can’t explain it.”
Taylor’s childhood ended after she rose to fame and became one of MGM’s biggest Hollywood actresses. She would follow a strict schedule of attending classes and filming at the studio, and in the evening, she would have her singing and dancing lessons.
Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra Earned Her A Million Dollar Salary
Throughout Elizabeth Taylor’s illustrious career, she became the first actress to be paid $1 million for her role in 1963’s Cleopatra. Fox also gave her 10% of the gross income.
In an interview with People, Taylor’s good friend Burt Reynolds revealed he helped her seal the million-dollar deal. The actress initially did not want to star in the movie, but he suggested:
“I said, ‘Well, then, ask for a million dollars.’ Now, nobody, nobody had asked for a million dollars, and she did. I went in the other room, and I heard this scream, and I came back, and I said, ‘Are you all right?’ She said, ‘I got it. They’re going to give it to me.’ ”
The actress struggled a lot with illness. The last two decades of her life saw her fight pneumonia, brain tumor, and skin cancer. She passed away at age 79 in 2011.
