White Diamonds.

On March 23, 2011, the world lost one of the last great legends from the Golden Era of Hollywood, Elizabeth Taylor. She passed away at the age of 79 and we will probably never see someone as irrevocably astonishing as her again.

She was known internationally for her beauty, earned two Academy Awards, had successful fragrances, was a strong advocate for AIDS research, and was married a total of eight times. Vanity Fair published a piece on her and Richard Burton in their July 2010 issue and I could NOT put it down! Their scandalous yet epic romance that began on the set of Cleopatra was one for the ages. He bought her many gifts but especially among those were the 33.19-carat Krupp diamond and the infamous 69.42-carat “Taylor-Burton diamond.” She lived a life far more dramatic and intense than any movie.

What follows is a small tribute of some of my favorite photos of her. It was extraordinarily hard to narrow down the photos as she looks damn lovely in ALL of them!!
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Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet, 1945.

Elizabeth Taylor with Montgomery Clift on the Paramount lot while filming A Place in the Sun, 1951.

Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer, 1959.

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“My mother says I didn’t open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did, the first thing I saw was an engagement ring. I was hooked.”
– Elizabeth Taylor

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Elizabeth with Rock Hudson on the set of Giant, 1955.

Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8 where she won her first Academy Award in 1961.

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“Richard came on the set and sort of sidled over to me and said: “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a very pretty girl?” ‘I thought, Oy gevalt, the great lover, the great wit, the great Welsh intellectual, and he comes out with a corny line like that! But then I noticed his hands were shaking as if he had Saturday night palsy. He had the worst hangover I’d ever seen. And he was obviously terrified of me. I just took pity on him. I realized he really was human. That was the beginning of our affair.”

– Elizabeth Taylor

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