Death of the last diva

Elizabeth “Liz” Tailor died today, 23^rd March 2011, in Los Angeles because of heart failure, at the age of 79.

Hollywood’s last great diva, the one with “Violet eyes to die for”, had been hospitalised into Cesar-Sinai Medical Centre six weeks ago. Winner of two Academy Awards (for “BUtterfield 8” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”) and main character in more than fifty films, in the last years the actress had become an enthusiastic testimonial for philanthropic causes, in particular for Aids research. That is the reason why in 1993 she was given a special Academy Award.

In hospital she was assisted by her four children, born during her eight marriages. The actress’s agent declared that they all were at Cesar-Sinai Medical Centre: Michael and Christopher Wilding (Michael Wilding’s sons), Elizabeth Frances ‘Liza’ Todd (Michael odd’s daughter) and Maria Burton (adopted during her  marriage with Richard Burton).

Daughter of two Americans living in the United Kingdom, Elizabeth Taylor was born in Hampstead, near London, on 27^th February 1932. Her mother, Sara Viola Warmbrodt, was a former actress known under the pseudonym of Sara Sothern, who gave up the stage when she got married in 1926 in New York.

During the blockbuster “Cleopatra” – almost entirely shot in Rome – she met Richard Burton, the love of her life, with whom she got married and divorced twice. It was a love story that, at the time, was covered by every newspaper in the world and made of her a downright ‘femme fatale’.

One of the most famous doubles of Liz Taylor, actually the most famous in Italy, Marina Castelnuovo, lives right here in Varese.