Liz Taylor started her acting career at 10 years old in the film “There’s One Born Every Minute”. As a young girl she acted in a series of films, most notably with Mickey Rooney in “National Velvet”.

At 28 years old, she starred opposite Spencer Tracey in the screwball comedy “Father of the Bride”. She followed that up a year later with “Father’s Little Dividend” or a 1951 equivalent of “Father of the Bride 2” also starring Spencer Tracey.

Her first “serious” acting role came in the George Steven’s film “A Place in the Sun”. In this film she starred opposite Montgomery Clift. The film was nominated and won numerous Oscars. The movie missed out on the Best Picture award that year to “An American in Paris” and Clift lost the Best Actor Oscar to Humphrey Bogart for his role in “The African Queen”.

Her next really big role came once again in another George Steven’s 1957 classic “Giant”. Here she starred opposite Rock Hudson and James Dean (in his last film). The movie won another Best Director award for Stevens. It was also nominated for Academy Awards for slew of other categories, none of which won. Taylor was the only principle actor not nominated for her performance in that film.

Her first nomination for Best Actress came in the movie “Raintree County”. This time she was to lose to Joanne Woodward for her performance in “The Three Faces of Eve”.

The next film she starred in, the screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams stage play “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof”. She was to lose her second Oscar nomination for Best Actress to Susan Hayward for her performance in “I Want to Live!”.

Taylor won her first Best Actress award for her performance as the aptly named “Gloria Wanderous” in the film “Butterfield 8”. The film had a great tagline that says it all: “A Manhattan Beauty who’s part Model, part Call-Girl and ALL Mantrap!”

She reached the pinnacle of her acting career in the next movie “Cleopatra”. At the time the press was consumed by how much this film was costing to be made. The noise around the films budget overshadowed everything else about the film. One can only imagine that this was a precursor to what went on to happen during the filming of “Heaven’s Gate”, “Waterworld” and “Titanic” to name a few.

Elizabeth Taylor was paid $1 million, the highest salary to ever be paid to an actress in the history of film at that time. Her overall take from the film including percentages was $7 million or in today’s dollars the equivalent of almost $30 million.

The film’s final cost of $44 Million in 1963 (adjusted for inflation) in 2007 dollars makes the film costs close to $300 million or one of the most expensive movies ever made. The budget for Liz Taylor’s costumes was the highest ever for a single actor. The costumes cost $198,400 for 68 different outfits including one that was made from 24K gold.

Money aside, during the filming of Cleopatra, Liz Taylor met Richard Burton. They had a torrid on-set affair (despite both being married) The Vatican even piped-up and called the affair “erotic vagrancy”.

The affair ultimately led to the two getting married. They made 11 movies together. Their relationship was infamously torrential; they both had booze and spending money issues. It is rumored that during their time together they tore through $30 Million. Even by today’s standards that is a shit-load of money. Back then it was all universe!

Taylor won her second and last Best Actress award for her screen performance in an adaptation of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”. Many argued it was “Art Imitating Life” as Burton and Taylor played an unhappy, hard-drinking, vicious couple who were constantly at odds with each other.

Taylor was married eight times including getting married twice to Richard Burton. The second time around, that marriage lasted less than a year.