Elizabeth Taylor, who died today at the age of 79, left the acting scene quite some time ago. Her final screen performance was in 2001, when she acted as a guest voice on the NBC sitcom ?God, the Devil and Bob.? Her final major motion picture role? That was back in 1994 when she played Pearl Slaghoople in ?The Flintstones.?
But over the course of her life, Taylor appeared in more than 50 films and many TV movies and shows. Here are video highlights from her career, beginning with the 1944 movie that launched her into the child star stratosphere: ?National Velvet.?
More Elizabeth Taylor video after the jump . . .
Here she is as the soon-to-be-wed Kay in 1950?s ?Father of the Bride,? her first big box office success in a more mature role:
In 1951?s ?A Place in the Sun,? opposite Montgomery Clift, Taylor began to win the favor of film critics.
Taylor forged a friendship with Rock Hudson, and co-starred with the great James Dean, in the epic ?Giant? (1956).
For four consecutive years, from 1958 to 1961, she received an Oscar nomination for best actress. The first came for ?Raintree Country,? and was followed by one for her work as Maggie the Cat in ?Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.?
Her third nomination, for ?Suddenly, Last Summer,? led to her fourth nod and her first win, for her turn as a promiscuous Manhattanite (opposite then-husband Eddie Fisher) in ?Butterfield 8.? (You can watch her accept her Oscar here.)
Not long after that win, she appeared opposite her soon-to-be fourth (and fifth) husband, Richard Burton, in the big-budget ?Cleopatra? (1963).
She appeared again with Burton in the dark ?Who?s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?? (1966), winning her second Academy Award.
Jump ahead a few years and get a peek at Taylor?s delicious wit (and Pierce Brosnan?s a-may-zing bouffant hairdo) in 1980?s Agatha Christie adaptation ?The Mirror Crack?d.?
Taylor camps it up ? opposite her onetime romantic rival, Debbie Reynolds, no less ? in the 2001 TV movie ?These Old Broads.?
We close with a clip of shoddy quality but great poignancy. It?s the moment when Maggie Simpson says her first word on ?The Simpsons,? a word spoken by . . . Elizabeth Taylor.
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Samaire Armstrong Christina Applegate Karen Carreno Jennifer Gareis Nadine Velazquez
