23rd March, 2011
Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor has died aged 79 after suffering from heart problems and other health issues in recent years.
According to ABC/Reuters, the two-time Oscar winner died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles surrounded by her four children after being hospitalised six weeks ago with congestive heart failure, a statement from publicist Sally Morrison said.
“My mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love,” son Michael Wilding said in a statement.
“Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world.”
Taylor, an Oscar winner for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf in 1966 and Butterfield 8 in 1960, achieved stardom at the tender age of 12 in National Velvet.
As an adult, she became famous for her acting and her beauty as well as her eight marriages – twice to actor Richard Burton.
In 2004, it was announced she suffered congestive heart failure in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to organs.
She had to undergo heart surgery in 2009 to replace a leaky valve.
Taylor has been using a wheelchair for more than five years to cope with chronic pain after breaking her back four times, and she has had three hip replacement operations, a benign brain tumour, skin cancer and pneumonia.
She has not appeared on screen since the 2001 TV movie Old Broads.
