DAME Elizabeth Taylor, renowned as one of the world’s most glamorous stars, has died at the age of 79, according to reports.
Screen icon and Hollywood great Elizabeth Taylor, who lived her entire life in the spotlight, has suffered from ill health for many years and last month was treated for heart problems.
The star was renowned not only for her performances in movies such as Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but her personal life.
She was married eight times and had a lengthy battle with substance abuse,
Her death was reported by US broadcasters today.
The Oscar-winning star died this morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from congestive heart failure, according to her spokeswoman Sally Morrison.
She said the actress’s children were at her side.
Dame Elizabeth had been taken to the hospital with congestive heart failure six weeks ago.
A spokeswoman for the hospital said: "She passed away at 1.28 (LA time) this morning."
She found fame as a child but went on to appear in more than 50 films.
Despite numerous health scares over a number of years the actress, notably married to Richard Burton on two occasions, continually fought back.
Dame Elizabeth was also noted for a lengthy and close friendship with the singer Michael Jackson who died in June 2009. He accompanied to a gala tribute evening at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2000.
Although her film work was long behind her she continued to remain in the public eye for her charitable work. She was a spokeswoman for humanitarian causes, most notably Aids research.
The British-born star moved to the US with her American parents when the Second World War broke out.
She first found major movie fame with Lassie Come Home in 1943 and by the next year she had appeared in one of her most famous roles, as Velvet Brown in National Velvet.
Dame Elizabeth later became the first to receive one million dollars for a film role.
Her regular battles with ill health flared up in the early 1960s with her first near-fatal battle with pneumonia. Another followed in 1990, while a respiratory infection left her depleted in 1992.
Both hips were replaced within three years and she had a brain tumour removed in 1997.
Her congestive heart failure was diagnosed in 2004 and she revealed she needed surgery on Twitter in 2009.
For many years her public appearances have seen her using a wheelchair.
Among those paying tribute today were film critic Barry Norman who said he had known her "very well" during her relationship with Richard Burton.
He said: "They were at that time perhaps the two most famous people in the world but she was an extremely nice woman and wore her great fame very lightly. She certainly did not swagger about.
"She was actually not at all a bad actress. In films like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? she was extremely good.
"She won an Oscar for Butterfield 8 which actually wasn’t one of her best roles but she had been extremely ill beforehand so it was perhaps a sympathy vote."
