Marriages, relationships, and children
Throughout her career, Taylor's personal life was the subject of constant media attention. She was married eight times to seven men, had four children, converted to Judaism, and endured several serious illnesses. According to biographer Alexander Walker, "Whether she liked it or not ... marriage is the matrix of the myth that began surrounding Elizabeth Taylor from [when she was sixteen]." In 1948, MGM arranged for her to date American football champion Glenn Davis, and she announced plans to marry him once he returned from Korea. The following year, Taylor was briefly engaged to William Pawley Jr., son of US ambassador William D. Pawley. Film tycoon Howard Hughes also wanted to marry her and offered to pay her parents a six-figure sum if she agreed. Taylor declined but was eager to marry young, as her "rather puritanical upbringing and beliefs" made her believe that "love was synonymous with marriage." She later described herself as "emotionally immature" during this time, due to her sheltered childhood, and believed she could gain independence from her parents and MGM through marriage.
Taylor was 18 years old when she married Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr., heir to the Hilton Hotels chain, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills on May 6, 1950. MGM organized the large and expensive wedding, which became a major media event. In the weeks after the wedding, Taylor realized she had made a mistake; they had few interests in common, and Hilton was abusive and a heavy drinker. Taylor suffered a miscarriage during one of his violent outbursts. She announced their separation on December 14, 1950, and was granted a divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty on January 29, 1951, eight months after their wedding.
Taylor married her second husband, British actor Michael Wilding, in a low-key ceremony at Caxton Hall in London on February 21, 1952. She had first met him in 1948 while filming The Conspirator in England, and their relationship began when she returned to film Ivanhoe in 1951. Taylor found their age gap appealing. She wanted "the calm and quiet and security of friendship" from the relationship; he hoped the marriage would aid his career in Hollywood. They had two sons: Michael Howard (born January 6, 1953) and Christopher Edward (born February 27, 1955, Taylor's 23rd birthday). As Taylor grew older and more confident, she began to drift apart from Wilding, whose failing career also caused marital strife. When she was away filming Giant in 1955, gossip magazine Confidential caused a scandal by claiming he had entertained strippers at their home. Taylor and Wilding announced their separation on July 18, 1956, and divorced on January 26, 1957.
Taylor was three months pregnant when she married her third husband, theatre and film producer Mike Todd, in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, on February 2, 1957. They had one daughter, Elizabeth "Liza" Frances (born August 6, 1957). Todd, known for publicity stunts, encouraged media attention to their marriage; in June 1957, he threw a birthday party at Madison Square Garden attended by 18,000 guests and broadcast on CBS. His death in a plane crash on March 22, 1958, left Taylor devastated. She was comforted by Eddie Fisher, a friend of Todd's and hers, and soon began an affair with him. Fisher was still married to actress Debbie Reynolds, one of Taylor's closest friends. The affair resulted in a public scandal, with Taylor branded a "homewrecker." Taylor and Fisher were married at the Temple Beth Sholom in Las Vegas on May 12, 1959; she later stated she married him only due to her grief. Taylor and Reynolds reconciled in the 1960s.
While filming Cleopatra in Italy in 1962, Taylor began an affair with her co-star, Welsh actor Richard Burton, who was also married. Rumors circulated in the press and were confirmed by a paparazzi photograph of them on a yacht in Ischia. According to sociologist Ellis Cashmore, the publication of the photograph was a "turning point", beginning a new era in which celebrities struggled to keep their personal lives separate from their public images. The scandal led the Vatican to condemn Taylor and Burton for "erotic vagrancy", with calls in the US Congress to bar them from re-entering the country. Taylor was granted a divorce from Fisher on March 5, 1964, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, and married Burton ten days later in a private ceremony at the Ritz-Carlton Montreal. Burton subsequently adopted Liza Todd and Maria McKeown (born 1961), a German orphan whose adoption process Taylor had begun while married to Fisher.
Dubbed "Liz and Dick" by the media, Taylor and Burton starred together in eleven films and led a jet-set lifestyle, spending millions on "furs, diamonds, paintings, designer clothes, travel, food, liquor, a yacht, and a jet." Sociologist Karen Sternheimer states that they "became a cottage industry of speculation about their alleged life of excess. From reports of massive spending [...] affairs, and even an open marriage, the couple came to represent a new era of 'gotcha' celebrity coverage, where the more personal the story, the better." After divorcing for the first time in June 1974, they reconciled and remarried in Kasane, Botswana, on October 10, 1975. The second marriage lasted less than a year and ended in divorce in July 1976. Taylor and Burton's relationship was often referred to as the "marriage of the century" by the media, and she later stated, "After Richard, the men in my life were just there to hold the coat, to open the door. All the men after Richard were really just company." Soon after her final divorce from Burton, Taylor met her sixth husband, John Warner, a Republican politician from Virginia. They were married on December 4, 1976, after which Taylor focused on working for his electoral campaign. Once Warner had been elected to the Senate, she found life as a politician's wife in Washington, D.C., boring and lonely; she became depressed, gained weight, and became increasingly addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol. Taylor and Warner separated in December 1981 and divorced on November 5, 1982.
After the divorce from Warner, Taylor dated actors Anthony Geary and George Hamilton, and was engaged to Mexican lawyer Victor Luna in 1983–1984, and New York businessman Dennis Stein in 1985. She met her seventh and last husband, construction worker Larry Fortensky, at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. They were married at the Neverland Ranch of her close friend Michael Jackson on October 6, 1991. The wedding attracted intense media attention, with one photographer parachuting onto the ranch, and Taylor sold the wedding pictures to People for $1 million (equivalent to $2.36 million in 2025), which she used to start her AIDS foundation. Taylor and Fortensky divorced on October 31, 1996, but remained in contact for life. She attributed the split to her painful hip operations and his obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the winter of 1999, Fortensky underwent brain surgery after falling off a balcony and was comatose for six weeks; Taylor immediately notified the hospital she would personally guarantee his medical expenses. At the end of 2010, she wrote him a letter that read: "You're a part of my life that cannot be carved out nor do I ever wish it to be." Taylor's last phone call with Fortensky was on February 7, 2011, one day before she checked into the hospital for what became her final stay. He told her she would outlive him. Although they had been divorced for almost 15 years, Taylor left Fortensky $825,000 in her will.
In the last years of her life, she had a platonic friendship with actor Colin Farrell. On the phone, they often talked about insomnia and how to deal with it.
