Elizabeth Taylor was a true screen legend. A movie star from the age of 12, she was known for her near-perfect, luminous beauty and lastingly radiant star quality, along with undeniable acting skills. She was also known for her love of large diamonds and full-on living, and for notching up seven husbands. In all respects, she exhibited a unique lust for life — for love, parties, laughter, food, sex, drugs, alcohol, and the wealth that makes them all the more possible. That passion led to her greatest triumphs and some dramatic crises. This book traces Elizabeth's life in all its intensity, through movies, marriages and charity work. Her greatest movie triumphs were those in which she has was able to give rein to her blend of kitten-like siren and wild force of nature — including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the latter with her longest-lasting and arguably most compatible husband, Richard Burton. Her private life was constantly subject to public scrutiny and spin, often sending shock waves across America, but she never lost public interest and in the end they always forgave her. For all the artifice of her life, there was a natural quality to her and, perhaps more than any other actress, the magic of her star has never faded.