Rip Elizabeth Taylor - a life in pictures

National Velvet to a national treasure:

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 3:10 PM on 23rd March 2011

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Elizabeth Taylor made her big screen debut in National Velvet in 1944 and went on to appear in dozens of movies, including Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Antony & Cleopatra and Butterfield 8. But with public interest in her tempestuous personal life, she became one of the most photographed women of all time. Here, in no particular order, is a selection of her most iconic moments...

Come to bed eyes: Taylor smouldered on screen including in the 1958 classic Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Fashionable: Elizabeth Taylor visits famed dressmakers the Fontana Sisters on a visit to Rome in 1953 and tries on a cocktail frock in black and white silk and on a balcony in Stockholm

Bathing beauty: Elizabeth Taylor in a scene from the 1959 film Suddenly Last Summer

All grown up: Taylor in Butterfield 8 in 1961 - a performance which was a far cry from her big screen debut in National Velvet in 1944

Look of love: Elizabeth Taylor, pictured with her fifth husband, Richard Taylor, who also became her sixth

Fresh-faced beauty: Elizabeth Taylor as a 14-year-old in 1946 and in costume in the 1957 film Raintree County

Decadent: Elizabeth Taylor stars as the amoral wife Zee Blakeley in Zee and Co (1972)

Proud mother: Elizabeth Taylor with second husband Michael Wilding and baby Michael Jr in 1953

Passions fired: Elizabeth Taylor with fifth husband Richard Burton in Montreal

Fine figure: Elizabeth Taylor was never backward in realising her assets, from a majestic performance in Cleopatra to her swimsuit photoshoot of 1953

Latest heart-throb: Elizabeth Taylor leave Annabel's nightclub in Mayfair with George Hamilton

Husband No.8: Taylor with Larry Fortensky at an AIDS benefit in Mayfair soon after they married and in 1985

History in the making: Elizabeth Taylor with Zev Buffman, the producer of her 1981 debut Broadway show The Little Foxes

Leading men: Taylor with Richard Burton in The Taming Of The Shrew and Robert Taylor in Ivanhoe

Flowers in her hair Elizabeth Taylor sits on a sofa kissing Richard Burton, her fifth husband on their first wedding day and with seventh husband John Warner after her return to the stage in 1981

Always in love: Elizabeth Taylor and fourth husband Eddie Fisher arrive at the Dorchester Hotel in 1960 and with husband No.7 John Warner and an adoring crowd

Early years: Elizabeth Taylor stars as Priscilla with Frank Morgan in Lassie Come Home (1943)

Queen of showbiz: Elizabeth Taylor with Michael Jackson at Liza Minelli's wedding and with Harrison Ford

Blonde bombshell: Elizabeth Taylor on CNN's Larry King Live with her beloved dog in 2003

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