Elizabeth Taylor’s Husbands: A Look Back at Her Complicated Love Life Through the Years
In her own words, the legendary Elizabeth Taylor reflects on her life during the height of her fame in 1964. At the time, she recorded 40 hours of interviews that are now coming to light in the HBO documentary Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes.
In the audio, the Hollywood icon narrates her own story to journalist Richard Meryman and addresses her famous relationships. “I’ve been married too many times,” she says. “I made horrendous mistakes, and I have paid for them.”
Taylor was married eight times to seven different men over the course of her life. From her passionate and stormy relationship with Richard Burton to the loss of her third husband in a tragic accident, Taylor’s romantic life experienced so many highs and lows through the years.
Scroll down to look back at Taylor’s husbands in order from first to last.
Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes, Documentary Premiere, August 3, 8/7c, HBO and Max
1. Elizabeth Taylor and Conrad Hilton Jr.
Taylor was just 18 years old when she married 23-year-old Conrad Hilton Jr. on May 6, 1950.
“The honeymoon in Europe lasted two weeks,” Taylor wrote in her 1965 memoir. “I should say the marriage lasted for two weeks. Then came, yours sincerely, disillusionment – rude and brutal.”
They split just eight months later in January 1951.
2. Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Wilding
The actress married the British actor on February 21, 1952. He was 20 years her senior.
Taylor and Wilding had two sons together — Michael Jr. and Christopher. They divorced after five years of marriage.
3. Elizabeth Taylor and Mike Todd
Taylor’s third husband was movie producer Mike Todd, and the only one she didn’t divorce. They married on February 2, 1957. He was 25 years her senior. Their daughter, Liza, was born six months after they married.
Todd tragically died in a plane crash on March 22, 1958. His plane was named the “Lucky Liz.”
4. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher
As Taylor mourned the death of her third husband, she grieved with his close friend Eddie Fisher.
The singer was married to actress Debbie Reynolds, who served as matron of honor at Taylor’s wedding to Todd. Fisher left Reynolds and married Taylor on May 12, 1959.
When she began filming Cleopatra, Taylor began an affair with Richard Burton. The actress and Fisher divorced in March 1964.
5. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
After their passionate affair caused headlines around the world, the Cleopatra costars married on March 15, 1964, in Montreal.
Their marriage was tumultuous, and they became known as the Battling Burtons. After a decade of marriage, Burton and Taylor divorced in June 1974.
The couple famously reconciled and remarried on October 10, 1975. However, their second chance marriage lasted less than a year.
6. Elizabeth Taylor and John Warner
Shortly after her second divorce from Burton, Taylor got engaged to politician John Warner. They married in December 1976.
“He knows he wasn’t the love of my life. And I know I wasn’t the love of his life. But we loved each other,” Taylor told The New York Times in 2002. “We got along wonderfully until he decided to be a politician. And then he married the Senate.”
Their marriage wasn’t meant to be. Taylor and Warner divorced in 1982.
7. Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Fortensky
Taylor’s final marriage was to Fortensky, whom she met at the Betty Ford Clinic. Fortensky, who was 20 years Taylor’s junior, and the Hollywood icon married on October 6, 1991. They divorced in 1996, and Taylor never married again.
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