Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor died on Wednesday after a long battle against heart problems.
The 79-year-old star of movies such as Cleopatra and Little Women had long-standing links with Oxford. The University owned Burton Taylor studio was names after Taylor and her fifth husband, Richard Burton.
Taylor had a starring role in a 1966 performance of Dr Faustus at the Oxford Playhouse alongside Burton. Retired Oxford theatre critic Don Chapman saw the famous couple perform Dr Faustus and said, \”She was a megastar in the truest sense of the word. She was stunningly beautiful and emerged on to the stage through a trapdoor, and later ‘floated\’ across the stage on dry ice. It was a wonderful evening.\”
Burton studied at Exeter College where he received his first standing ovation. Thirty years later the Oscar-winning Welsh actor became an honorary fellow of St Peter\’s College and donated money towards the creation of the Burton Rooms which later became the Burton-Taylor studio.
University College English student, Juliet Roe, who has performed at the Burton-Taylor Studio, said, \”The BT studio is amazing for its balance of intimacy, great for powerful performance and petrified first-time actors alike, as well as the grandeur which Taylor\’s name affords it.\”
Taylor and Burton divorced in 1976 and Burton died in 1984. Taylor went on to appear and star in many more movies, remarry twice and pave the way in raising awareness and money for HIV and AIDS-related charities.
In 1992 she was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her charity work and a year later she set up the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
Another Oxford alumnus, former President Bill Clinton, said on her death, \”Elizabeth\’s legacy will live on in many people around the world whose lives will be longer and better because of her work and the ongoing efforts of those she inspired.\”
In the later years of her life Taylor struggled to fight drug abuse problems and had multiple health issues including a benign brain tumor and a double hip replacement. She died in the early hours of Wednesday morning at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles from what doctors have termed ‘congestive heart failure\’.
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