Elizabeth Taylor, who died today at age 79, didn't dwell on death—as she used to say, she'd already been there, done that. "I'm a survivor," she once said, "a living example of what people can go through and survive." Was she ever.
Born Elizabeth Rosamond Taylor on Feb. 27, 1932, in London to American parents, the girl for whom the phrase "violet-eyed beauty" would become synonymous arrived in Hollywood in 1939 as her family fled war-torn Europe. A neighbor secured Taylor a screen test with Universal Pictures. She was put under contract, and at age 10, debuted in the 1942 comedy, There's One Born Every Minute.
If Taylor's screen presence was evident early on, Universal didn't see it—the studio cut her loose. And so it was MGM that would secure the services of the future icon.
Her first feature for Louis B. Mayer's star factory was the Technicolor canine classic, 1943's Lassie Come Home, costarring Roddy McDowall, a fellow child actor who became one of Taylor's fiercest real-life friends.
As quoted from E!Online.
