(narrator) Elizabeth Taylor, the unofficial queen of Hollywood.

Two-times Oscar winner and star of over 40 films, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof... (Maggie) I don't mind making a fool of myself over you.

(narrator) ...and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

She was the first actress to bag a million dollars for one movie.

(guitar music) Her high-octane love life resulted in eight marriages... (Carrie) She liked her men larger than life and her jewels larger than 30 carats.

(narrator) ...marked by passion and excess.

(Bidisha) The pope denounced them as sexual vagrants.

(narrator) And her many addictions threatened to destroy her.

In this program, we reveal the toughness that helped her survive the Hollywood system, kick her bad habits, become a savvy businesswoman, and transform herself into an AIDS activist.

(Joseph) She would sit on patients' beds, treat them with respect and dignity, and they were floored.

(narrator) With incredible access, we learn what she was really like from her colleagues... (Margaret) She would take things in of what was happening.

It was like, "Oh, is that how that works?"

(narrator) ...her public relations director... (Joseph) And Princess Margaret looked at it and said, "It's perfectly vulgar."

(narrator) ...and even her stepson.

(Todd) She slaps him, and he slaps her back.

She slaps him back.

Carrie and I are like, "Whoa."

We've never seen anything like this.

(narrator) Beyond the booze, brawls, and baubles, this is the story of the survival and transformation of one of cinema's greatest stars: Elizabeth Taylor.

(dramatic music) ♪ (indistinct chatter) 2011.

Christie's, New York.

Cash or bidder.

(narrator) Under the hammer, a collection of clothing and gems fit for a queen, but no ordinary queen.

(man) The legendary jewels from the many collections of Elizabeth Taylor.

(Sally) It definitely was an auction of a lifetime, right?

It was super exciting, you know, every serious collector in New York City was there.

(Bidisha) Liz Taylor's jewels say absolutely everything you need to know about her.

They're big, they're shiny, they're expensive, they're strong, they last forever.

I mean, that's Liz Taylor in a nutshell.

(auctioneer) 60,000 now.

I have 65,000.

(narrator) It was estimated the auction would raise $50 million, but prices kept going up.

(auctioneer) I have $130,000.

(spirited music) (auctioneer) Sold for you, sir, $7,800,000.

-Thank you very much.

-The jewelry alone raises $137 million.

(applause) (soft music) The auction encapsulated Elizabeth Taylor's life: the glitz, the media spotlight, the extraordinary wealth, and with a chunk of the proceeds going to her AIDS charity, the philanthropy of her later years.

But how did an ordinary London girl end up reigning in Hollywood and as rich as a royal?

Let's go back to the beginning.

♪ (uplifting music) (engine puttering) ♪ She was born in London on February the 27th, 1932, to a life of privilege.

♪ (Lucy) Elizabeth grew up in the kind of house that had staff.

There were cooks and nursemaids and nannies and beautiful clothes.

(narrator) Her parents were Americans who moved in high society.

Her father, Francis, an art dealer in exclusive Bond Street.

Her mother, Sara, a frustrated stage actress who enrolled Liz in singing and dancing lessons at the age of two.

(Helen) So, her mother, Sara, was extremely controlling, some have said "manipulative," but incredibly charming, charismatic, and powerful, I think, as a personality.

You know, she sort of swept everyone before her.

(narrator) One of Liz's earliest memories was of dancing for a very select audience.

(Professor Cashmore) She can recall at the age of three appearing ballet dancing on stage in front of the royal family and basking in the applause and the great reception she got.

(narrator) While on the surface her parents' marriage looked idyllic, all was not as it seemed.

(Helen) Francis Taylor may have been gay and may have had affairs with other men.

There are rumors about Sara and her relationships with certain men in their lives.

I think, certainly, Elizabeth had this very odd notion of marriage from her own parents' relationship.

(moody music) (upbeat jazz music) (narrator) This unorthodox setup continued when, with the onset of the Second World War, the Taylors returned to the States and set up home in Los Angeles, a stone's throw from the film studios of Hollywood.

(Professor Cashmore) Elizabeth's mother was a canny operator, and when she got to the United States, she realized that the growth industry was Hollywood.

(announcer) From the most powerful medium of expression the world has ever known, an art form as great as any in man's history.

(narrator) Liz's mother, Sara, was convinced her daughter's striking looks would be enough to win over studio bosses.

Now in her nineties, Margaret Kerry worked with Elizabeth as a child actor.

(Margaret) I was the live-action model for Tinker Bell.

(narrator) She remembers the impact of her looks.

(Margaret) The first thing that you saw were these magnificent eyes.

And when she looked at you, it was like she was looking at you.

There was no question about it.

And she was absolutely gorgeous.

She's in the room, she's the one that you looked at.

If you get up in the morning and you look in the mirror and you see Elizabeth Taylor's face looking back at you, confidence is built into the kind of beauty that she had by nature.

(narrator) Through connections from Francis's gallery, Sara managed to get Liz seen by the right people in Hollywood and she was soon signed by Universal.

Nine-year-old Liz's debut came in 1941 in the comedy There's One Born Every Minute.

(Lucy) Elizabeth gets the chance to sing and show some kind of, sort of, bratty behavior by being a little know-it-all.

She looks angelic, but even then, you can see that there's this quite confident, cocky side to her.

(narrator) It had all been so easy up to this point, but Elizabeth was about to learn how brutal the film business could be.

(Ali) While she had some energy and some vigor, it wasn't enough to make sure that she survived the ignominy of a box-office bomb.

(narrator) Universal ditched her.

It looked like Elizabeth Taylor's film career was over before it had even begun.

(soft violin music) Working hard to get back into the movie business, she would soon discover the harsh reality of the studio system... (Helen) They would change your appearance, try to control marriages.

They would try to stage-manage every single aspect of a star's life.

(narrator) ...and how fairy-tale marriages don't always work out.

(Bidisha) Hilton treated her like absolute garbage.

He gambled, he drank, he beat her.

(horn music) ♪ (narrator) At the age of nine, Elizabeth Taylor had experienced the first setback of her career when she was dropped by Universal after just one film.

♪ But even at that tender age, she was resilient.

And when MGM needed a replacement co-star for Lassie Come Home, she seized her chance to get back into the movies.

(Lucy) They wanted a child who could speak in an English accent, so she just chatted to the dog and was chosen for the part.

(soft music) It's a very odd feeling.

Oh my gosh.

(fanfare music) (narrator) This performance impressed MGM so much, they signed Elizabeth up to a seven-year contract at a hundred dollars a week, the equivalent of 1,100 pounds in today's money.

The prize would prove to be both a blessing and a curse.

(dramatic music) (Helen) Once you signed a studio contract, you would have to give the studio control over essentially every aspect of your life.

They would change your appearance.

And as their stars grow older, they would try to control pregnancies, marriages.

They would try to stage-manage every single aspect of a star's life.

(narrator) Margaret Kerry was Elizabeth's body double at MGM and remembers the strict environment.

(Margaret) What they wanted for you to do is do the part as a child and, then, act as an adult and never do anything wrong, never run around.

We were so well-disciplined that it was frightening.

(Helen) Her education was not a priority.

She was still counting on her fingers at the age of 17.

She always had that sense of intellectual inferiority that came with not having had the chance to have a proper education at a very young age.

(narrator) But the reward of all that sacrifice would be movie stardom.

♪ (announcer) MGM's Children's Matinee presents National Velvet.

(narrator) In her breakout role as Velvet Brown in National Velvet, she lit up the screen playing a feisty girl overturning gender stereotypes.

This young horsewoman is excluded from the Grand National, and she challenges this exclusion by posing as a boy.

This was a role that Elizabeth really wanted to play, and Elizabeth and her mother really pulled out all the stops.

(Bidisha) The studio thought that she was too fragile, she was too small-looking.

(narrator) In an early sign of the determination she'd show throughout her life, for three months she exercised twice a day and stuffed herself with hamburgers to bulk up.

(Lucy) When she went back, she said, "There you are, you see?

I've grown, I've developed, I'm stronger, I'm tougher, I'm taller.

I am right for this role."

And she won it.

(narrator) Elizabeth was thrilled at her success... (Margaret) At that point when I knew her, she was certainly not the prima donna.

Just the opposite.

She was busy learning.

You could watch.

She would take things in of what was happening.

(narrator) ...and threw herself into the role.

To the extent that she actually had a horse-riding accident, she fell off the horse.

She must have been in pain, but she got back on the horse, carried on riding.

She was absolutely determined to finish the shoot.

(Neil) There's an indication of, even at that early age, of this very strong willpower and sense of strength of personality.

(narrator) Traits she'd need to survive in the unforgiving world of Hollywood... ...and traits shared by her character, Velvet Brown, who ends up winning the Grand National.

(Ali) National Velvet was a box-office smash.

It won them two Oscars and it was a great success.

It also transformed Elizabeth Taylor into an MGM star.

(melancholy music) (narrator) But hitting her teens, young Liz woke up to the reality of being owned by the studio.

♪ (Lucy) She was schooled by MGM.

She was styled by them.

They wanted to change her eyebrow shape, her nose shape even as a young teenager.

Photo shoots were set up, organized for her by the studio at home or with pets or with other teenagers to try and make it look like she was having a relatively normal teenage life, but she wasn't.

She didn't know about dating.

The only boys that you saw her with in the magazines were somebody who had a contract at MGM and they wanted to build him up and her up at the same time.

It was so unreal.

(projector clicking) (soft music) (narrator) Desperate for freedom, at just 17, she got engaged to the wayward son of a hotel magnate.

♪ (Professor Cashmore) Conrad Hilton seemed very marriageable.

He was the heir to the Hilton empire, stupendously affluent, and she was a young starlet.

So, it seemed a marriage made in heaven as far as the studio was concerned.

(narrator) And perfect timing for the studio's PR machine as Elizabeth had just finished filming Father of the Bride in which she plays a young woman getting married.

(Katherine) It's my wedding and my friends!

(indistinct chatter) (Katherine) No one has to do anything.

When the time comes, I'll do everything, -I mean everything.

-Unlike the feisty independence shown by this fictional bride, ironically, every aspect of her real-life marriage would be stage-managed by the studio.

(Bidisha) They used the real marriage as promo for this film that they wanted to sell.

They organized the costumes, the catering, the photographs.

(spirited music) (narrator) Even the bridesmaids were MGM extras.

(dark music) Elizabeth married Conrad Nicky Hilton in 1950, but unlike the movie, their romance would have a far from fairy-tale ending.

(Bidisha) They went on a fabulous cruise on the Queen Mary to the South of France as their honeymoon, and Hilton treated her like absolute garbage.

He gambled, he drank, he beat her.

♪ (J. Randy) Elizabeth said that in her marriage to Nicky, he caused her to have a miscarriage after beating her, um, which was terrible.

(narrator) The violence only made Liz more resilient and determined.

And after just seven months, she'd had enough and filed for a divorce.

(Lucy) The first real striking out on her own that Elizabeth did was to end that first marriage.

(upbeat music) (narrator) Now Liz decided it was time for an adult relationship forged not by the studio or her parents but by herself.

Still only 19, she was filming in Britain when she became involved with Michael Wilding.

He was separated and 20 years her senior, but he was her choice.

(M.G.)

I think Michael Wilding, in large part, a, um, almost a rebound from the horror of severe-- of a severely abusive marriage to Nicky Hilton.

(narrator) Wilding's divorce came through at the end of the year.

(Helen) So, they went out to dinner to celebrate this, and he gave her a sort of promise ring.

Elizabeth took it and put it on her left hand, on her ring finger, and sort of said, "Well, you know, I think that-- let's not mess around.

I think that's where it belongs, Mr.

Shilly-Shally."

In 1951, women just did not propose to men.

It wasn't just unconventional.

It was unheard of.

It was one of the many, many rules that she broke over the next several decades.

(narrator) Elizabeth's disregard of convention would be a constant theme of her life.

(reporter) Everyone was determined to see, as well as to film and photograph, the bride and groom.

It was quite a struggle for all concerned.

(narrator) Two months later, the couple were married in London.

♪ (indistinct chatter) ♪ Elizabeth was soon pregnant with the first of two children she'd have with Wilding.

And with bills to pay, she reluctantly signed her life away to MGM for another seven years.

♪ She was about to become one of the world's biggest movie stars.

(Lucy) From the middle of the 1950s, she started to make more interesting films, perhaps notably Giant.

(Neil) Giant is a big film about America and in particular, about Texas.

Basically about a dynasty, a family.

(narrator) She was loaned to Warner Brothers for the 1956 film.

It was a role that pushed boundaries.

(Jett) I guess you're about the best-looking gal we've seen around here in a long time.

I think the prettiest that I think I've seen down here.

(Leslie) Why, thank you, Jett.

That's a very nice compliment.

And I'm going to tell my husband I've met with your approval.

(bluesy music) (Jett) Oh, well, now...

I wouldn't do that.

Well... No, I... (Professor Basinger) In a world that is super macho, she becomes a very strong woman who does not give up her ideas and who actually changes the culture and helps things get better.

(Jett) I'm a rich boy.

Me, I'm gonna have more money than you ever thought of having.

(Leslie) Why, that's wonderful, Jett.

(Jett) You sure do look pretty, Miss Leslie.

You always did look pretty.

Pert nigh good enough to eat.

(lively music) (man) Bick, wait a minute!

Wait a minute, Bick!

(indistinct chatter) ♪ (Jett chuckles) (Jett) Oh, you're testy, Bick.

♪ Testy as an old cook.

♪ (grunting) ♪ (Uncle Bawley) Bick, you should've shot that fella a long time ago.

Now he's too rich to kill.

(M.G.)

Directors saw in her an emblem of female strength.

She was a kind of protofeminist totem.

And even in her life, the way that she controlled her finances, supported her parents, um, she was formidable.

(narrator) During the making of Giant, she became firm friends with two actors who were hiding their sexuality: Rock Hudson and James Dean.

(M.G.)

Many of her most tender and most intimate relationships were not necessarily with her lovers or her husbands, but they were with her close gay male friends.

(violin music) (narrator) While Liz was forming strong friendships during this period, her second marriage had hit the rocks.

Michael Wilding had been almost a father figure to her for five years, but now she wanted excitement.

(Professor Cashmore) She craved some stability after the hectic, dysfunctional marriage she had with Conrad Hilton, but perhaps he was too stable for her.

(narrator) Which meant when a loud, brash film producer called Mike Todd decided she'd be his, she put up little resistance.

Everybody I've ever spoken to that knew him said he was just mesmerizing, like a real spellbinder.

I later learned how much Liz was enamored with him, literally obsessed with him.

(narrator) Liz had supported Wilding financially.

Now Todd showered her with gifts.

(Helen) That association between Elizabeth Taylor and diamonds really started with Mike Todd.

(Carrie) She liked her men larger than life and her jewels larger than 30 carats.

(narrator) Todd's forceful wooing worked.

♪ In 1957, in another show of strength rare for the times, Elizabeth divorced Wilding.

(lively music) Days later, dozens of guests converged on Acapulco, Mexico, to see her walk down the aisle for the third time.

(Helen) He gave her, I think, a 29.4-carat diamond engagement ring which she called the "ice rink" because it was so large and shiny.

(narrator) It would be Mike Todd who would shape Liz Taylor's taste for the rest of her life.

Jet set, extravagant, excessive, and dripping in jewels.

(Helen) He used to bring her presents every single week to mark the weekly anniversaries of them meeting.

On one spectacular occasion, a diamond and ruby set of earrings, necklace, and bracelet that he presented to her while she was swimming in the pool.

(narrator) Liz and Mike had a daughter, Liza.

It was one of the happiest times of her life.

It was also one of the most successful periods of her career.

(Carrie) She got even more assertive and ballsy, and she plays these roles like in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

(Neil) This is a really edgy play, actually.

It deals with the kind of issues that most of the time were kept under the carpet.

(Brick) But how in hell on earth do you imagine you're gonna have a child by a man who cannot stand you?

(Lucy) Elizabeth plays Maggie the Cat, the sexy, feisty, determined heroine at the heart of the film.

(Carrie) Paul Newman is the coded gay husband not interested in his wife or having sex.

But she's--she's pushing to have children so he can inherit the family money.

(announcer) Elizabeth Taylor is Maggie the Cat, a girl too hungry for love to care how she goes about getting it.

I don't mind making a fool of myself over you.

Well, I mind.

I feel embarrassed for you.

(narrator) Liz was at the pinnacle of success, both on-screen and off.

But in 1958, disaster struck.

(dramatic music) (reporter) Twisted wreckage in the Zuñi Mountains of New Mexico marks the site of the fatal crash.

(Neil) Halfway through filming Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elizabeth Taylor suffered a terrible tragedy.

Her husband was killed in a plane crash.

(narrator) His private plane had been named after Elizabeth.

♪ (moody music) ♪ (indistinct chatter) Liz traveled to the funeral in Chicago with Mike's best friend, Eddie Fisher, while his wife, the actress Debbie Reynolds, looked after Liz's children.

When Liz got home, she lost herself in drink and drugs.

(J. Randy) She was always a pretty heavy drinker and she, you know, she always took pills for one reason or another, but was really not, I don't think, an addict until the death of Mike Todd.

(narrator) Crutches that she would rely on more heavily as time went by.

(J. Randy) It's absolutely impossible to separate Elizabeth Taylor's behavior and her life decisions from her addictions because it's not overstating it to say that every decision that she ever made was informed by alcohol abuse or drug addiction.

(narrator) Searching for comfort, she also turns to Eddie as his son and Carrie Fisher's brother recalls.

(Todd) Liz was just beyond devastated, and as Carrie likes to say, my father, you know, immediately ran to Liz's side, gradually moving his way around to the front.

(jazz music) (narrator) At her wedding to Mike Todd, Fisher had been best man and Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth's matron of honor.

Now, Liz was spending more and more time with Debbie's husband.

(Professor Cashmore) The media began to think there may be something untoward about this, something that isn't altogether wholesome.

And they were right, of course.

(narrator) When the affair was discovered, Fisher left Debbie Reynolds for Liz.

(Bidisha) Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds were like America's sweetheart.

They were a lovely couple.

They were seen as nice, they were seen as stable.

And in the public's eyes, Liz Taylor was the bad woman, the homewrecker.

(Todd) I mean, this is the scandal of scandals.

(narrator) But Elizabeth learned that, unlike Eddie, she was bigger than any scandal.

Taylor's role as Maggie the Cat was yet another triumph for her.

She received her second Oscar nomination, and the film itself won six Oscar nominations.

(Kat) She was furious that she didn't actually manage to win, but she was still well on the way to becoming the serious heavyweight actress that she'd longed to be for years.

(narrator) It was the third highest-grossing film of 1958 despite or perhaps because of Liz's complicated personal life.

(Lucy) So, in fact, the scandal didn't cause any lasting damage to her career.

(narrator) By this point, Elizabeth had been contracted to MGM for almost 16 years and she was sick of the studio.

She knew she was being massively underpaid, and she wanted to choose her own roles.

(saxophone music) But MGM insisted on one last film, cashing in on her scandalous reputation by casting her as a woman of loose morals in Butterfield 8.

This blurring of fact and fiction worked to her advantage.

After being nominated four years in a row, Elizabeth finally won an Oscar for Best Actress.

(dramatic music) (rhythmic drum music) And on leaving MGM, Liz Taylor would soon become the first actress to be paid a million dollars.

(Kat) And I think by the end of the production, she'd managed to get about seven million out of them, which really isn't bad going at all.

(narrator) And she would begin the most volatile and destructive relationship of her life.

(Professor Schoenberger) They found every opportunity to make love in boats, in studios, wherever they could, and it was a very explosive, intense love affair.

(majestic music) ♪ (narrator) After nearly 16 years in the rigid studio system, Elizabeth Taylor began the 1960s finally free from the clutches of MGM.

(Helen) She was absolutely at the top of the A list.

She was in demand, and Elizabeth really took advantage of that in a way that very few stars could.

(narrator) She was being courted for the title role in Cleopatra, but she wasn't keen.

♪ Twentieth Century Fox was an ailing film studio and was really gambling with Cleopatra.

(narrator) So she bargained hard.

The producer, Walter Wanger, was determined to secure her.

(horn music) She demanded to be paid a million dollars, eight times what she'd been paid for her last film for MGM.

She also demanded $3,000 a week living expenses, plus food and lodging, and first-class flights for herself and her family, and extra payments if filming overran.

(spirited music) (Kat) I think by the end of the production, she'd managed to get about seven million out of them, which really isn't bad going at all.

(Lucy) This marked a change in the relationship between stars and the studios.

It set the benchmark for any performer to say to a studio, "No, no, no, I'm the star.

You follow my terms.

I don't follow your terms."

(narrator) The staggering cost meant Fox was risking everything on the film.

Cleopatra tells the story of the Egyptian queen who seduced two famous Roman generals.

It was to be a lavish spectacle.

(indistinct chatter) But when Liz developed pneumonia during filming, it looked like all that money would go to waste.

(Neil) There was a point at which she thought she might die.

She had to have an emergency tracheotomy.

(reporter) Liz Taylor, chosen to play Cleopatra, is seen here after her recovery from pneumonia in London.

(narrator) Filming on Cleopatra resumed, but her illness had caused a massive delay.

Costs went through the roof.

The budget swelled from five million to a staggering $44 million.

The movie that was supposed to save 20th Century Fox was in danger of sinking it.

(Professor Schoenberger) It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and more scenes.

The sets were extraordinary.

When they built the Roman Forum, it's actually three times bigger than the actual Roman Forum in Rome.

(Amber) She had 65 costume changes throughout the film, so just everything about this production was entirely excessive.

(fanfare music) ♪ (announcer) Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, siren of the Nile.

Her stunning beauty and notorious intrigue turned the tide of civilization.

(Mark Antony) ...that I shall ever want to hold or look upon or be or have is here now with you.

(Cleopatra) Remember, remember.

I don't want you to forget me.

-Please.

-Forget?

How?

I can never be more far away from you than this.

(soft violin music) (soft music) (narrator) And the queen had found her king.

Playing Mark Antony, the Welsh actor Richard Burton.

(Professor Schoenberger) When Elizabeth met Richard Burton, he was just coming off this incredibly successful run as King Arthur in Camelot on Broadway, and he was long married to his Welsh wife, Sybil Burton.

(narrator) Elizabeth was still married to Eddie Fisher, but never afraid of scandal, that didn't prevent rule-breaker Liz from acting on an immediate attraction to Burton.

♪ Cleopatra has been involved with Julius Caesar, but, then, with about as much resistance, instantly falls for his ally, Mark Antony.

(Lucy) And yet again, it's another instance of Elizabeth's on-screen life and off-screen life echoing each other and following the same path.

Cleopatra falls in love with Mark Antony as Elizabeth falls in love with Richard Burton.

(Todd) One time, Liz and I were talking, she was like, "You know, when I met Richard Burton, it was eye-opening.

And in the sense that I knew I didn't belong with your father at all and what a huge mistake that was."

(M.G.)

She had an appetite for men, for food, for alcohol, for drugs, for whatever.

She's not gonna follow conventional morality.

She's gonna live on her own terms.

She's basically gonna live like men have lived all of their lives.

♪ (narrator) The relationship was tempestuous and destructive from the start.

In Richard, she had finally met a man who could match her drinking.

(piano music) And despite the lavish spending, the epic was a critical and commercial flop, taking years to earn back its enormous cost, though Liz's Cleopatra became an icon.

(Carrie) It's invigorating to see her performance in this movie because she's totally in charge.

And the men are kind of weak next to her.

(narrator) Taylor and Burton were soon controversial queen and king of Hollywood.

They married in 1964 as soon as her divorce from Eddie came through.

She was a star, he was a well-known actor, but together, they were an altogether different entity, something that would absolutely command the attention of everybody in the world.

(narrator) Like those before him, Richard Burton lavished gems on her, too, including the giant Krupp Diamond and the Cartier, renamed the Taylor-Burton Diamond.

(shouting) Away from the glitz and glamour, the world's most famous romance had a dark, violent side.

(Professor Cashmore) They had a very tempestuous relationship.

We know that there were furious arguments that sometimes spilled out quite openly.

(narrator) Her stepson, Todd Fisher, saw that for himself at a party when just a child.

(Todd) She slaps him, and he slaps her back.

Carrie and I are like, "Whoa."

We've never seen anything like this.

And my mother quickly goes over there and ushers them upstairs into her bedroom.

Twenty minutes later, they come out, they're like redressing themselves.

You know, and at the time, we didn't understand what that meant, but, clearly, there had been some makeup sex, and they went right down to the party like nothing had happened.

(narrator) The violence was fueled by their mutual dependence on alcohol.

(Professor Schoenberger) She could drink just about anyone under the table, and she did.

(Professor Cashmore) He would start early in the day and drink all the way through to bedtime.

(funky music) (narrator) Alcohol and pills amplified real tensions in the marriage, not least Burton's professional jealousy.

(Professor Schoenberger) He wanted the kind of fame that Elizabeth Taylor had.

He wanted to be a movie star.

(narrator) At last, they found a script that matched their joint star power.

In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, yet again, Liz played a role that echoed her real life.

♪ (Neil) It's about this aging couple, um, George and Martha, who have a very, very volatile relationship, and they play games, very cruel and malicious games.

(narrator) Audiences were thrilled to think they were seeing the couple's real home life reflected on-screen.

The film was a hit.

Both were nominated for Oscars, and Elizabeth won for the second time.

(Bidisha) I think with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Elizabeth Taylor finally got respect.

She had everything else.

She had beauty, fame, money, power, scandal, beautiful objects.

And with that one film, they finally said, "Oh my God, she has real talent."

(Professor Schoenberger) I think that was an added pressure to their marriage, that no matter how great an actor he was, she was the one getting the accolades.

And I think he felt that that Oscar was by rights his, and it was just another strain on the marriage.

-Do you have a second?

-Can we ask you a few questions?

(male reporter) Just one second, sir.

(female reporter) Is it true that you are separated from Liz Taylor?

-Yes.

-Will you be getting a divorce?

(narrator) The last of the 11 films Elizabeth made with Richard was for television: Divorce His, Divorce Hers.

After ten years of marriage, life imitated art and it was over.

Liz Taylor and Richard Burton divorced in 1974... (somber music) ...but ever hopeful, remarried in 1975... ♪ (Elizabeth Taylor) Uh, we are together, and, uh, it seemed quite natural.

(narrator) ...only to divorce again a few months later.

(Professor Schoenberger) When she left that marriage, she went through a very rough patch.

Her problems with alcohol and eating too much were having a devastating effect on her.

(indistinct chatter) (rhythmic drum music) (narrator) At a low point now, Liz was about to embark on a new chapter, more remarkable than any before: getting clean... (Helen) For a star of her magnitude to come out essentially as an addict, as someone who needed help, -was a major, major moment.

-Miss Elizabeth Taylor.

(narrator) ...and completely reinventing herself as a philanthropist.

(Joseph) She would sit on patients' beds and read to them.

She would treat them with respect and dignity, and they were floored.

(bluesy music) (narrator) By the mid-'70s, a now heavy-drinking Liz Taylor had finally ended her tumultuous relationship with Richard Burton and divorced him, twice.

But, now, she was stuck in a rut.

(Professor Schoenberger) She was suffering from that syndrome of actresses after 40.

There weren't as many roles for her.

And she didn't like being alone and single.

(dramatic music) (narrator) In 1976, she married John Warner, a Republican politician.

(cheering) ♪ (Professor Schoenberger) It was not a good relationship even though it lasted six years.

She was stuck in this farm estate in Virginia, bored out of her mind.

(narrator) And as her boredom increased, her lifestyle worsened.

(M.G.)

What she mostly did was eat.

She mostly had a lot of, you know, bourbon and fried chicken.

(Professor Schoenberger) John Warner used to call her "my little heifer," which tells you something about that marriage.

♪ (narrator) And it was not just overeating that was the problem.

(Helen) She was using pain pills all day.

She was then taking sleeping pills to sleep at night.

She was, of course, drinking heavily in between.

She became, you know, dependent on chemical substances to keep her going to an extent that really did threaten her life and, certainly, her health as time went on.

(narrator) In 1982, she divorced Warner.

Liz was at her lowest ebb, but throughout her life, tragedy and setbacks had only made her stronger and this would be no exception.

(melancholy music) She checked into rehab at the Betty Ford Clinic.

(Helen) For a star of her magnitude to come out essentially as an addict, as someone who needed help, was a major, major moment.

(narrator) Her determination to get clean brought Liz Taylor back from the brink.

It allowed her to survive the problems that consumed contemporaries like Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland, and meant the rest of her life was shaped by her character, not her addictions.

(M.G.)

Elizabeth was able to discard the persona that had been invented for her and invent a new one.

(narrator) Inspired by her lifelong friendships with gay men and with an instinctive empathy for the underdog, Liz would devote the rest of her days to fighting for AIDS sufferers.

HIV/AIDS was a disease that affected her former daughter-in-law, her personal assistant, and her close friend, Rock Hudson.

Liz was furious about government inaction and public fear of the disease.

Used to fighting for what she wanted, she would use her celebrity to change those attitudes.

In speeches, it was clear how strongly she felt.

What would you do if you were fired, evicted, ridiculed?

Would you fight?

Would you have the strength?

Would you have the courage?

(Helen) She did an enormous amount to remove the stigma of AIDS and to remove the stigma even of helping people with AIDS.

(soft electronic music) (narrator) Liz would help fund her AIDS work with successful perfumes, Passion and White Diamonds, using everything she'd learned negotiating her film contracts to make another fortune.

It's the '80s.

It's the time of big hair and big capitalism, and Elizabeth Taylor took to that very naturally.

When they came to her and suggested that she launch a perfume, she negotiated one of the first and still most lucrative celebrity tie-ins ever to happen.

(Bidisha) I get the feeling that people walked into meetings with her thinking that they were going to find some empty-headed, gorgeous Hollywood star and, instead, they found a really tough lady.

(melancholy music) (narrator) While all this was going on, Elizabeth still found time to follow her heart just as she always had.

After falling off the wagon in the late '80s, she returned to rehab, where she met builder Larry Fortensky.

(M.G.)

He was a much younger, athletic man and that must have been a draw for her.

(narrator) The fact he was 20 years younger probably helped as well.

Liz still had appetites and didn't care what people thought of her toy boy.

(Joseph) I think she began to appreciate being treated like a regular person.

Probably one of the appeals of Larry Fortensky was that he was a regular person.

(narrator) Her eighth and final marriage lasted only five years.

They parted on good terms.

By now, Elizabeth, the ultimate survivor, had set up her own charity.

(Carrie) By the time she died, I think that she had raised nearly $300 million for AIDS research.

(narrator) True to her promise, she spent the last 20 years of her life committed to the AIDS cause.

Echoing Princess Diana's secret visits away from the press, Joseph Panetta helped arrange unannounced visits to hospices.

(Joseph) She would sit on patients' beds and read to them.

She would sign anything they asked her to sign.

She would treat them with respect and dignity, and they were floored.

And we would get faxes in the office from the management of the hospice sharing with us that the patients needed less pain medication for days after Elizabeth's visit because they were working off the halo of her having been there.

(narrator) A dignified finale to a dramatic life.

In her later decades, Liz had taken all she'd learned about fighting for what she wanted and blazing her own trail despite public opinion and used it to leave a lasting legacy for others.

Some years earlier, she had reflected on how she had made it through such a tumultuous life.

(soft music) On March the 23rd, 2011, the queen of Hollywood died.

The world mourned the loss of its most glittering, controversial, and trailblazing star, Elizabeth Taylor.

(Helen) I think Elizabeth Taylor is pretty much the definition of Hollywood royalty.

I mean, really rewrote the book on what stardom looked like.

(M.G.)

I think she'll be remembered primarily for her, um, extraordinary performances, especially in a movie like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(Carrie) Elizabeth Taylor's great professional achievement is knowing her worth and demanding to be paid as much as her male co-stars or more.

♪ (Helen) But the other thing that she left us with is this incredible second act of her life where she raised hundreds of millions of dollars personally for good causes.

(M.G.)

Everyone can take away something special from her.

Her beauty, her outrageousness, and, then, at the end of her life, her conscientiousness and her dedication.

(Bidisha) She was an unbreakable, solid gold, A-list Hollywood movie star.

They don't make them like that anymore.

♪ (upbeat music) ♪