Taylor was an outsized presence in a petite frame

The contradictions alone were fascinating: She could seem demure yet seductive,aristocratic yet bawdy. That tiny voice and petite stature seemed at odds with the intimidating femininity that would define her glamorous aura.

When she was young,though — in early,family-friendly films such as ”Lassie Come Home’ (1943) and especially ‘National Velvet’ (1944) _ she possessed a startling and mature beauty for someone her age. Those mesmerizing eyes,that luxurious dark hair and flawless skin — they were all there,even back then. It’s as if she never had to suffer through an awkward period like the rest of us.

Under Vincente Minnelli’s direction in ‘Father of the Bride’ (1950),she got a rare chance to show off some comic ability as a young woman trying to put on the perfect wedding,even though Spencer Tracy,as her beleaguered father,gets the majority of the big laughs.

The following year,opposite a working-class Montgomery Clift in ‘A Place in the Sun’ (1951),she was gorgeous,sophisticated,a vibrant image of idealized womanhood. When they first meet and she asks flirtatiously,“Do I make you nervous?” as he’s trying to play billiards,there’s really only one answer.

But an evolution was occurring during this time in Taylor’s career. The sweetness and freshness of her looks collided with the pain and anger that seethed within many of her characters.

One of her strongest performances came in ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ (1958),as the fragile and damaged but volatile Maggie. She was all curves,dressed in clingy white,alternately playing and pleading in that breathy Southern drawl. Watching her exchange Tennessee Williams’ banter with Paul Newman in his peak made you want to hold your own breath.

The next year found her in another Williams adaptation,’Suddenly,Last Summer’ (1959),as a young woman in danger after witnessing a tragedy (opposite Clift again). The playwright’s work suited her — the tormented characters,the great,gothic theatricality of it all.

“I’m not like anyone,I’m me”,she announces in a moment of defiant confidence in ‘Butterfield 8’ (1960). But as Gloria,the sassy,brassy,boozy,trashy,model-call girl,she also famously acknowledges,“I was the slut of all time!” Taylor is over the top in her big,confessional scene with Eddie Fisher,but still riveting to watch,the way she works the highs and lows of it. The performance would earn her the first of her two Academy Awards for best actress.

And then,there was the 1963 Joseph L. Mankiewicz epic ‘Cleopatra’,which would become infamous not just for its scope (it’s the most expensive movie ever made — $44 million — if you adjust for inflation) but for providing the place where Taylor’s path scandalously crossed Richard Burton’s. They’d go on to marry and divorce twice in real life and co-star in several movies together; this first on-screen pairing,however,was less than auspicious. When Taylor (as Cleopatra) demands that Burton (as Mark Antony) kneel before her,it’s a moment that should be fraught with tension. Instead,it’s impossible not to laugh out loud. The outlandish makeup and costumes were also a hoot.

But it was Mike Nichols who would get the best work out of Taylor in ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ (1966). She and Burton tear each other apart as the boozy and bickering husband and wife George and Martha. And Nichols,making his directing debut in an adaptation of Edward Albee’s painfully honest play,gets up close and personal for the carnage. The glamour girl was long gone here,and the performance earned Taylor her second best actress Oscar. (She also received an honorary Academy Award for her humanitarian work in 1993.)

Screen work was scarce in the 1980s. But even in her last film role — which,sadly enough,was the 1994 live-action version of ‘The Flintstones’ — that big personality was on full display. Her performance as Fred’s mother-in-law earned her a Razzie Award nomination for worst supporting actress,but she definitely livens things up. She bursts into a party,all hair and fur and jewels,flashing those famous eyes and calling for a conga line when the situation gets awkward.

In real life,the diva made a spectacle of herself — eight marriages,ravenous appetites for drugs,booze and food,ill health that sparked headlines constantly proclaiming her at death’s door. All of it often overshadowed the fireworks she created on screen.

Even as she achieved stardom in her teens,romance remained a constant flavour of her life. Her early lovers including athletes Ralph Kiner and Glenn Davis and hotel heir Conrad Hilton Jr.,whom she married at age 18 and divorced just months later.

She was wed again at 19,to British actor Michael Wilding,a marriage that lasted four years and produced two sons.

She married producer Todd,with whom she had a daughter. Fisher was best man at Todd’s wedding to Taylor. A year after Todd’s death in the plane crash,Fisher left Reynolds to marry Taylor,who converted to Judaism before the wedding.

Then came Burton. The romance that bloomed on the sets of ‘Cleopatra”, created such a sensation that the Vatican denounced their behavior as the ”caprices of adult children.”

After Taylor divorced Fisher and Burton divorced his wife,they were married in 1964. Along with a daughter,the fiery relationship produced a surprisingly durable working partnership.

Over a decade,Taylor and Burton co-starred in ‘The VIPs’,’The Sandpiper’,’The Taming of the Shrew’,’The Comedians’,’Dr. Faustus’,’Boom!’,’Under Milk Wood’,and ‘Hammersmith is Out’.

They also starred in a 1973 TV movie,”Divorce His,Divorce Hers,” prophetically about the breakup of a marriage. Their own first marriage ended a year later.

“We fight a great deal”,Burton once said of his real life with Taylor,“and we watch the people around us who don’t quite know how to behave during these storms. We don’t fight when we are alone.”

After their second marriage ended,Taylor and Burton reunited professionally for a touring production of Noel Coward’s ”Private Lives” in 1982. Burton died two years later. Taylor married Warner in 1976,and they divorced in 1982.

Two of Taylor’s early marriages,to Wilding and Todd,were to men 20 years older than she was. For her final marriage in 1991,Taylor wed a man 20 years younger,Larry Fortensky,a trucker and construction worker she met at the Betty Ford Center.

That wedding was a media circus at the ranch of her friend,Michael Jackson. It included the din of helicopter blades,a journalist who parachuted to a spot near the couple and a gossip columnist as official scribe.

By 1995,Taylor and Fortensky had separated. She divorced for the last time in 1997.

“I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love,if you want to have a love affair,you get married”,Taylor once said. “I guess I’m very old-fashioned.”

Taylor had life-threatening bouts with pneumonia,a brain tumor and congestive heart failure in her 60s and 70s,and from drug and alcohol abuse,including a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and painkillers,which prompted her to check in to the Betty Ford Center.

She had at least 20 major operations,including replacements of both hip joints and surgery to remove the benign brain tumor.

Taylor also dealt with obesity,packing on as much as 60 pounds (27 kilograms) and writing,“It’s a wonder I didn’t explode” in her 1988 book ‘Elizabeth Takes Off,’ about how she gained the weight and then shed it.

Eating became one of the most pleasant activities I could find to fill the lonely hours and I ate and drank with abandon,” she said.

After a lifetime of ailments and self-abuse,Taylor said in a 2004 interview with W magazine that ”my body’s a real mess. Just completely convex and concave.”

Her trials made her a butt of jokes,but even when people made fun,she preserved a hint of the divine aura of her youth.

When cartoonist Garry Trudeau mocked Taylor and then-husband John Warner,newly installed as a US senator,in a 1979 ‘Doonesbury’ comic strip,he memorably described her as a “tad overweight,but with violet eyes to die for.”