Elizabeth Taylor was a Hollywood icon who loomed so large that her personal life became as legendary as her films. But while the world watched her collect fame, Oscars, and unimaginable wealth, her relationships told a more turbulent story. She married eight times to seven different men, and by the end of her life, she had dramatically outlived four of her husbands. The question that has long lingered is what happened to the men who shared her life, and who among them managed to move on from the shadow she cast.
Taylor first entered matrimony at just 18 years old, when she married hotel heir Nikki Hilton. On the surface, it seemed like a glamorous pairing, as Taylor was riding high on the success of Father of the Bride. But the reality behind closed doors was deeply unhappy. Hilton struggled with heavy drinking and gambling, and Taylor later described the marriage as abusive.
She left him after only nine months, and the couple had no children. Hilton eventually married twice more and had four children, with one son later becoming the father of Paris Hilton. However, his personal battles never left him. Hilton died of a heart attack in 1969 at the age of 42, alone and still plagued by addiction.
Her second marriage took her in a completely different direction. Taylor chose Michael Wilding, a calm and cultured British actor who was twenty years her senior. She hoped he would offer her stability and a quieter life. The couple had two sons together, Michael Jr.
and Christopher, and their early years together were peaceful. But as Taylor’s fame continued to rise, Wilding’s career began to fade, and he reportedly grew resentful of being overshadowed. Taylor, in turn, felt unfulfilled. They divorced quietly in 1957.
Wilding later remarried actress Margaret Leighton, and he died in 1979 after suffering a fatal fall linked to an epileptic seizure. He spent his final years far from the spotlight that had once engulfed him. Taylor’s third husband, Mike Todd, was a pioneer film producer known for being bold, brash, and totally devoted to her. He called her “my Liz” and showered her with diamonds, laughter, and extravagant gestures.
They had one daughter together, Liza Todd. But their marriage was tragically short-lived. In March 1958, just over a year after they wed, Todd died in a plane crash, and Taylor was originally supposed to be on that flight. The grief nearly destroyed her.
She later said she never fully recovered from that loss, and the void he left was something no other man could ever completely fill. That grief brought her to Eddie Fisher, who was Mike Todd’s best friend. Fisher comforted her, and soon that comfort turned into romance. The problem was that Fisher was married to Debbie Reynolds, who was beloved by the American public as its sweetheart.
When Fisher left Reynolds for Taylor, the scandal became one of the biggest of the 1950s, and Taylor was cast as a homewrecker in the press. Despite the public backlash, her professional career reached new heights. She won her first Academy Award for Butterfield 8 in 1961, a film she later admitted she disliked, and she went on to star in the massive and troubled production of Cleopatra in 1963. During filming, she fell gravely ill with pneumonia and required a life-saving emergency tracheotomy.
She recovered barely and returned to finish the movie, which became one of the most expensive films ever made and only added to her legend. Her marriage to Fisher, however, was never rooted in deep love. Taylor later admitted she was never truly in love with him, and the couple had no children together. In later years, the feud with Debbie Reynolds softened into reconciliation.
The two women even appeared together in the 2001 television movie These Old Broads, which was written in part by Reynolds’s daughter, Carrie Fisher. The project played on their shared history with humor, and it showed that forgiveness was possible. Carrie Fisher later joked that her mother forgave Elizabeth but never Eddie. Fisher’s career never recovered after the scandal.
He married three more times and died in 2010 from complications following hip surgery. While filming Cleopatra, Taylor met Richard Burton, and their chemistry was immediate and explosive. The affair began while both were still married to other people, and it rocked the entertainment world. They married in 1964, and their life together was marked by wild passion, intense volatility, and legendary extravagance.
Burton gave Taylor some of the most iconic jewels in the world, including the 33-carat Krupp diamond and the 69-carat Taylor-Burton diamond. Their gift-giving became a symbol of a love that was both grand and stormy. They divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, and divorced again in 1976. They had no children together, though their combined legacy included one of the most famous jade and gemstone collections ever seen.
After Taylor’s death, her jewelry was auctioned at Christie’s for nearly $156 million, with proceeds supporting her charitable work. The couple’s dramatic dynamic was later dramatized in the 2012 television film Liz and Dick, starring Lindsay Lohan, but the effort was largely seen as failing to capture the depth of their relationship. Burton himself remarried twice, both times to women named Sally, and he died in 1984 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Taylor kept his love letters with her until the day she died.
Looking for something different, Taylor then married Republican Senator John Warner. She traded the red carpet for the political corridors of Washington shortly after winning her second Academy Award for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a role that exposed a raw intensity beneath her glamour. The film was also her last with Burton, and some have suggested the experience contributed to their split. However, politics did not bring Taylor satisfaction.
She struggled with depression, missed the spotlight, and the marriage ended in divorce after six years. The couple had no children. Warner never remarried, and he died in 2021 at the age of 94. He was remembered as a statesman, but also as the man who once married a queen of Hollywood.
Taylor’s final husband was perhaps her most unexpected choice. Larry Fortensky was a construction worker twenty years her junior. The two met while both were in recovery at the Betty Ford Clinic. In a 1992 interview with Barbara Walters, Taylor described Fortensky as a good man who did not care about her fame.
Their romance was honest, though improbable. The couple married at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in 1991, an event complete with helicopters, paparazzi, and a guest list packed with celebrities. But Fortensky reportedly could not adapt to Taylor’s world and the pressures of fame. They divorced in 1996 and had no children, though Taylor continued to support him financially until her death.
Fortensky died in 2016 after a fall and years of declining health. Elizabeth Taylor passed away in 2011 at the age of 79, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Her health had declined for years, marked by congestive heart failure, a hip replacement, and the lingering effects of prior surgeries, including the tracheotomy she needed in 1961. She left behind four children.
Michael Wilding Jr. became an actor and advocate who regularly appears at events honoring his mother. Christopher Wilding worked as a film editor and supported the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Liza Todd pursued a career as a sculptor and remained largely out of the public eye, but fiercely protective of her mother’s memory.
And Maria Burton, adopted by Taylor in the 1960s, dedicated herself to nonprofit and humanitarian work inspired by her mother’s activism. Taylor founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991, and her children have continued that work as board members and ambassadors, keeping her voice alive in the fight against HIV and AIDS. She also left behind ten grandchildren, many of whom remain involved with the foundation and continue to speak proudly of their iconic grandmother. Of the seven men she married, Taylor outlived four.
Some of the others remarried, some found redemption, and some drifted into obscurity, but none fully escaped the enormous shadow she cast. Eight marriages, seven husbands, and one woman who never apologized for how fiercely she lived. She once said, “I am a very committed wife, and I should be. I’ve been married enough.
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