VARIOUS: ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND HER SEVENTH HUSBAND LARRY FORTENSKY SEPARATE AFTER NEARLY FOUR YEARS OF MARRIAGE

Record ID: 472570

  • Title: VARIOUS: ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND HER SEVENTH HUSBAND LARRY FORTENSKY SEPARATE AFTER NEARLY FOUR YEARS OF MARRIAGE
  • Date: 1st December 1995
  • Summary: 1964 TAYLOR WITH FIFTH HUSBAND RICHARD BURTON LEAVING PLANE AT MONTREAL AIRPORT AFTER WEDDING 1972 TAYLOR AND BURTON AT FILM PREMIERE TAYLOR AND BURTON AT FILM PREMIERE OF TAMING OF THE SHREW PHOTOGRAPHERS TAYLOR AND BURTON CHATTING WITH GUESTS AND PRINCESS MARGARET
  • Embargoed: 16th December 1995 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA2TTICWM0ZQODD2CB5PTBHKK5C
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  • Story Text: Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor and her seventh husband, former construction worker Larry Fortensky, have announced their separation after nearly four years of marriage.

    "We both need our space for awhile, so we have agreed to a trial separation. We both hope this is only temporary," they said in a joint statement.

    Fortensky, 43, has reportedly moved out of Taylor's exclusive Bel-Air mansion and the couple is now living apart. The separation came with no advance signs that the marriage was on the rocks.

    The 63-year-old actress has curtailed her public appearances since she had hip replacement surgery in June.

    British-born Taylor, who started off as a child actress and rose to become one of Hollywood's most glamorous stars, met Fortensky in 1988 while both were patients at the Betty Ford Centre for drug and alcohol treatment.

    Nearly 20 years her junior, Fortensky was constantly at Taylor's bedside when she was admitted to the hospital and nearly died of viral pneumonia in April 1990. After her recovery, the romance flourished.

    Taylor and Fortensky married in October 1991 at Neverland, the California ranch owned by the actress' close friend, pop superstar Michael Jackson.

    On the eve of her glittering million-dollar wedding to Fortensky in October 1991, Taylor said she wanted to get married one more time and "with God's blessings, this is it." But a Las Vegas oddsmaker offered an even-money wager that the marriage would break up within 14 months.

    The marriage was billed as the last attempt at marital bliss for a woman who had married seven times before -- twice to legendary British actor Richard Burton -- divorced six times and was widowed once.

    Fortensky, more at home on a construction site than at his wife's high-society affairs, once admitted "it hurt that I didn't have enough money to buy Elizabeth a diamond necklace, or walk her up to a house with a lot of acres and horses and say, 'Merry Christmas."' Known for her Academy Award-winning performances in "Butterfield 8" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", Taylor has always made the biggest headlines with her love life, weight problems and battles against drug and alcohol abuse.

    Over the decades, she was courted by a string of rich, famous and powerful men. She married hotel heir Nick Hilton in 1950, British actor Michael Wilding in 1952, film producer Mike Todd in 1956, singer Eddie Fisher in 1959, Burton in 1964 and again in 1975 and Republican Sen. John Warner in 1967. She was widowed when Todd died in an air crash in 1958.
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