Liz not afraid of death

11 April 2012

She was feted as the world's most beautiful woman and the ultimate movie star.

Her violet eyes, eight marriages to seven husbands and amazing jewellery collection all added to the legend of Elizabeth Taylor.

At the age of 72, however, her amazing life story appears to be drawing to a close.

She has revealed that she is suffering from congestive heart failure and a bone disease which leaves her body bent and in constant pain.

And she says she is not afraid to meet 'my maker'.

The British-born Hollywood legend revealed just how ill she is in an extraordinary interview for an American magazine.

In it she said that the spine problem, scoliosis, which has afflicted her throughout her life now means it is painful to walk or to sit. In October she had surgery to repair seven fractures in her spine.

The heart problem, only recently diagnosed, means that she has breathing difficulties.

She insisted, however, that she was unafraid of death and trying to

keep a sense of humour about her many ailments.

'People must think, "My God, she's still alive?"' she told W Magazine. 'But there's some resilience in me that makes me keep fighting. It's the damnedest thing - I just keep coming back.'

A star since she was 12 years old, her most famous role was as Cleopatra co-starring the man she married twice, Richard Burton.

Despite early claims that she could not act, she won two Oscars in the 1960s for her performances in Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

In recent years, however, it is her poor health which has garnered more news stories than anything else.

Talking for the first time about her heart, which cannot

pump enough blood to the body's other organs leaving her tired and short of breath, she described it simply as 'a bore', even though it could eventually result in her having to have a transplant.

Of her scoliosis, she said: 'I was born with it but it has finally caught up with me. My body's a real mess. If you look at it in the mirror, it's just completely convex and concave.

'I've become one of those poor little women who's bent sideways. My X-rays are hysterical. The bone doctors just throw up their hands and say, "Sorry, there's nothing we can do!" Which is so cheery.'

Dame Elizabeth, who has previously battled skin cancer, pneumonia and a brain tumour as well as a long problem with alcohol, has a full-time nurse to look after her at her mansion in Bel Air, California.

She admits that she often prays but, asked if she is afraid of death, she insisted: 'No.' The mother of four added: 'I consult with God, my maker. And I don't have a lot of problems to work out. I'm pretty squared away.' Just 18 months ago the star, who was made a Dame in the 1999 New Year Honours, announced she was giving up acting to concentrate on her Aids charity. But in the last year she has managed only two public outings.

'I feel so stupid and feeble, that I can't do the work I was meant to do because of my bloody body,' she said.

Looking back at her husbands - Burton, Eddie Fisher, Michael Wilding, Mike Todd, Conrad Hilton, John Warner and Larry Fortensky - she says there were two she was happiest with - Todd, who was killed in a 1958 plane crash, and Burton, who died in 1984.

Now the only love in her life is her 12-year- old Maltese dog, Sugar, which sleeps on her pillow just above her head. 'I've never loved a dog like this in my life,' she said.

'It's amazing. Sometimes I think there's a person in there. There's something to say for this kind of love - it's unconditional.

'Yet the physical contact that one desires is sadly missing. Ah well, I guess it's good when you get old, although I haven't accepted it entirely.'

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