Career: Taylor made the transition from child star to adult success thanks to roles in such hits as Raintree County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer, for which she received Academy Award nominations. She later won the Best Actress Academy Award for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She became the first actress to be paid $1million for a film role in 1963 historical epic Cleopatra, where she met future husband Richard Burton. She received an honorary Academy Award in 1993 and was made a Dame in 2000. Symptoms related to heart failure led to her being admitted into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in February 2011. She remained there until her death at the age of 79 on March 23, 2011.