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60 free Elizabeth Taylor trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Elizabeth Taylor trivia quiz starts with a London girl with double eyelashes whose family fled to California in 1939, and follows her through National Velvet at 12, the MGM 'factory', A Place in the Sun, Giant and the death of James Dean, Maggie the Cat, the Eddie Fisher scandal, the BUtterfield 8 Oscar she hated, the $1 million Cleopatra deal, the tracheotomy, the Vatican's 'erotic vagrancy', Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the eleven films with Richard Burton. The second half is about the woman the world could not stop watching: seven husbands and eight weddings, the Krupp and Taylor-Burton diamonds, the conversion to Judaism, the Betty Ford Center, the wedding at Neverland, White Diamonds and the fragrance fortune, and the AIDS activism that raised over $270 million and put her before Congress. Then the legacy: the Christie's auction, the damehood, the Presidential Citizens Medal, and the Taylor Swift song. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Elizabeth Taylor born in 1932?
London
Her American parents ran a Bond Street art gallery; she held dual citizenship from birth.
Q 02Which US ambassador urged Taylor's father to bring the family home to America in 1939?
Joseph P. Kennedy
Sara and the children sailed first on the SS Manhattan and moved in with her grandfather in Pasadena.
Q 03Taylor's famous eyes were rimmed by dark double eyelashes caused by what?
A genetic mutation
Her blue eyes appeared violet; Universal's casting director nonetheless said 'her eyes are too old, she doesn't have the face of a child'.
Q 04Which studio dropped Taylor after a year and one film before MGM signed her?
Universal
Her only Universal film was There's One Born Every Minute (1942).
Q 05In her first starring role, at 12, Taylor plays a girl who wants to ride as a jockey in which race?
The Grand National
Filming was delayed for months so she could grow an inch or two; she called it 'the most exciting film' of her career.
Q 06MGM proposed Taylor use which screen name, an idea she and her parents refused?
Virginia
The studio did make her wear braces and pull two baby teeth, but she kept her hair, eyebrows and name.
Q 07MGM published a 1946 book of Taylor's writings about her pet what?
Chipmunk
Nibbles and Me came with paper dolls and colouring books in her likeness.
Q 08Which March sister did Taylor play in the 1949 Little Women, her last adolescent role?
Amy
Time put her on the cover that year and called her 'a jewel of great price, a true sapphire'.
Q 09Taylor's 1950 wedding to hotel heir Nicky Hilton was organised by MGM to publicise which film?
Father of the Bride
The marriage lasted eight months; Hilton was abusive and she suffered a miscarriage during one of his outbursts.
Q 10Taylor called A Place in the Sun (1951) the first film she was asked to act in. Which novel was it based on?
An American Tragedy
She plays the socialite who comes between Montgomery Clift and his pregnant girlfriend Shelley Winters.
Q 11Which role in Ivanhoe (1952) did Taylor find too small in a story she thought superficial?
Rebecca
The film was still one of MGM's biggest hits, earning $11 million in worldwide rentals.
Q 12Taylor was loaned to Paramount for Elephant Walk (1954) after which original star fell ill?
Vivien Leigh
She played a British woman on her husband's tea plantation in Ceylon.
Q 13Which co-star of Giant (1956) died in a car crash days after finishing filming?
James Dean
Filming in Marfa, Texas, was miserable; director George Stevens tried to 'break her will'.
Q 21On which Italian island were Taylor and Richard Burton photographed on a yacht, confirming their affair?
Ischia
A sociologist called the photo a turning point after which celebrities could no longer keep private lives separate.
Q 22For what did the Vatican condemn Taylor and Burton during the Cleopatra affair?
'Erotic vagrancy'
There were also calls in Congress to bar them from re-entering the United States.
Q 23How many films did Taylor and Richard Burton make together?
Eleven
They earned a combined $88 million in a decade; Burton joked they generated 'more business activity than one of the smaller African nations'.
Q 14Which film brought Taylor her first Academy Award nomination?
Raintree County
MGM hoped the Civil War drama would be another Gone with the Wind; she found her mentally disturbed Southern belle fascinating but disliked the film.
Q 15How did Taylor's third husband, Mike Todd, die two weeks into her filming Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
In a plane crash
She returned to work three weeks later, saying acting 'was the only time I could function' and that she 'became Maggie'.
Q 16Taylor's affair with Eddie Fisher broke up his marriage to which actress, her close friend?
Debbie Reynolds
The press rebranded her from grieving widow to 'homewrecker'; she and Reynolds reconciled in the 1960s.
Q 17For which film, in which she played a call girl and which she hated, did Taylor win her first Oscar?
BUtterfield 8
It was her last film under her MGM contract; she demanded it be shot in New York with Eddie Fisher in a sympathetic role.
Q 18For Cleopatra, Taylor became the first movie star to be paid how much for a single role?
$1 million
Fox also gave her 10% of the gross and shot in Todd-AO, the widescreen process whose rights she had inherited from Mike Todd.
Q 19During the Cleopatra shoot in 1961, Taylor's near-fatal pneumonia required which procedure?
A tracheotomy
One news agency wrongly reported her death; Fox scrapped the footage and restarted in Rome with a new director and a new Mark Antony.
Q 20What was Cleopatra's final cost, making it the most expensive film made up to that point?
$62 million
It was 1963's biggest hit yet took years to break even and nearly bankrupted Fox, which sued Taylor and Burton.
Q 24For which film did Taylor win her second Oscar, playing a 50-year-old in wig and ageing makeup?
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
She suggested Mike Nichols direct despite his lack of film experience, and it drew the best reviews of her career.
Q 25Taylor's first stage role, in a 1966 Oxford Doctor Faustus, was which non-speaking character?
Helen of Troy
Burton produced it as a film the next year; it grossed just $600,000.
Q 26Which director cast Taylor, who had no Shakespeare experience, in The Taming of the Shrew?
Franco Zeffirelli
He said it made her performance interesting because she 'invented the part from scratch'.
Q 27Which old friend did Elizabeth Taylor want for Reflections in a Golden Eye before he died and Brando replaced him?
Montgomery Clift
They had made A Place in the Sun, Raintree County and Suddenly, Last Summer together.
Q 28For playing a blonde diner waitress in Hammersmith Is Out (1972), Taylor won which award?
Silver Bear at Berlin
Roger Ebert wrote that 'the spectacle of Elizabeth Taylor growing older and more beautiful continues to amaze the population'.
Q 29Taylor's sixth husband, John Warner, held what office?
US Senator from Virginia
She found life as a political wife in Washington 'boring and lonely', gained weight and became depressed.
Q 30Which Lillian Hellman character did Taylor play on Broadway in 1981 in her first substantial stage role?
Regina Giddens
The Little Foxes sold out for six months; she played the 'malignant Southern bitch-goddess' as a victim of circumstance.