By Lauren, Ben, Jules, Sabrina

The woman hailed to be one of the first true superstars - and the last of the great screen goddesses – passed away yesterday, on March 23^rd, 2011.

In February 2011, new symptoms related to her congestive heart failure caused her to be admitted into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment.  In a death as dramatic as the many movies she starred in, British-born Elizabeth Taylor, born February 27, 1932, died of heart complications in the same hospital she’d entered 6 weeks before; The Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She passed away surrounded by her 4 children, and with the well-wishings of her numerous fans. In recent years, Dame Elizabeth Taylor had suffered from numerous health complications.

She had a benign brain tumour removed in 1997, suffers from the brittle bone disease-or more commonly known as osteoporosis, has broken her back 5 times, and in 2004, she suffered from congestive heart failure, which assisted by spinal fractures and a curvature, left her almost bedridden. To top it off, in 2009 she underwent cardiac surgery to replace a leaky valve.  Although she had many health complications throughout her life, these are not the things that kept Elizabeth Taylor in the spotlight.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor was a woman of many talents. She starred in over 50 movies, has won 2 Oscars, 37 other awards, 15 nominations, a fortune of over £37 million, 8 husbands, 4 children, and a glorious 79 years of life. Elizabeth Taylor (or Liz Taylor as she was fondly nicknamed) was the woman who is credited to creating the modern celebrity, drawing attention whether she was on or off-screen. People became enthralled with her life; her tumultuous relationships, her breakdowns, her drug abuse, her obsession with jewelry-but not all of it was bad.

Apart from her movies, one of the things that defined our memory of Elizabeth Taylor was that she was the first celebrity to raise awareness and money for AIDS.  She devoted millions of dollars and countless hours to AIDS advocacy. She spoke about the need of a cure when even saying the word was taboo. In an Interview with Larry King Live in 2003, she said that she first became interested in the 1980’s. "We all heard of it and nobody was doing anything about it," she said. "And it made me so angry that we all sat around the dining room table, 'Isn’t this awful, isn't this tragic? Oh, my god.' But nobody was doing anything. And that really angered me so much.” she said.

Elizabeth Taylor starred in many era-defining movies. Perhaps the most well known was her role as the protagonist of 20^th Fox’s production of the story of Cleopatra. Although bashed by critics, it was the highest grossing film of 1963-yet still it made a loss due to its cost of $44 million. It was the only film ever to be the highest grossing film of the year yet to run at a loss. Adjusting for inflation, it is still the most expensive movie ever made, costing $320m nowadays.

She was not only loved by the public, but by fellow celebrities as well.  Singer George Michael said "She also did a great deal in the last 25 years to help the world deal with the HIV epidemic. I am proud to have known her if only a little." Lavish praise also comes from one-time co-star Sir Michael Caine, remembering her as "a beautiful woman, a wonderful actress, and a great human being."