Honestly, if you ask the average person about Elizabeth Taylor, they’ll probably mention two things: those violet eyes and the fact that she had a lot of husbands. Eight weddings. Seven men. It's a number that has become a punchline in pop culture, a shorthand for Hollywood excess. But when you actually look at the elizabeth taylor husbands list, it isn't just a tally of failed romances. It’s a roadmap of a woman trying to find her own identity while the entire world watched her through a microscope.
She wasn't just "collecting" men. She was a product of an era where, if you wanted to be with someone, you got married. Simple as that. She once famously said, "I am a very committed wife. And I should be committed, too—for being married so many times."
The Teen Bride and the Hotel Heir
The whole thing started in 1950. Elizabeth was only 18, and MGM—her studio—basically treated her wedding like a movie premiere. They even paid for the dress. She married Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr., the heir to the Hilton hotel fortune.
It was a disaster.
They were on a 14-week honeymoon in Europe, and according to her later accounts, the marriage was basically over before they even got back. Hilton was abusive and struggled with serious addiction. It lasted eight months. You have to remember, she was a kid who had been controlled by a movie studio her whole life; she thought marriage was her "great escape." It wasn't.
Looking for a Father Figure?
After the chaos of Hilton, Taylor went for the polar opposite. Enter Michael Wilding. He was a British actor, and he was 20 years older than her. This was the "calm after the storm" phase.
- Married: February 1952
- Children: Two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher
- The Vibe: Low-key, stable, and arguably a bit boring for a woman with Taylor's energy.
They stayed together for five years. But as her fame skyrocketed (think Giant and Raintree County), Wilding’s career stalled. It’s a classic Hollywood trope, but for Elizabeth, it was just reality. They divorced in 1957, but they stayed friends until he died.
The Only One She Didn't Divorce
If you want to know who the "great loves" were, Mike Todd is always the first name on the list. He was a high-flying film producer, a "theatrical impresario" who didn't just ask to marry her—he told her he was going to.
He gave her a tiara just because. He flew meals in from Paris. He was 25 years older than her and matched her fire. They had a daughter, Liza, but the story ends in a way that feels like a cruel movie script. In 1958, only a year into their marriage, Todd’s private plane, ironically named The Lucky Liz, crashed in New Mexico. Elizabeth was supposed to be on that flight, but she stayed home because she had a cold.
She was a widow at 26.
The Scandal That Broke the Internet (Before the Internet)
This is where the elizabeth taylor husbands list gets messy. Really messy.
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In her grief, Elizabeth turned to Todd’s best friend, singer Eddie Fisher. The problem? Fisher was married to "America’s Sweetheart," Debbie Reynolds. It was the Brad-Jen-Angelina scandal of the 1950s. The press labeled Elizabeth a "home-wrecker." She didn't care. She married Fisher in 1959.
She later admitted she only married him because of the shared grief over Mike Todd. It was a mistake. And the world was about to find out exactly how much of a mistake when she flew to Rome to film Cleopatra.
The "Le Scandale" Years: Richard Burton
You can't talk about Elizabeth Taylor without talking about Richard Burton. They met on the set of Cleopatra in 1962, and the chemistry was so volatile it literally triggered a condemnation from the Vatican. They called it "erotic vagrancy."
They were both married to other people. They didn't care.
They married in 1964, divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, and divorced again in 1976. They were the "Battling Burtons." They bought the world’s most expensive diamonds and drank enough vodka to fuel a small country.
"We were like two atom bombs," she once said.
Even after the second divorce, they never really "quit" each other. He wrote her a letter days before he died in 1984. She kept it by her bedside for the rest of her life.
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From Diamonds to Politics
After the fire of Burton, Elizabeth went for something... different. John Warner was a Republican politician from Virginia. She traded the furs and diamonds for tweeds and sensible shoes.
She helped him get elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978. But life as a "Senate wife" in D.C. was soul-crushing for her. She was lonely, she gained weight, and she started struggling with prescription pills and alcohol. She famously said that Warner "married the Senate," and there was no room left for her. They divorced in 1982.
The Final Chapter: Larry Fortensky
The last man on the elizabeth taylor husbands list is the one that confuses people the most. Larry Fortensky was a construction worker.
They met in rehab at the Betty Ford Center in 1988.
It sounds like a tabloid fever dream, but they actually got married at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in 1991. He was 20 years younger than her. People laughed, but those who knew her said he gave her a sense of normalcy she’d never had.
The marriage lasted five years. They divorced in 1996, mostly because Larry couldn't handle the "paparazzi in helicopters" lifestyle. But here’s the thing: they stayed close. When she died in 2011, she left him $800,000 in her will. That tells you everything you need to know about her heart.
Why the List Still Matters
People look at this list and see "failure." But if you look closer, you see a woman who refused to live a lie. If she wasn't in love, she left. If she was in love, she committed—even if the whole world was screaming at her.
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Actionable Insights from the Taylor Legacy:
- Separating Grief from Love: Her marriage to Eddie Fisher is a textbook case of making a permanent decision based on temporary (and heavy) emotions.
- The Power of Post-Divorce Friendship: Taylor remained on good terms with most of her exes. It’s a reminder that a failed marriage doesn't have to mean a failed relationship.
- Identity Beyond a Partner: It wasn't until after her final divorce that she truly leaned into her activism, raising hundreds of millions of dollars for HIV/AIDS research.
She spent her life looking for "The One," but in the end, her most enduring legacy had nothing to do with a husband at all. It was about her own voice.
To understand her fully, you have to stop looking at the number of husbands and start looking at the woman who survived every single one of those divorces with her wit and her compassion intact.