1.
Kursaal Congress Centre and Auditorium
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The Kursaal Congress Centre and Auditorium is a complex comprising several spaces, a great auditorium, many-use halls and exhibition halls. It was designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, and is located in Donostia-San Sebastián, the absence of any architectonic structure in such a privileged site for so many years was remarkable. At the time the old palace was pulled down, a competition was held to find a replacement, however, the winning project was never constructed due to its complexity. A new project proposal was submitted in 1972, after a few changes to the design, building work was started in 1975, but after the perimeter wall was complete and the foundations in place, works was halted. The plot of land passed from private hands to public hands. Of the six projects, the one of Moneo was chosen, after the project was written down between 1991 and 1994, the works were begun in 1996, and were not finished until 1999. During this period some funding problems arose, mainly because of the refusal of the Basque Government to increase the funds. After these problems were solved, the works were concluded in 1999. The Kursaal Congress Centre was designed by Rafael Moneo, the initial impact of the buildings in the Donostia landscape was deemed negative by Donostians, the curved sandstone buildings clashed with a sharp-edged crystal structure. The significance of the building was eclipsed by the parallel construction of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. It is mainly constituted as two large volumes, that emerge from a platform. Each cube, is formed by a prismatic structure, surrounded by double translucent glass panels. Between the cubes there is a big walkable surface, with sights to the Zurriola Beach, various concerts of the Donostia Jazz Festival, and many other events, take place in that terrace. Kursaal Auditorium Placed inside the biggest cube, this auditorium can hold an audience of 1,800, the first seat rows can be removed to make room for the orchestra in an opera. Chamber Hall This seats 600 people, and is placed in the small cube and it is used for congresses or smaller concerts. Multiple-use rooms These are used for a variety of events for more limited audiences, exhibition halls The halls are used for housing galleries and other exhibitions. Kubo Hall It is an exhibition hall under the supervision of the Kutxa savings bank, moreover, the building has a restaurant owned by Martín Berasategui, various shops in its basement, and a car park
2.
Basque Country (autonomous community)
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The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, the Basque Country or Basque Autonomous Community was granted the status of nationality within Spain, attributed by the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The term Basque Country may also refer to the cultural region, the home of the Basque people. The territory has three areas, which are defined by the two parallel ranges of the Basque Mountains. The main range of forms the watershed between the Atlantic and Mediterranean basins. The highest point of the range is in the Aizkorri massif, the three areas are, Formed by many valleys with short rivers that flow from the mountains to the Bay of Biscay, like the Nervión, Urola or Oria. The coast is rough, with cliffs and small inlets. The main features of the coast are the Bilbao Abra Bay and the Estuary of Bilbao, the Urdaibai estuary, between the two mountain ranges, the area is occupied mainly by a high plateau called Llanada Alavesa, where the capital Gasteiz is located. The rivers flow south from the mountains to the Ebro River, the main rivers are the Zadorra River and Bayas River. From the southern mountains to the Ebro is the so-called Rioja Alavesa, some of Spains production of Rioja wine takes place here. Precipitation average is about 1200 mm, the middle section is more influence by the continental climate, but with a varying degree of the northern oceanic climate. This gives warm, dry summers and cold, snowy winters, the Ebro valley has a pure continental climate, winters are cold and dry and summers very warm and dry, with precipitation peaking in spring and autumn. Precipitation is scarce and irregular, as low as 300 mm, almost half of the 2,155,546 inhabitants of the Basque Autonomous Community live in Greater Bilbao, Bilbaos metropolitan area. Of the ten most populous cities, six form part of Bilbaos conurbation, with 28. 2% of the Basque population born outside this region, immigration is crucial to Basque demographics. Over the 20th century most of this came from other parts of Spain, typically from Galicia or Castile. Over recent years, sizeable numbers of population have returned to their birthplaces and most immigration to the Basque country now comes from abroad. Roman Catholicism is, by far, the largest religion in Basque Country, bilbao-Bilbo Vitoria-Gasteiz San Sebastián-Donostia Barakaldo Getxo Irun Portugalete Santurtzi Basauri Errenteria Spanish and Basque are co-official in all territories of the autonomous community. The Basque-speaking areas in the autonomous community are set against the wider context of the Basque language, spoken to the east in Navarre
3.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
4.
Vertigo (film)
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Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel Dentre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac, the screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John Scottie Ferguson, Scottie is forced into early retirement because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia and vertigo. Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as an investigator to follow Gavins wife Madeleine. The film was shot on location in San Francisco, California and it is the first film to use the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation, to convey Scotties acrophobia. As a result of its use in film, the effect is often referred to as the Vertigo effect. Vertigo received mixed reviews upon release, but is now often cited as a classic Hitchcock film. Attracting significant scholarly criticism, it replaced Citizen Kane as the best film made in the 2012 British Film Institutes Sight & Sound critics poll. In 1996, the film underwent a restoration to create a new 70mm print. It has appeared repeatedly in polls of the best films by the American Film Institute, after a rooftop chase, where his fear of heights and vertigo result in the death of a policeman, San Francisco detective John Scottie Ferguson retires. Scottie tries to conquer his fear, but his friend and ex-fiancée Midge Wood says that another severe emotional shock may be the only cure. An acquaintance from college, Gavin Elster, asks Scottie to follow his wife, Madeleine and he watches her enter the McKittrick Hotel, but on investigation she does not seem to be there. Gavin reveals that Carlotta is Madeleines great-grandmother, although Madeleine has no knowledge of this, Scottie tails Madeleine to Fort Point and, when she leaps into the bay, he rescues her. The next day Scottie follows Madeleine, they meet and spend the day together and they travel to Muir Woods and Cypress Point on 17-Mile Drive, where Madeleine runs down towards the ocean. Scottie grabs her and they embrace, Madeleine recounts a nightmare and Scottie identifies its setting as Mission San Juan Bautista, childhood home of Carlotta. He drives her there and they express their love for each other, Madeleine suddenly runs into the church and up the bell tower. Scottie, halted on the steps by his acrophobia, sees Madeleine plunge to her death, the death is declared a suicide. Gavin does not fault Scottie, but Scottie breaks down, becomes depressed and is in a sanatorium
5.
Alfred Hitchcock
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Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE was an English film director and producer, at times referred to as The Master of Suspense. He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres and he had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as Englands best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939, and became a US citizen in 1955 and he also fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. Hitchcocks stylistic trademarks include the use of movement that mimics a persons gaze. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy and his work often features fugitives on the run alongside icy blonde female characters. Prior to 1980, there had long been talk of Hitchcock being knighted for his contribution to film, Hitchcock later received his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours. Hitchcock directed more than fifty films in a career spanning six decades and is often regarded as one of the most influential directors in cinematic history. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else, Hitchcocks first thriller, The Lodger, A Story of the London Fog, helped shape the thriller genre in film. His 1929 film, Blackmail, is cited as the first British sound feature film, while Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest. Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone and he was the second son and the youngest of three children of William Hitchcock, a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane Hitchcock. He was named after his fathers brother, Hitchcock was raised as a Roman Catholic, and sent to Salesian College, Battersea, and the Jesuit grammar school St Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, London. His parents were both of half-English and half-Irish ancestry and he often described a lonely and sheltered childhood that was worsened by his obesity. Around age five, Hitchcock recalled that to him for behaving badly. This incident implanted a lifelong fear of policemen in Hitchcock, and such harsh treatment, sources vary on Hitchcocks performance in school. Gene Adair reports that by most accounts, Alfred was only an average, or slightly above-average, however, McGilligan writes that Hitchcock certainly excelled academically. When Hitchcock was 15, his father died, in that same year, he left St. Ignatius to study at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London. After leaving, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a company called Henleys. Hitchcock joined a regiment of the Royal Engineers in 1917
6.
Woody Allen
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Heywood Woody Allen is an American actor, writer, director, comedian, playwright, and musician whose career spans more than six decades. He worked as a writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, as a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians and he is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s. Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup, some of the best-known of his over 40 films are Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters. In 2007 he said Stardust Memories, The Purple Rose of Cairo, critic Roger Ebert described Allen as a treasure of the cinema. Allen won four Academy Awards, three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director and he also won nine British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. His screenplay for Annie Hall was named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the 101 Funniest Screenplays, in 2011, PBS televised the film biography Woody Allen, A Documentary on the American Masters TV series. Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg in Brooklyn, New York and he and his sister, Letty, were raised in Midwood, Brooklyn. He is the son of Nettie, a bookkeeper at her familys delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg and his family was Jewish, his grandparents immigrated from Russia and Austria, and spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and German. His parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His childhood was not particularly happy, his parents did not get along, Allen spoke German quite a bit in his early years. He would later joke that when he was young he was sent to inter-faith summer camps. While attending Hebrew school for eight years, he went to Public School 99 and to Midwood High School, at that time, he lived in an apartment at 968 East 14th Street. Unlike his comic persona, he was interested in baseball than school. He impressed students with his talent at card and magic tricks. To raise money, he wrote jokes for agent David O. Alber, at the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen and later began to call himself Woody Allen. According to Allen, his first published joke read, Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O. P. S and he was then earning more than both parents combined
7.
Star Wars (film)
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Star Wars is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. The first installment in the Star Wars film series, it stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Peter Mayhew co-star in supporting roles. The plot focuses on the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia, and its attempt to destroy the Galactic Empires space station and this conflict disrupts the isolated life of farmhand Luke Skywalker, who inadvertently acquires a pair of droids that possess stolen architectural plans for the Death Star. Star Wars was released theatrically in the United States on May 25,1977 and it earned $461 million in the U. S. and $314 million overseas, totaling $775 million. It surpassed Jaws to become the film of all time until the release of E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial. When adjusted for inflation, Star Wars is the film in North America. It received ten Academy Award nominations, winning seven and it was among the first films to be selected as part of the U. S. Library of Congress National Film Registry as being culturally, historically, at the time, it was the most recent film on the registry and the only one chosen from the 1970s. Its soundtrack was added to the U. S. National Recording Registry in 2004, today, it is often regarded as one of the best films of all time, as well as one of the most important films in the history of motion pictures. It launched an industry of tie-in products, including TV series spinoffs, novels, comic books, and video games, the films success led to two critically and commercially successful sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. A prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005, followed by a trilogy beginning in 2015. In 2016, Rogue One was released as a prequel to the original Star Wars film. The galaxy is in the midst of a civil war, spies for the Rebel Alliance have stolen plans to the Galactic Empires Death Star, a heavily armed space station capable of destroying an entire planet. Rebel leader Princess Leia has the plans, but her ship is captured by Imperial forces under the command of the evil Darth Vader, before she is captured, Leia hides the plans in the memory of an astromech droid, R2-D2, along with a holographic recording. R2-D2 flees to the surface of the desert planet Tatooine with C-3PO, the droids are captured by Jawa traders, who sell them to moisture farmers Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew Luke Skywalker. While cleaning R2-D2, Luke accidentally triggers part of Leias message, the next morning, Luke finds R2-D2 searching for Obi-Wan, and meets Ben Kenobi, an old hermit who lives in the hills and reveals himself to be Obi-Wan. Contrary to his uncles statements, Luke learns that his father, Anakin, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Vader was his former pupil who turned to the dark side of the Force and killed Anakin. Obi-Wan then presents to Luke his fathers weapon – a lightsaber, Obi-Wan views Leias complete message, in which she begs him to take the Death Star plans to her home planet of Alderaan and give them to her father for analysis
8.
Bette Davis
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Ruth Elizabeth Bette Davis was an American actress of film, television, and theater. After appearing in Broadway plays, Davis moved to Hollywood in 1930, however, her early films for Universal Studios were unsuccessful. She joined Warner Bros. in 1932 and established her career with several critically acclaimed performances, in 1937, she attempted to free herself from her contract. Although she lost the legal case against the studio, it marked the beginning of the most successful period of her career. Until the late 1940s, she was one of American cinemas most celebrated leading ladies, known for her forceful, Davis gained a reputation as a perfectionist who could be highly combative and confrontational. She clashed with executives and film directors as well as many of her co-stars. Her forthright manner, idiosyncratic speech and ubiquitous cigarette contributed to a public persona, Davis was the co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, and was the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her career went through periods of eclipse, and she admitted that her success had often been at the expense of her personal relationships. Married four times, she was widowed and three times divorced, and raised her children as a single parent. In 1999, Davis was placed second behind Katharine Hepburn on the American Film Institutes list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema. Bettys younger sister, Barbara Harriet Bobby, was born October 25,1909, at 55 Ward Street in Somerville, Massachusetts, in 1915, Daviss parents separated and Betty and Bobby attended a Spartan boarding school called Crestalban in Lanesborough, which is located in the Berkshires. In 1921, Ruth Davis moved to New York City with her daughters, Betty changed the spelling of her name to Bette after Honoré de Balzacs La Cousine Bette. Davis attended Cushing Academy, a school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. In 1926, she saw a production of Henrik Ibsens The Wild Duck with Blanche Yurka and Peg Entwistle, Davis later recalled for Al Cohn of Newsday, The reason I wanted to go into theater was because of an actress named Peg Entwistle. She auditioned for admission to Eva LeGalliennes Manhattan Civic Repertory, but was rejected by LeGallienne who described her attitude as insincere, upon graduating from Cushing Academy, Bette enrolled in John Murray Andersons Dramatic School. In 1929, Davis was chosen by Blanche Yurka to play Hedwig, after performing in Philadelphia, Washington and Boston, she made her Broadway debut in 1929 in Broken Dishes, and followed it with Solid South. In 1930, Davis moved to Hollywood to screen test for Universal Studios, Davis and her mother traveled by train to Hollywood and arrived on December 13,1930. She would later recount her surprise that nobody from the studio was there to meet her at the train, in fact, a studio employee had waited for her, but left because he saw nobody who looked like an actress
9.
Gloria Swanson
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Gloria May Josephine Swanson was an American actress and producer best known for her role as Norma Desmond, a reclusive silent film star, in the critically acclaimed 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. Swanson was also a star in the silent film era as both an actress and an icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. She starred in dozens of silent films and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the Best Actress category and she also produced her own films, including Sadie Thompson and The Love of Sunya. In 1929, Swanson transitioned to talkies with The Trespasser, personal problems and changing tastes saw her popularity wane during the 1930s when she moved into theater, and later television. Gloria May Josephine Swanson was born in a house in Chicago in 1899 to Adelaide and Joseph Theodore Swanson. Her father was from a strict Lutheran Swedish American family, and her mother was of German, French, and Polish ancestry. Because of her fathers attachment to the U. S. Army, the family moved frequently and Swanson ended up spending most of her childhood in Puerto Rico and she also spent time in Key West, Florida. After a few months as a working with others like Charlie Chaplin. Her parents would soon separate and she and her mother moved to California, Swanson made her film debut in 1914 as an extra in The Song of Soul for Essanay. She reportedly asked to be in the movie just for fun, Essanay hired her to feature in several movies, including His New Job, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. Swanson auditioned for the female role in Swanson moved to California in 1916 to appear in Mack Sennetts Keystone comedies opposite Bobby Vernon. With their great chemistry, the pair became popular. Director Charley Chase recalled that she was frightened to death of Vernons dangerous stunts, conquering her fears, however, she often cooperated with Vernon. Surviving films in which appear together include The Danger Girl, The Sultans Wife. In 1919 she signed with Paramount Pictures and worked often with Cecil B. DeMille, who turned her into a lead in such films as Dont Change Your Husband, Male and Female with the famous scene posing as the Lions Bride with a real lion. Something to Think About, and The Affairs of Anatol, in the space of two years, Swanson rocketed to stardom and was one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood. She later appeared in a series of films directed by Sam Wood and she starred in Beyond the Rocks with her longtime friend Rudolph Valentino
10.
Gregory Peck
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Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor who was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck continued to major film roles until the late 1980s. His performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor and he had also been nominated for an Oscar for the same category for The Keys of the Kingdom, The Yearling, Gentlemans Agreement and Twelve OClock High. Other notable films he appeared in include Spellbound, Roman Holiday, Moby Dick, The Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear, How the West Was Won, The Omen, President Lyndon Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck among Greatest Male Stars of Classic Hollywood cinema and he was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1983. His father was of English and Irish heritage and his mother of English and she converted to her husbands religion, Roman Catholicism, when she married his father, and Peck was raised as a Catholic. Pecks parents divorced when he was five and he was brought up by his maternal grandmother, at the age of 10 he was sent to a Catholic military school, St. Johns Military Academy in Los Angeles. While he was a student there, his grandmother died, at 14, he moved back to San Diego to live with his father, attended San Diego High School, and after graduating enrolled for one year at San Diego State Teachers College. While there he joined the team, took his first theatre and public-speaking courses. Peck however had ambitions to be a doctor and the following year gained admission to the University of California, Berkeley, as an English major, standing 6 ft 3 in, he rowed on the university crew. Although his tuition fee was only $26 per year, Peck still struggled to pay, at Berkeley, encouraged by the acting coach, who saw in him perfect material for university theatre, Peck became more and more interested in acting. He was recruited by Edwin Duerr, director of the universitys Little Theater, Peck would later say about Berkeley that, it was a very special experience for me and three of the greatest years of my life. It woke me up and made me a human being, in 1997, Peck donated $25,000 to the Berkeley rowing crew in honor of his coach, the renowned Ky Ebright. He was often broke and sometimes slept in Central Park and he worked at the 1939 Worlds Fair and as a tour guide for NBCs television broadcasting. In 1940, Peck learned more of the craft, working in exchange for food, at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, appearing in five plays including Family Portrait. His stage career began in 1941 when he played the secretary in a Katharine Cornell production of George Bernard Shaws play The Doctors Dilemma, unfortunately, the play opened in San Francisco just one week before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He made his Broadway debut as the lead in Emlyn Williams The Morning Star in 1942 and his second Broadway performance that year was in The Willow and I with Edward Pawley. Twentieth Century Fox claimed he had injured his back while rowing at university, ive been trying to straighten out that story for years
11.
Elizabeth Taylor
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Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian. She began as an actress in the early 1940s, and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. She continued her career successfully into the 1960s, and remained a well known figure for the rest of her life. The American Film Institute named her the seventh-greatest female screen legend in 1999, Born in London to wealthy, socially prominent American parents, Taylor moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1939, and she soon was given a film contract by Universal Pictures. Her screen debut was in a role in Theres One Born Every Minute. Taylor was then signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and had her breakthrough role in National Velvet, becoming one of the studios most popular teenaged stars. She made the transition to adult roles in the early 1950s, despite being one of MGMs most bankable stars, Taylor wished to end her career in the early 1950s, as she resented the studios control and disliked many of the films to which she was assigned. She began receiving roles in the mid-1950s, beginning with the epic drama Giant. These included two film adaptations of plays by Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly, Last Summer, although she disliked her role in BUtterfield 8, her last film for MGM, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. She was next paid a record-breaking $1 million to play the role in the historical epic Cleopatra. During the filming, Taylor and co-star Richard Burton began having an affair which caused a scandal. Despite public disapproval, Burton and she continued their relationship and were married the first time in 1964. Dubbed Liz and Dick by the media, they starred in 11 films together, including The V. I. P. s, The Sandpiper, The Taming of the Shrew, and Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Taylor received the best reviews of her career for Woolf, winning her second Academy Award, in the 1980s, she acted in her first substantial stage roles and in several television films and series, and became the first celebrity to launch a perfume brand. Taylor was also one of the first celebrities to take part in HIV/AIDS activism and she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985 and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991. From the early 1990s until her death, she dedicated her time to philanthropy and she received several accolades for it, including the Presidential Citizens Medal. Taylors personal life was subject to constant media attention throughout her life and she was married eight times to seven men, endured serious illnesses, and led a jet set lifestyle, including amassing one of the most expensive private collections of jewelry. After many years of ill health, Taylor died from heart failure at the age of 79 in 2011
