Film legend
Elizabeth Taylor celebrated her 75th birthday on Tuesday
night with a New Orleans-themed party flanked by her
four children and famous friends spanning the
generations from model Kathy Ireland to former rival
Debbie Reynolds.
Taylor, who
suffers chronic back pain, made a cheerful entrance to the
Ritz-Carlton, Lake Las Vegas resort in a wheelchair escorted
by her sons, Michael and Christopher Wilding, and
daughters, Maria Burton and Liza Todd, en route to her
party at a restaurant in the property.
The two-time
Academy Award winner and Dame Commander of the British
Empire was adorned by a white fur and satin robe and
resplendent in an icicle-design pearl and diamond
necklace from her jewelry line called Frost.
Taylor's voice
was soft and she seemed frail as she chatted briefly with
reporters, telling them her secret to making it to 75 was
"just living a very healthy, clean life."
The guest list of
about 70 people was an eclectic variety of stars like
Reynolds and cohorts like Los Angeles dermatologist Dr.
Arnold Klein, with whom she has worked for decades on
HIV/AIDS awareness and fund-raising. The theme of the
party arranged by her children was New Orleans, a
hotel spokeswoman said, but no other details have
been made available.
"We're friends
since Elizabeth and I were 17, so that's just two
years ago," quipped Reynolds, who turns 75 herself on April
1 and was accompanied at the party by her daughter,
actress Carrie Fisher.
Reynolds and
Taylor had a falling out after Reynolds' then-husband dumped
her for Taylor in 1959 to become the fourth of Taylor's
eight husbands. The women later reconciled. "Elizabeth
Taylor is a great American star, a great American
beauty just like Ava Gardner and Marilyn Monroe," said
Reynolds.
Other present
included Las Vegas personalities such as hotel-casino mogul
Steve Wynn and former headliners Siegfried Fischbacher and
Roy Horn of the illusionist duo Siegfried and Roy. Pop
singer Michael Jackson, a longtime friend of Taylor's,
did not attend the party.
One of Taylor's
younger guests was Ireland, 43, who gushed about the
philanthropy of the woman who was named the seventh-greatest
film actress of all time by the American Film
Institute.
"She's absolutely
gorgeous, but more important than that, she's my
hero," Ireland said. "She's an amazing person who really
demonstrates what one person can do to accomplish positive
change. She's so courageous, so heroic, so wise and so
giving and generous."
Taylor first
achieved stardom at age 12 in National Velvet and
went on to win two Academy Awards for her role as a
call girl in the 1960 film Butterfield 8 and for
playing an alcoholic wife opposite her real-life
husband at the time, Richard Burton, in Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?
Her last screen
appearance was in the 2001 television movie These Old
Broads, in which Reynolds costarred. She's been
beset by a variety of health problems in recent years,
including a hip replacement in 1995 and surgery to
remove a brain tumor in 1997.(Reuters)