Episode Details

Elizabeth Taylor was a child star who grew into the most expensive actress in Hollywood history — the first to demand and receive a million-dollar salary. She married eight times, survived brain surgery, conquered alcoholism, and used the fame that had consumed her childhood to build the AIDS activism campaign that shamed a government into action when no other celebrity would touch the disease.

This episode traces Taylor from her stage-mother childhood through the studio system that owned her, the marriages that fascinated the world, the Cleopatra salary that broke Hollywood's pay structure, and the AIDS activism that became her most lasting legacy.

• Taylor's child star years at MGM and the studio system that controlled every aspect of her life
• The eight marriages, the Burton scandal, and the tabloid fascination she could never escape
• The million-dollar Cleopatra salary that shattered Hollywood's pay ceiling for actors
• The AIDS activism — founding amfAR when politicians and celebrities were too afraid to act