Following what would have been the late actress’s 90th birthday, Dorchester Collection announces a partnership with House of Taylor in honour of the legendary star and activist.
Elizabeth Taylor spent many momentous occasions of her celebrated, transatlantic life at Dorchester Collection hotels. In her six-decades-long acting career, Taylor received five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress and won the coveted prize for BUtterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Her commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS was also recognised with honours, including the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards in 1993 and the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2001. In 1985, she co-founded amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, and in 1991 established ETAF, The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
As a tribute to Taylor’s legacy as an actress and HIV/AIDS activist, Dorchester Collection has named two of its most beloved suites in her honour: Elizabeth Taylor Harlequin Suite at The Dorchester and Elizabeth Taylor Bungalow 5 at The Beverly Hills Hotel.
Taylor stayed at The Dorchester for the first time with her mother as a 17-year-old and returned to the hotel throughout her life. The hotel’s penthouse Harlequin Suite became her home away from home. It was here that she stayed when she negotiated her legendary deal with 20th Century Fox as the first actor to receive over a million dollars for a movie in the Hollywood epic Cleopatra.
She met Richard Burton on the set of the film and the glamorous couple were regulars at the hotel throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The hotel remained her London base and it was here she stayed in 2000 for the Buckingham Palace ceremony in which she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
Similarly, The Beverly Hills Hotel served as a backdrop to Taylor’s life in California dating back to her childhood. Her father Francis, who inspired her love of art, had a gallery in the hotel’s shopping arcade and she went on to be a frequent guest of the hotel throughout her life.
Affectionately known as “the Pink Palace,” The Beverly Hills Hotel’s famed bungalows are where Taylor spent several of her honeymoons. She dined regularly at the hotel’s iconic Polo Lounge where her “splurge” day favourite of “fried chicken with mashed potato and lots of gravy” is still served, and celebrated iconic moments of her life, such as her Oscar win for BUtterfield 8 at the hotel.
