Elizabeth Taylor’s Wedding Dress Is Up for Auction
The wedding dress worn by film star Elizabeth Taylor for her first marriage to hotel heir Conrad Hilton in 1950 will go up for sale next month, auction house Christie’s said on Friday.
The simple, but elegant garment created by Hollywood costume designer Helen Rose for the then 18-year-old Taylor is an oyster shell-coloured, floor-length satin gown with a fine silk gauze off-the-shoulder illusion neckline.
The dress, which was a gift from MGM film studios, has a top estimate of 50,000 pounds ($75,300). Rose also designed Grace Kelly’s wedding dress for her marriage to the Prince of Monaco.
By the time Taylor married Hilton she was already a veteran actress and was just a year away from her Oscar-nominated performance in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s “A Place in the Sun”.
The A-list of old Hollywood – Greer Garson, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Esther Williams, and Van Johnson – were among the many stars who came to congratulate the bride.
The star of “Cleopatra” surpassed Michael Jackson as the highest-earning deceased celebrity in a survey released by Forbes in October 2012, with her estate pulling in $210 million, much of it from a 2011 auction of jewels, costumes and art work.
The auction of Taylor’s jewels took in $116 million, more than double the record for a single collection, and set new marks for pearls, colourless diamonds and Indian jewels.
Taylor, who died in 2011 at the age of 79, was married eight times, twice to actor Richard Burton, and had a career spanning seven decades.
She first gained fame in 1944’s “National Velvet” at age 12, and was nominated for five Oscars, winnning best actress for “BUtterfield 8” (1960) and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966), which also starred Burton.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
