Elizabeth Taylor - Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

Taylor won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her performance in BUtterfield 8 in 1960, and for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966. Additionally, she received the Jean Herscholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 1992 for her work fighting AIDS.

In 1994, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her.

In 1997, Taylor was honored by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) with the Life Achievement Award. As Taylor could not be in attendance, Gregory Peck read the following statement on her behalf:

I’m so disappointed that I can’t be there with all of you tonight. Please know that I am watching. And this award is especially important to me because it’s given by my peers. Not only for my first career, acting – but, for what has now become my life, the eradication of the AIDS epidemic.

As we all know, ours was one of the first industries to be directly and dramatically affected by the AIDS epidemic. And it’s heartening to me that this community has risen to the challenge. And the foundation of the Screen Actors Guild, of which I’m so proud to be a member, is no exception having made a very generous donation to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Thank you all for honoring me tonight.

Love, Elizabeth.

Taylor received the French Legion of Honour in 1987, and in 2000 was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 2001, she received a Presidential Citizens Medal for her humanitarian work, most notably for helping to raise more than $200 million for AIDS research and bringing international attention and resources to addressing the epidemic. Taylor was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2007.