Elizabeth Taylor’s nude portrait at 24 seen for the primary time

A goddess revealed: Intimate portrait of Liz Taylor at 24 seen for the primary time

By Liz Thomas
Up to date: 20:20 BST, 2 November 2011

Numerous images have paid homage to Liz Taylor’s fabulous determine. However none has been so revealing as this.

A personal collector has launched the one recognized image of the star – then aged 24 – posing nude. It’s understood to be the primary time the photograph has been proven publicly.

It was an engagement present from Miss Taylor to producer Michael Todd, who was her third husband.

The image was taken by one in every of her closest pals, actor and photographer Roddy McDowall. He persuaded her to pose bare by promising her it might be achieved tastefully.

She then gave it to Todd as a gift after he proposed in 1956 – the pair married a couple of months later however the relationship was tragically short-lived.

Todd was killed 13 months after their wedding ceremony day when his personal aircraft crashed throughout a storm over New Mexico.

A devastated Miss Taylor is believed to have given the nude {photograph} to her assistant and make-up artist Penny Taylor.

It was purchased by personal collector Jim Shaudis in 1980 and had been thought misplaced. However after her loss of life from coronary heart failure final week aged 79, he determined to point out the picture publicly for followers of the star.

Since her loss of life there have been a string of revelations and allegations about Dame Elizabeth’s previous.

Most lately it has been claimed that she was born at a ‘swingers’ social gathering’ in a Cheshire village, relatively than London, which is what’s written on her beginning certificates.

It was mentioned that her father, the artwork seller Francis Taylor, and his actress spouse Sara recurrently attended disreputable gatherings within the village and had been mentioned to be ‘the swingers of their day’.

It has additionally been claimed that she was the product of an affair and her actual father was truly the millionaire Conservative MP Victor Cazalet, who grew to become her godfather.

And in lately revealed love letters, a 17-year-old Elizabeth shared her desires along with her fiance earlier than later agonising about returning an engagement ring when the connection soured.

The handwritten letters are from 1949, when Taylor was engaged to William Pawley Jr, who was in his 20s and the son of a rich American businessman and ambassador.

‘I acquired your wire this morning about sending the ring and bracelet to New York,’ Taylor wrote to Pawley in a letter dated September 20, 1949, when their relationship was ending.

‘I’ve the ring on now. It’s glowing so fantastically within the sunshine. I suppose this would be the final time I’ve it on – for some time at the least. Take excellent care of it, Darling, for my coronary heart is embedded proper there within the heart of it.’

The actress was buried earlier this week on a quiet hill exterior Los Angeles in a small personal ceremony.

She spent the final six weeks of her life in hospital and died of coronary heart failure.

Considered one of her final Twitter messages learn merely: ‘I’ll let you recognize when it’s all over. Love you, Elizabeth.’

The star had been tormented by well being issues all her life. She estimated she had nearly died 4 instances.