Dame Elizabeth Taylor’s grandson has recalled growing up with the Hollywood star, as more than 1,000 of her personal items go up for auction.
Fans have the chance to get their hands on pieces of movie history when clothing, jewellery and furniture from throughout Dame Elizabeth’s life – including from her two marriages with Richard Burton – are sold at Julien’s Auction house in Beverly Hills.
Among the items on offer are luxury gowns from designers including Christian Dior, Edith Head, Gucci and Oscar de la Renta.
Quinn Tivey, Dame Elizabeth’s grandson, said despite her reputation as one of the most famous Hollywood stars ever, to him she was “Grandma”.
He told the PA news agency: “She was Grandma. It’s not that I had a relationship with ‘Elizabeth Taylor,’ it was just grandma.
“Of course things about her life might be a little bit unusual but at the end of the day you’d hang out or watch a movie with grandma and she was just a down to earth, sweet, charming, lovely and funny and caring lady.”
Mr Tivey, the son of Liza Todd, Dame Elizabeth’s daughter with producer Mike Todd, is also a trustee of his grandmother’s estate and foundation, collectively known as the House Of Taylor.
Dame Elizabeth, whose film roles include Cleopatra, Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? died in 2011 aged 79.
In her later life she focused on activism and became one of the first A-list celebrities to speak out against the Aids crisis during the 1980s.
“She was never afraid to speak up for what she believed in,” Mr Tivey said. “And at the peak of the Aids crisis she noticed that people were being marginalised and stigmatised.
“But she also knew that she had the opportunity to take the spotlight and take her platform and to make her voice heard and so she made sure that it was.”
Dame Elizabeth’s Aids work will be dramatised in a biopic starring British actress Rachel Weisz in the lead role.
The film will eschew the actress’s colourful private life – she was married eight times – instead focusing on her humanitarian work.
Mr Tivey backed Weisz to be a success.
“It’s an amazing team and Rachel is an amazing actress so it’s – she’s bound to do an amazing job,” he said.
Items on sale at the Property From The Lifestyle Of Elizabeth Taylor auction include an Edith Head blue chiffon dress that she wore to the premiere of the 1974 film That’s Entertainment.
Also going under the hammer is a studded leather biker jacket from Versace that she wore on The Johnny Carson Show in 1992.
Proceeds from the auction will benefit The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF).
The auction takes place live and online at Julien’s Auction’s Beverly Hills gallery, from December 6-8.