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Hollywood Connections to Kansas - October 14, 2016

Elizabeth Taylor with her parents at the Stork Club in New York in 1947. (Photo via Wikimedia)
Elizabeth Taylor with her parents at the Stork Club in New York in 1947. (Photo via Wikimedia)

Q: Movie star Elizabeth Taylor was born in London, but her parents grew up in Kansas. Name the Kansas town where Elizabeth Taylor's parents met and grew up.


 

A: Arkansas City 

 

Elizabeth Taylor spent her first Christmas in Kansas, visiting relatives in Arkansas City. Taylor's parents - art dealer Francis Lenn Taylor and retired stage actress Sara (Warmbrodt) Sothern - first met in Arkansas City, where they grew up. Elizabeth Taylor herself was born in London, where her parents were living at the time. But they brought little Elizabeth back to Arkansas City to visit her two sets of grandparents in 1932.  

 

Taylor grew up to become one of the greatest American film stars of all time. A high-profile celebrity, Taylor was almost as famous for her seven marriages and divorces as for her film career. 

 

Taylor was active in social and political causes, becoming one of the first major Hollywood stars to advocate for the LGBT community. She raised awareness about AIDS and started a foundation to fight the illness. 

 

After her death in 2011, her estate auctioned off her vast jewelry collection and other personal items, raising more than $160 million to benefit the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF).