GROWING OLD...WICKEDLY!



My bottom has grown to incredible size
And wobbles about on my thunderous thighs.
My tummy has spread, my arms are all flab
My boobs, once my pride are starting to sag.

There are gaps in my mouth, where once there were teeth
I take vitamin pills at least three times a week.
When I take of my glasses I'm as blind as a bat
I'm a little bit deaf: "Sorry dear what was that"?

My husband is sweet but he mutters a bit,
When my sensible knickers just don't do the trick.
And although I've occasionally tried to be flash
Anything else brings me out in a rash!

I've applied anti - wrinkle cream that works overnight
And yet every morning, I still look a fright.
Oh what is the point of applying this goo?
When sex appeal sounds like a charity do?

The veins in my legs simply won't go away
My ankles get thicker with each passing day.
If life starts at forty then please tell me why
It's on the way out when you reach forty - five?!

My chins grown a double, the jaw line has gone,
My hairs turning grey...do I need to go on?
But there's just one thing, that can sweeten this curse,
My best friend from school - looks a jolly sight worse!

BY

DARRYL ASHTON.

READ MORE POEMS OF DARRYL ASHTON READ MORE

Chinese government confirmed last night that the execution would carry out today for the three OFWs; Ramon Credo, Elizabeth Batain and Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, ignoring the last minute plea for mercy by the Philippine government.

In strict accordance with the Chinese law, the Chinese judicial authorities’ verdict is final. “We are hoping for the Philippine side to understand,” said Sun Yi, Chinese embassy spokesman.

The Chinese government and the Philippine consular officials will provide all necessary assistance to the relatives for their visits to the convicted and other related matters,” he said.

Earlier, the officials said “It comes to the point that we resigned to the fate of the three convicts.”

“Not because that I know of,” said Albert del Rosario acting Foreign Affairs Secretary when he was asked if there are words from Beijing to the Philippines, the last minute plea for a stay of execution of the three convicted Ordinario-Villanueva, Credo and Batain.

“We’ve been trying all the best we can do, but in some point I think we have to accept the fact that the sentence is finality,” told Del Rosario to the reporters.

In fact, President Aquino had written three times to the Chinese President Hu Jintao seeking ‘grant a stay of execution’ for the three Filipinos. This was on top of Vice President Jejomar Binay’s own initiative to convince Beijing to spare the three Filipinos from death, Del Rosario said.

Francisco Benedicto the ‘Philippine Ambassador to Beijing’ was very busy in making representations with the people in authority in the Chinese government, said Del Rosario.

“We deeply sympathize with them-to their families and the DFA will be holding a Mass here today,” added Del Rosario.

The three Filipino was convicted in the same case of smuggling illegal drugs. Villanueva, 32-year old, was convicted for smuggling heroin of 4,110-grams on December 24, 2008, and four days later, Credo, 42-year old, for a slightly bigger amount in smuggling heroin. Batain was sentenced to death on May 24 in the same year also for drug trafficking.

Eduardo Malaya, DFA spokesman said “The ‘Fujian Provincial Higher People’s Court’ have been allowed the families of Ordinario-Villanueva and Credo to visit them today from 8 to 9 a.m. at the Xiamen No. 1 Detention House.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Plutonium found in soil at the Fukushima nuclear complex heightened alarm on Tuesday over Japan's battle to contain the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years, while opposition MPs attacked the prime minister for his handling of the disaster.

Some opposition lawmakers lambasted Naoto Kan in parliament for not extending an evacuation zone around the plant. Kan said he was seeking advice on widening the area, which would force 130,000 people to move in addition to 70,000 already displaced.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said plutonium was found at low-risk levels in five places at the facility, which was crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

A by-product of atomic reactions and also used in nuclear bombs, plutonium is highly carcinogenic and one of the most dangerous substances on the planet, experts say.

They believe some of the plutonium may have come from spent fuel rods at Fukushima or damage to reactor No. 3, the only one to use plutonium in its fuel mix.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said while the plutonium levels were not harmful to human health, the discovery could mean a breach in the reactor's containment mechanism.

"Plutonium is a substance that's emitted when the temperature is high, and it's also heavy and so does not leak out easily," agency deputy director Hidehiko Nishiyama told a news conference.

"So if plutonium has emerged from the reactor, that tells us something about the damage to the fuel. And if it has breached the original containment system, it underlines the gravity and seriousness of this accident."

Sakae Muto, a Tokyo Electric vice-president, said the traces of plutonium-238, 239 and 240 were in keeping with levels found in Japan in the past due to particles in the atmosphere from nuclear testing abroad.

"I apologize for making people worried," Muto said.

PARTIAL MELTDOWN

Workers at Fukushima may have to struggle for weeks or months under extremely dangerous conditions to re-start cooling systems vital to control the reactors and avert total meltdown.

On Monday, highly contaminated water was found in concrete tunnels extending beyond one reactor, while at the weekend radiation hit 100,000 times over normal in water inside another.

That poses a major dilemma for Tokyo Electric, which wants to douse the reactors to cool them, but not worsen the radiation spread, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said on Tuesday.

"On the issue of pumping in water, we must avoid a situation in which the temperature (of the fuel rods) rises and the water boils off. So this cooling is a priority. On the other hand, on the standing water, under the circumstances work must proceed to remove it as quickly as possible," he said.

Japan says a partial meltdown of fuel rods inside reactor No. 2 has contributed to the radiation levels.

The crisis, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986, has contaminated vegetables and milk from the area, as well as the surrounding sea. U.S. experts said groundwater, reservoirs and the sea all faced "significant contamination".

Facing a long and uncertain operation, Tokyo Electric has sought help from firms including Electricite de France SA and Areva SA, the French government said.

Japan is also consulting Washington. The head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, met Japanese officials in Tokyo on Monday.

"The unprecedented challenge before us remains serious and our best experts remain fully engaged to help Japan address the situation," Jaczko said in a statement.

Experts have said the lack of information and some inconsistent data makes it hard to understand what is happening at Fukushima, which appears to have moved from a core-meltdown phase to one in which management of released radioactivity is paramount.

"There's a lot of radioactivity outside the containment barriers that poses a threat to workers and the public that needs to be addressed," said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project at the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, a long-time nuclear watchdog group.

"That's the top priority."

NATIONALISATION FOR NUCLEAR OPERATOR?

The crisis has put enormous pressure on Tokyo Electric, criticized for safety lapses and a slow disaster response. Its boss, Masataka Shimizu, has barely been seen.

The government might discuss nationalizing Tokyo Electric to deal with the crisis, National Strategy Minister Koichiro Gemba said. Its shares have tumbled 70 percent since the crisis.

Kan, leading Japan during its worst crisis since World War Two, was already deeply unpopular and under pressure to resign before the events of March 11.

He apologized for flying over the stricken nuclear site a day after the quake, which media reports said had delayed operations to cool the reactors. He also assured lawmakers the government was disclosing all the information it had.

More than 70,000 people have been evacuated from a largely rural area within 20 km (12 miles) of the facility.

But opposition MP Yosuke Isozaki blasted Kan for not ordering people living in a band between 20 km and 30 km (12-19 miles) from the plant to also leave, asking "is there anything as irresponsible as this?".

The 130,000 people inside that zone have been encouraged -- but not ordered -- to leave.

Environmental group Greenpeace has urged an extension of the 20-km evacuation zone while the United States has recommended its citizens who live within 80 km (50 miles) of the plant to leave or shelter indoors.

Even though Japan's culture stresses group efficiency over individual charisma, many are unhappy and a weekend poll showed a majority feel Kan has not shown good leadership.

"The characters involved are too weak to take decisive actions," said Jesper Koll, analyst at JP Morgan Securities.

Beyond the evacuation zone, traces of radiation have been found in tap water in Tokyo and as far away as Iceland.

Japanese officials and international experts have generally said the levels away from the plant were not dangerous for human beings, who in any case face higher radiation doses on a daily basis from natural sources, X-rays or flying.

The drama at the six-reactor facility has compounded Japan's agony after the double disaster left more than 28,000 people dead or missing in the devastated northeast.

With towns on the northeast coast reduced to apocalyptic landscapes of mud and debris, more than a quarter of a million people are homeless. The event may be the world's costliest natural disaster, with estimates of damage topping $300 billion.

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg, Mayumi Negishi, Yoko Nishikawa, leika Kihara and Phil Smith in Tokyo, Timothy Gardner in Washington, Sylvia Westall in Vienna, David Sheppard in New York, Eileen O'Grady in Houston, Alister Doyle in Oslo, Deborah Zabarenko in Washington; Writing by Bill Tarrant; Editing by Dean Yates)

We know Mariah Carey loves butterflies, but this sucker's almost as big as Mothra!

The singer, who had a false-alarm labor on Sunday, today tweeted a pic of her belly (with the babies still in there) painted with a big red and blue butterfly.Mariah and hubby Nick Cannon had a big day yesterday, with the singer turning 42 and being rushed to the hospital after experiencing contractions she thought presaged the arrivals of her twins, a boy and a girl.

She later tweeted that all was OK.

"They almost came on 3/27- happy anniversary indeed!!! We have a few more weeks 2 go but- wow!!! : ) #soreadyallready!"

Are you tired trying to concieve but not lucky enough? here are 3 tips to get pregnant fast.

Tip 1
 Checking and Charting Your Cervical Mucus

When the feminine body will get able to ovulate, her cervical mucus will become extremely thin as well as elastic. This mucus assists to deliver the sperm towards the egg.

Tip 2

Ovulation Prediction Kit.

These kits can help you observe when you’re near ovulation. You must the examination two times each day, one time between 11am and 3pm and once more from 5pm to 10pm. Ovulation usually happens one day once you obtain an optimistic consequence in your examination strip. This means a rush inside your LH level that suggests you’re going to release an egg.

Tip 3
 Charting Basal Corpse Temperature

Along with charting your cervical mucus, you ought to chart your BBT (basal body temperature). You may need to buy a basal thermometer to ensure that this to work. Usual in your own home thermometers won’t work. To obtain a precise interpretation, you have to examination correct previous to receiving Away  bed each morning and simultaneously every daytime. One action previous to captivating your temperature often leads for an inaccurate interpretation. Your temperature will increase somewhat daily because you turn out to be earlier toward ovulation..

TOKYO – Mounting problems, including incorrect radiation figures and a shortage of storage tanks, stymied emergency workers Sunday as they tried to nudge Japan's stricken nuclear complex back from the edge of disaster.

Workers are struggling to remove radioactive water from the tsunami-ravaged nuclear compound and restart the regular cooling systems for the dangerously hot fuel.

The day began with company officials reporting that radiation in leaking water in the Unit 2 reactor was 10 million times above normal, a spike that forced employees to flee the unit. The day ended with officials saying the huge figure had been miscalculated and offering apologies.

"The number is not credible," said Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita. "We are very sorry."

While the water is contaminated with radiation, officials are unsure about the actual levels. They planned to take another sample, but Kurita did not know when the results would be known.

Officials acknowledged there was radioactive water in all four of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex's most troubled reactors, and that airborne radiation in Unit 2 measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour, four times the limit deemed safe by the government.

Those high airborne readings — if accurate — would make it very difficult for emergency workers to get inside to pump out the water.

Officials say they still don't know where the radioactive water is coming from, though government spokesman Yukio Edano earlier said some is "almost certainly" seeping from a damaged reactor core in one of the units.

The discovery late last week of pools of radioactive water has been a major setback in the mission to get the crucial cooling systems operating more than two weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami.

The magnitude-9 quake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11 triggered a tsunami that barreled onshore and disabled the Fukushima plant, complicating a humanitarian disaster that is thought to have killed about 18,000 people.

A top TEPCO official acknowledged it could take a long time to clean up the complex.

"We cannot say at this time how many months or years it will take," TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said, insisting the main goal now is to keep the reactors cool.

Workers have been scrambling to remove the radioactive water from the four units and find a place to safely store it. Each unit may hold tens of thousands of gallons of radioactive water, said Minoru Ogoda of Japan's nuclear safety agency.

Safety agency officials had been hoping to pump the water into huge, partly empty tanks inside the reactor that are designed to hold condensed water.

Those tanks, though, turned out to be completely full, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Meanwhile, plans to use regular power to restart the cooling system hit a roadblock when it turned out that cables had to be laid through turbine buildings flooded with the contaminated water.

"The problem is that right now nobody can reach the turbine houses where key electrical work must be done," Nishiyama said. "There is a possibility that we may have to give up on that plan."

Despite Sunday's troubles, officials continued to insist the situation had at least partially stabilized.

"We have somewhat prevented the situation from turning worse," Edano told reporters Sunday evening. "But the prospects are not improving in a straight line and we've expected twists and turns. The contaminated water is one of them and we'll continue to repair the damage."

The protracted nuclear crisis has spurred concerns about the safety of food and water in Japan, which is a prime source of seafood for some countries. Radiation has been found in food, seawater and even tap water supplies in Tokyo.

Just outside the coastal Fukushima nuclear plant, radioactivity in seawater tested about 1,250 times higher than normal last week — but that number had climbed to 1,850 times normal by the weekend.

Nishiyama said the increase was a concern, but also said the area is not a source of seafood and that the contamination posed no immediate threat to human health.

Up to 600 people are working inside the plant in shifts. Nuclear safety officials say workers' time inside the crippled units is closely monitored to minimize their exposure to radioactivity, but two workers were hospitalized Thursday when they suffered burns after stepping into contaminated water. They were to be released from the hospital Monday.

A poll, meanwhile, showed that support for Japan's prime minister had risen amid the disasters.

The poll conducted over the weekend by Kyodo News agency found that approval of Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his Cabinet rose to 28.3 percent after sinking below 20 percent in February, before the earthquake.

Last month's low approval led to speculation that Kan's days were numbered. While the latest figure is still low, it suggests he is making some gains with voters.

About 58 percent of respondents in the nationwide telephone survey of 1,011 people said they approved of the government's handling of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but a similar number criticized its handling of the nuclear crisis.

The death toll from the disasters stood at 10,668 Sunday with 16,574 people missing, police said. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless.

SOURCE :Yahoo News

LONDON – More than 250,000 people took to London's streets to protest the toughest spending cuts since World War II — one of the largest demonstrations since the Iraq war — as riot police clashed with a small groups. More than 200 people were arrested.

Although most of Saturday's demonstration was peaceful, clashes continued into the night as dozens of protesters pelted officers with bottles and amonia-filled lightbulbs. Groups set several fires and smashed shop windows near tourist landmarks such as Trafalgar Square.

Teachers, nurses, firefighters, public sector workers, students, pensioners and campaign groups all took part in Saturday's mass demonstration.

"They shouldn't be taking money from public services. What have we done to deserve this?" said Alison Foster, a 53-year-old school teacher. "Yes, they are making vicious cuts. That's why I'm marching, to let them know this is wrong."

Britain is facing 80 billion pounds ($130 billion) of public spending cuts from Prime Minister David Cameron's coalition government as it struggles to slash the country's deficit. The government has already raised sales tax, but Britons are bracing for big cuts to public spending that are expected next month.

Treasury chief George Osborne has staked the government's future on tough economic remedies after Britain spent billions bailing out banks. Some half a million public sector jobs will likely be lost, about 18 billion ($28.5 billion) axed from welfare payments and the pension age raised to 66 by 2020.

Commander Bob Broadhurst of the Metropolitan Police confirmed more than 250,000 people had marched peacefully, but said around 500 caused trouble.

Hundreds were arrested and police expected that number to rise. Dozens were injured, and several were admitted to hospitals for a range of problems, including shortness of breath and broken bones. Five police officers were also injured.

The demonstration began in the afternoon. Police said one small group of protesters broke away from the main march, scuffling with police officers and attempting to smash windows on two of London's main shopping streets. Others threw objects at the posh Ritz Hotel in nearby Piccadilly.

The protesters, shouting "Welfare not Warfare!" outnumbered the police. Some attacked police officers with large pieces of wood. A handful of bank branches were damaged when groups threw paint and flares at buildings.

Still, the day's protest otherwise had a carnival feel with music, big screen TVs and performers in Hyde Park, one of London's biggest public gardens.

The TUC, the main umbrella body for British unions, says it believes the cuts will threaten the country's economic recovery, and has urged the government to create new taxes for banks and to close loopholes that allow some companies to pay less tax.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said he regretted the sporadic violence.

"I don't think the activities of a few hundred people should take the focus away from the hundreds of thousands of people who have sent a powerful message to the government today," he said. "Ministers should now seriously reconsider their whole strategy after today's demonstration. This has been Middle Britain speaking."

Ed Miliband, leader of the opposition Labour Party, likened the march to the suffragette movement in Britain and the civil rights movement in America. "Our causes may be different but we come together to realize our voice."

SOURCE :YAHOO NEWS

special thanks to my fb friend for this Birth pics..

                              
                    Its My Life

When i was young,i never dream of anything,
Eat and play is my concern,coz i dont care on anything,
Time goes by, lil me start to think,dreaming of things
Just for a change,i want this and i want  that,
But how? if i dont have to spend.
Just wait for a years to have one thing..

I used to cry for all the heartbreak,
My pain was wash away by my tears,
Time healed the wound,and no more stained
Time can tell ,time will heal,broken heart and lost soul
Will find a way again,

A way which everything seem right,
A beautiful sunny day that shining on my way,
Oh life ,hows wonderful,love it and cherish it,
For life never last long enough,like a tear drops,it will dried up,
Like a  pouring rain,it will  stop,after the rainbow reign,

As i walk through the journey of life,
Anew beginning that will lead me to the end,
For now im smoothly sailing ,sailing to the ocean of love
That i found in him,love you ,love me the feeling is the same,
You and me will still remain.

Hoping you and i will never  fade,even storm and thunder strikes
We will never break,Faith and trust is all we need
Differences between us Is nothing, if we only knew the thing..for you and i
In gods name were bless until the end.

THE ROYAL WEDDING OF KATE MIDDLETON AND HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS' THE PRINCE WILLIAM

by Darryl Ashton

(The following poem I've written on request, by the her Majesty' The Queen
of England).

Now I'm quite a fan of the Royals
And I do think that they are all Spoyals.
The Royals I like, can be boiled in a pan,
And be served with butter, by Gran!

Now William has popped the question at last
To Kate, who's now in full cast.
She will travel by Limo to the Abby to wed,
But leave in a carriage instead.

A sumptuous banquet with Nobs and Lords
Will be served at the elegent Halls.
As the gourmet of class, is matched by the glass,
Of Champagne, that has been on ice.

I can see them all now in their gowns,
Twirling around all the grounds.
What a bash it will be, with a good cuppa' tea,
Please, won't you save some for me?

The day is to be a bank holiday,
And beamed all around in the sky,
That all Lands can watch, and drink their scotch,
To say cheers - and do the "Hop-Scotch".

As the wedding is now all complete,
And William and Kate say: goodneet!
As they head off to their chambers, with Kate in her knickers,
And William having probs' with his kickers!

Prince Charles says: Go for it Wills,
But Camilla, is reaching for the pills.
It don't take long, for the noises to
throng,
And suddenly; Kate bursts into song.

But during the hours of morn,
There are noises a-coming, from the lawn:
Who could it be at this unwarranted hour?
A spirit, could well be...Diana!

Your mum is watching us make whoopie?
That's not very gracious, you agree?
I don't know what she wants, says Wills,
But her presence - is giving "me" the
Willy's!

Read More Poems Of Darryl Ashton :www.poetry.com

YANGON, Myanmar

A powerful earthquake struck northeastern Myanmar on Thursday night, killing one woman and shaking buildings as far away as Bangkok. No tsunami was generated.Homes and at least one bridge were damaged in several villages along Myanmar's borders with Thailand and Laos, according to residents who spoke to an aid agency.

There were also reports of minor damage in northern Thailand, where a woman died when a brick wall collapsed on her, police Capt. Weerapon Samranjai said. Cracks spread in the foundations of some buildings in the province surrounding the city of Chiang Rai, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) from the epicenter. The spires fell off two pagodas.

The tremor was so strong, and things fell down from the shelves. It was very scary, and we all ran out to the streets," said a 25-year old woman who runs a mini-mart in Tachileik, a Myanmar town near the border. As is common in the country, she spoke on condition of anonymity because authorities discourage talking to the media.

It was difficult to get a comprehensive picture of damage in the country's remote northeast, where communications, even at the best of time, are sketchy. The military-run government also tightly controls information.

The hilly region could see landslides of rock and mud shaken loose in the quake, said Jenny MacIntyre, a communications manager with World Vision, who spoke with representatives from the aid agency who were near the epicenter in Myanmar.

The 6.8-magnitude quake was just six miles (10 kilometers) deep, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At that strength and depth, it said 600,000 people could feel shaking anywhere from strong to violent. It added that since buildings in the area are considered vulnerable, damage could be widespread.

Buildings swayed hundreds of miles (kilometers) away, including in the Thai capital, Hanoi, Vietnam, and the Myanmar city of Mandalay.

"People living in high-rise buildings felt the tremor, and we are still on the streets. We are afraid to go back into the house," said a 34-year-old woman from Mandalay, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Max Jones, an Australian resident of Bangkok, was in his 27th-floor apartment when his building started shaking so hard he had to grab the walls to keep from falling.

"It was bloody scary, I can tell you," he said. Jones said he could see people running in the streets.

The quake was followed by two smaller aftershocks, 4.8 and 5.4 in magnitude.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake was located too far inland to create a destructive wave.

Source:csmonitor.com

Legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor has died at age 79.

Taylor had been hospitalized in February for congestive heart failure, a condition she learned she had in 2004. A two time Oscar winner (for "Butterfield 8" in 1960 and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in 1966), Taylor was also known for her eight high profile marriages.

In mid-March, her publicist, Sally Morrison, said she was in stable condition at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.She was surrounded by her four children when she died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, said publicist Sally Morrison.

Her son MIichael Wilding statement on the passing,

"My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love. Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world. Her remarkable body of work in film, her ongoing success as a businesswoman, and her brave and relentless advocacy in the fight against HIV/AIDS, all make us all incredibly proud of what she accomplished. We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."

Taylor was the most blessed and cursed of actresses, the toughest and the most vulnerable. She had extraordinary grace, wealth and voluptuous beauty, and won three Academy Awards, including a special one for her humanitarian work. She was the most loyal of friends and a defender of gays in Hollywood when AIDS was still a stigma in the industry and beyond. But she was afflicted by ill health, failed romances (eight marriages, seven husbands) and personal tragedy.

"I think I'm becoming fatalistic," she said in 1989. "Too much has happened in my life for me not to be fatalistic."

Her more than 50 movies included unforgettable portraits of innocence and of decadence, from the children's classic "National Velvet" and the sentimental family comedy "Father of the Bride" to Oscar-winning transgressions in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Butterfield 8." The historical epic "Cleopatra" is among Hollywood's greatest on-screen fiascos and a landmark of off-screen monkey business, the meeting ground of Taylor and Richard Burton, the "Brangelina" of their day.

She played enough bawdy women on film for critic Pauline Kael to deem her "Chaucerian Beverly Hills."

But her defining role, one that lasted long past her moviemaking days, was "Elizabeth Taylor," ever marrying and divorcing, in and out of hospitals, gaining and losing weight, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends, acquiring a jewelry collection that seemed to rival Tiffany's.

She was a child star who grew up and aged before an adoring, appalled and fascinated public. She arrived in Hollywood when the studio system tightly controlled an actor's life and image, had more marriages than any publicist could explain away and lasted long enough to no longer require explanation. She was the industry's great survivor, and among the first to reach that special category of celebrity — famous for being famous, for whom her work was inseparable from the gossip around it.

The London-born actress was a star at age 12, a bride and a divorcee at 18, a superstar at 19 and a widow at 26. She was a screen sweetheart and martyr later reviled for stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds, then for dumping Fisher to bed Burton, a relationship of epic passion and turbulence, lasting through two marriages and countless attempted reconciliations.

She was also forgiven. Reynolds would acknowledge voting for Taylor when she was nominated for "Butterfield 8" and decades later co-starred with her old rival in "These Old Broads," co-written by Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

Taylor's ailments wore down the grudges. She underwent at least 20 major operations and she nearly died from a bout with pneumonia in 1990. In 1994 and 1995, she had both hip joints replaced, and in February 1997, she underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. In 1983, she acknowledged a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and pain killers. Taylor was treated for alcohol and drug abuse problems at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Her troubles bonded her to her peers and the public, and deepened her compassion. Her advocacy for AIDS research and for other causes earned her a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1993.

As she accepted it, to a long ovation, she declared, "I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame."

The dark-haired Taylor made an unforgettable impression in Hollywood with "National Velvet," the 1945 film in which the 12-year-old belle rode a steeplechase horse to victory in the Grand National.

Critic James Agee wrote of her: "Ever since I first saw the child ... I have been choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were in the same grade of primary school."

"National Velvet," her fifth film, also marked the beginning of Taylor's long string of health issues. During production, she fell off a horse. The resulting back injury continued to haunt her.

Taylor matured into a ravishing beauty in "Father of the Bride," in 1950, and into a respected performer and femme fatale the following year in "A Place in the Sun," based on the Theodore Dreiser novel "An American Tragedy." The movie co-starred her close friend Montgomery Clift as the ambitious young man who drowns his working-class girlfriend to be with the socialite Taylor. In real life, too, men all but committed murder in pursuit of her.

Through the rest of the 1950s and into the 1960s, she and Marilyn Monroe were Hollywood's great sex symbols, both striving for appreciation beyond their physical beauty, both caught up in personal dramas filmmakers could only wish they had imagined. That Taylor lasted, and Monroe died young, was a matter of luck and strength; Taylor lived as she pleased and allowed no one to define her but herself.

"I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me," Taylor said around the time she turned 50.

She had a remarkable and exhausting personal and professional life. Her marriage to Michael Todd ended tragically when the producer died in a plane crash in 1958. She took up with Fisher, married him, then left him for Burton. Meanwhile, she received several Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.

She was a box-office star cast in numerous "prestige" films, from "Raintree County" with Clift to "Giant," an epic co-starring her friends Hudson and James Dean. Nominations came from a pair of movies adapted from work by Tennessee Williams: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly, Last Summer." In "Butterfield 8," released in 1960, she starred with Fisher as a doomed girl-about-town. Taylor never cared much for the film, but her performance at the Oscars wowed the world.

Sympathy for Taylor's widowhood had turned to scorn when she took up with Fisher, who had supposedly been consoling her over the death of Todd. But before the 1961 ceremony, she was hospitalized from a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia and Taylor underwent a tracheotomy. The scar was bandaged when she appeared at the Oscars to accept her best actress trophy for "Butterfield 8."

To a standing ovation, she hobbled to the stage. "I don't really know how to express my great gratitude," she said in an emotional speech. "I guess I will just have to thank you with all my heart." It was one of the most dramatic moments in Academy Awards history.

"Hell, I even voted for her," Reynolds later said.

Greater drama awaited: "Cleopatra." Taylor met Burton while playing the title role in the 1963 epic, in which the brooding, womanizing Welsh actor co-starred as Mark Antony. Their chemistry was not immediate. Taylor found him boorish; Burton mocked her physique. But the love scenes on film continued away from the set and a scandal for the ages was born. Headlines shouted and screamed. Paparazzi snapped and swooned. Their romance created such a sensation that the Vatican denounced the happenings as the "caprices of adult children."

The film so exceeded its budget that the producers lost money even though "Cleopatra" was a box-office hit and won four Academy awards. (With its $44 million budget adjusted for inflation, "Cleopatra" remains the most expensive movie ever made.) Taylor's salary per film topped $1 million. "Liz and Dick" became a couple on a first name basis with millions who had never met them.

They were a prolific acting team, even if most of the movies aged no better than their relationship: "The VIPs" (1963), "The Sandpiper" (1965), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), "The Taming of the Shrew" (1967), "The Comedians" (1967), "Dr. Faustus" (1967), "Boom!" (1968), "Under Milk Wood" (1971) and "Hammersmith Is Out" (1972).

Art most effectively imitated life in the adaptation of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" — in which Taylor and Burton played mates who fought viciously and drank heavily. She took the best actress Oscar for her performance as the venomous Martha in "Virginia Woolf" and again stole the awards show, this time by not showing up at the ceremony. She refused to thank the academy upon learning of her victory and chastised voters for not honoring Burton.

Taylor and Burton divorced in 1974, married again in 1975 and divorced again in 1976.

"We fight a great deal," Burton once said, "and we watch the people around us who don't quite know how to behave during these storms. We don't fight when we are alone."

In 1982, Taylor and Burton appeared in a touring production of the Noel Coward play "Private Lives," in which they starred as a divorced couple who meet on their respective honeymoons. They remained close at the time of Burton's death, in 1984.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, the daughter of Francis Taylor, an art dealer, and the former Sara Sothern, an American stage actress. At age 3, with extensive ballet training already behind her, Taylor danced for British princesses Elizabeth (the future queen) and Margaret Rose at London's Hippodrome. At age 4, she was given a wild field horse that she learned to ride expertly.

At the onset of World War II, the Taylors came to the United States. Francis Taylor opened a gallery in Beverly Hills and, in 1942, his daughter made her screen debut with a bit part in the comedy "There's One Born Every Minute."

Her big break came soon thereafter. While serving as an air-raid warden with MGM producer Sam Marx, Taylor's father learned that the studio was struggling to find an English girl to play opposite Roddy McDowall in "Lassie Come Home." Taylor's screen test for the film won her both the part and a long-term contract. She grew up quickly after that.

Still in school at 16, she would dash from the classroom to the movie set where she played passionate love scenes with Robert Taylor in "Conspirator."

"I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman," she once said. "I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt."

Soon after her screen presence was established, she began a series of very public romances. Early loves included socialite Bill Pawley, home run slugger Ralph Kiner and football star Glenn Davis.

Then, a roll call of husbands:
• She married Conrad Hilton Jr., son of the hotel magnate, in May 1950 at age 18. The marriage ended in divorce that December.

• When she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952, he was 39 to her 19. They had two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher Edward. That marriage lasted 4 years.

• She married cigar-chomping movie producer Michael Todd, also 20 years her senior, in 1957. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Francis. Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958.

• The best man at the Taylor-Todd wedding was Fisher. He left his wife Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor in 1959. She converted to Judaism before the wedding.

• Taylor and Fisher moved to London, where she was making "Cleopatra." She met Burton, who also was married. That union produced her fourth child, Maria.

• After her second marriage to Burton ended, she married John Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, in December 1976. Warner was elected a U.S. senator from Virginia in 1978. They divorced in 1982.

• In October 1991, she married Larry Fortensky, a truck driver and construction worker she met while both were undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. He was 20 years her junior. The wedding, held at the ranch of Michael Jackson, was a media circus that included the din of helicopter blades, a journalist who parachuted to a spot near the couple and a gossip columnist as official scribe.

But in August 1995, she and Fortensky announced a trial separation; she filed for divorce six months later and the split became final in 1997.

"I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married," she once remarked. "I guess I'm very old-fashioned."

Her philanthropic interests included assistance for the Israeli War Victims Fund, the Variety Clubs International and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

She received the Legion of Honor, France's most prestigious award, in 1987, for her efforts to support AIDS research. In May 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Taylor a dame — the female equivalent of a knight — for her services to the entertainment industry and to charity.

In 1993, she won a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute; in 1999, an institute survey of screen legends ranked her No. 7 among actresses.

During much of her later career, Taylor's waistline, various diets, diet books and tangled romances were the butt of jokes by Joan Rivers and others. John Belushi mocked her on "Saturday Night Live," dressing up in drag and choking on a piece of chicken.

"It's a wonder I didn't explode," Taylor wrote of her 60-pound weight gain — and successful loss — in the 1988 book "Elizabeth Takes Off on Self-Esteem and Self-Image."

She was an iconic star, but her screen roles became increasingly rare in the 1980s and beyond. She appeared in several television movies, including "Poker Alice" and "Sweet Bird of Youth," and entered the Stone Age as Pearl Slaghoople in the movie version of "The Flintstones." She had a brief role on the popular soap opera "General Hospital."

Taylor was the subject of numerous unauthorized biographies and herself worked on a handful of books, including "Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir" and "Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry." In tune with the media to the end, she kept in touch through her Twitter account.

"I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me," Taylor told Kim Kardashian in a 2011 interview for Harper's Bazaar. "And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern. But sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream."

Survivors include her daughters Maria Burton-Carson and Liza Todd-Tivey, sons Christopher and Michael Wilding, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A private family funeral is planned later this week.