Do You Remember: Elizabeth Taylor’s 8th Wedding (Co-Starring Michael Jackson and a Five-Tier Chocolate Cake)

Eighth time's the charm?

In a recent post, we talked about Elizabeth Taylor’s very peculiar and rather sad diet book. The latter decades of her illustrious career were still endlessly covered by the tabloids but, in her kooky old broad era, she had evolved into a grand dame who was oft the focus of mockery. If it wasn’t her weight, it was her off-the-wall public appearances or, of course, her love life. By the time Elizabeth Takes Off had been released, she was a six-time divorcee and one-time widow. Odd numbers are no fun, so in 1991, she married husband number eight, and she let People magazine get a glimpse of the wedding.

(Image via People.com)

Taylor had dealt with health problems for most of her life. She had been born with scoliosis and broke her back while filming National Velvet as a teen, which caused decades of chronic pain. In 1968 she underwent an emergency hysterectomy, which exacerbated her back problems and led to new hip pain. She found solace in alcohol and prescription painkillers but became dependent on them over the '70s. Ever the pioneer, in 1983, she became the first major Hollywood star to admit to having checked herself into the Betty Ford Clinic, which had only been open for about a year at that point. She relapsed in 1988 and re-entered the clinic. In a 1989 People article, Taylor was described by a friend as being "paranoid and disoriented" at the time of her second visit. "After her 1983 stay, Liz had confessed to a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and painkillers prescribed for her remarkably varied aches and infirmities. Now she was hooked once again, and this time friends were afraid she might overdose and die. Racked by back pain, she spent much of last year, according to a friend, "staying home, watching TV, taking pain pills and drinking Bloody Marys." Another friend feared she’d go the way of Elvis without an intervention.

Also staying there as a patient was Larry Fortensky, a construction worker from Stockton who had faced charges of driving while intoxicated the previous year.