Elizabeth Taylor mourned

( Getty Images / March 23, 2011 )

Flowers placed by fans on Elizabeth Taylor's star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California. Legendary Hollywood actress and violet-eyed beauty Elizabeth Taylor, who captured hearts in "National Velvet" to launch a film career that spanned five decades, died Wednesday aged 79. Taylor had been in Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai hospital for six weeks with congestive heart failure, a condition with which she had struggled for some years and had recently suffered complications, a family statement said. "She was surrounded by her children: Michael Wilding, Christopher Wilding, Liza Todd, and Maria Burton," it said, noting that Taylor, who married eight times, was survived by 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.