n Elizabeth Taylor joins the impressive list of grade-A celebs lending their voices to The Simpsons today. With all the problems and disasters that have befallen the 66-year-old star over the last few years in particular, it's a wonder that she's still able to put on a brave face (or voice) and continue to live in the limelight.

n Taylor, who now describes herself as an ex-actress and works primarily as a crusader for Aids research and care funding, has lived several lives' worth of success, passion, disappointment, and illness in her 66 years. She has also had seven more husbands than most women.

n Born in London to American parents, Taylor was an unusually beautiful child star who grew into a beautiful young woman before audiences' very eyes. She made her screen debut at the age of 10 and shot to fame in a series of colourful MGM films, the most famous being Lassie Come Home (1943), National Velvet (1944), and Little Women (1949).

n Taylor was 17 when she slipped into her first adult role, playing the wife of Robert Taylor (no relation) in Conspirator. She lit up the screen - and Spencer Tracy's eyes - when she played his darling daughter in Father of the Bride (1950) and Father's Little Dividend (1951). It's strange to think that she was still only 19 when she starred opposite Montgomery Clift in the tragedy A Place in the Sun, and that before she was 30 she had been thrice Oscar-nominated - and once a winner, for Butterfield 8 (1960).

n Taylor's career took a nosedive as her love life grew ever more complicated. Cleopatra (1963), during which she began an affair with co-star Richard Burton, was a flop, and even after her marriage to Burton, the good performances were few and far between - the one notable exception being Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

n The 1970s were dominated by substance abuse, bland TV movies, and more weddings, and by the end of the 1980s, Taylor had all but retired.

Elizabeth Taylor is heard in The Simpsons (BBC2, 6.00pm)