“I don't want to be a sex symbol,” she once said. “I would rather be a symbol of a woman who makes mistakes, perhaps, but a woman who loves.”

Elizabeth Taylor died early today of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was 79.

Taylor was perhaps the most enduringly famous and accomplished movie star of the 1950s and ’60s. She won two Oscars for best actress, in 1961 for "Butterfield 8” and in 1966 for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

She was a woman who made mistakes, a woman who loved and a sex symbol, and she is remembered today almost everywhere. The BBC has a lovely tribute to her film career. Rest in peace, Cleopatra.