Coordinates	39°15′58″N174°21′58″N
name	Virginia Woolf
birth name	Adeline Virginia Stephen
birth date	January 25, 1882
birth place	London, England, UK
death date	March 28, 1941
death place	near Lewes, East Sussex, England
spouse	Leonard Woolf (1912–1941)
notableworks	''To the Lighthouse'', ''Mrs Dalloway'', ''Orlando: A Biography'', ''A Room of One's Own''
occupation	Novelist, Essayist, Publisher, Critic
influences	William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Anton Chekhov, Emily Bronte, Daniel Defoe, E. M. Forster }}

Adeline Virginia Woolf (; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels ''Mrs Dalloway'' (1925), ''To the Lighthouse'' (1927) and ''Orlando'' (1928), and the book-length essay ''A Room of One's Own'' (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Early life

Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London in 1882 to Sir Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson). Julia (1846–1895) was a renowned beauty, born in India to Dr. John and Maria Pattle Jackson. She and her mother later moved to England, and Julia served as a model for Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones. Virginia's father, Sir Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), was a notable historian, author, critic and mountaineer. He was the editor of the ''Dictionary of National Biography'', a work which would influence Woolf's later experimental biographies.

Woolf was educated by her parents in their literate and well-connected household at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington. Her parents had each been married previously and been widowed, and, consequently, the household contained the children of three marriages. Julia had three children by her first husband, Herbert Duckworth: George, Stella, and Gerald Duckworth. Leslie first married Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), and they had one daughter: Laura Makepeace Stephen, who was declared mentally disabled and lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891. Leslie and Julia had four children together: Vanessa Stephen (1879), Thoby Stephen (1880), Virginia (1882), and Adrian Stephen (1883).

Sir Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray (the father of his first wife), meant that his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Julia Margaret Cameron (an aunt of Julia Stephen), and James Russell Lowell, who was made Virginia's honorary godfather, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Descended from an attendant of Marie Antoinette, she came from a family of renowned beauties who left their mark on Victorian society as models for Pre-Raphaelite artists and early photographers. Supplementing these influences was the immense library at the Stephens' house, from which Virginia and Vanessa were taught the classics and English literature. Unlike the girls, Adrian and Thoby were formally educated and sent to Cambridge, a difference which Virginia would regret. The sisters did, however, benefit indirectly from their brothers' Cambridge contacts, as the boys brought their new intellectual friends home to the Stephens' drawing room.

According to Woolf's memoirs, her most vivid childhood memories, however, were not of London but of St. Ives in Cornwall, where the family spent every summer until 1895. The Stephens' summer home, Talland House, looked out over Porthminster Bay, and is still standing today, though somewhat altered. Memories of these family holidays and impressions of the landscape, especially the Godrevy Lighthouse, informed the fiction Woolf wrote in later years, most notably ''To the Lighthouse''.

The sudden death of her mother in 1895, when Virginia was 13, and that of her half-sister Stella two years later, led to the first of Virginia's several nervous breakdowns. She was, however, able to take courses of study (some at degree level) in Greek, Latin, German and history at the Ladies’ Department of King’s College London between 1897 and 1901, and this brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women’s higher education such as Clara Pater, George Warr and Lilian Faithfull (Principal of the King’s Ladies’ Department and noted as one of the Steamboat ladies). Her sister Vanessa also studied Latin, Italian, art and architecture at King’s Ladies’ Department.

The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse and she was briefly institutionalised. Her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods, modern scholars (including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell) have suggested, were also influenced by the sexual abuse she and Vanessa were subjected to by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays ''A Sketch of the Past'' and ''22 Hyde Park Gate'').

Throughout her life, Woolf was plagued by periodic mood swings and associated illnesses. Though this instability often affected her social life, her literary productivity continued with few breaks throughout her life.

Bloomsbury

After the death of their father and Virginia's second nervous breakdown, Vanessa and Adrian sold 22 Hyde Park Gate and bought a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury.

Woolf came to know Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Rupert Brooke, Saxon Sydney-Turner, Duncan Grant, Leonard Woolf and Roger Fry, who together formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the Hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of ''The Platform of Time'' (2008). In 1907 Vanessa married Clive Bell, and the couple's interest in avant garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's development as an author.

Virginia Stephen married writer Leonard Woolf in 1912. Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew") the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making – after 25 years can’t bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." The two also collaborated professionally, in 1917 founding the Hogarth Press, which subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others. The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and in 1922 she met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville- West, was only twice consummated. In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with ''Orlando'', a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both genders. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in ''Orlando'', the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her". After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of an illness at the age of 26.

Work

Woolf began writing professionally in 1900, initially for the ''Times Literary Supplement'' with a journalistic piece about Haworth, home of the Brontë family. Her first novel, ''The Voyage Out'', was published in 1915 by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. This novel was originally entitled ''Melymbrosia'', but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of ''The Voyage Out'' has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life. Woolf went on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular success. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. She has been hailed as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century and one of the foremost modernists.

Woolf is considered one of the greatest innovators in the English language. In her works she experimented with stream-of-consciousness and the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters. Woolf's reputation declined sharply after World War II, but her eminence was re-established with the surge of Feminist criticism in the 1970s.

Woolf's work was criticised for epitomising the narrow world of the upper-middle class English intelligentsia. Some critics judged it to be lacking in universality and depth, without the power to communicate anything of emotional or ethical relevance to the disillusioned common reader, weary of the 1920s ''aesthetes''. She was also criticised by some as an anti-semite, despite her being happily married to a Jewish man. This anti-semitism is drawn from the fact that she often wrote of Jewish characters in stereotypical archetypes and generalisations, including describing some of her Jewish characters as physically repulsive and dirty. The overwhelming and rising 1920s and 30s anti-semitism possibly influenced Virginia Woolf. She wrote in her diary, "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." However, in a 1930 letter to the composer, Ethel Smyth, quoted in Nigel Nicolson's biography,''Virginia Woolf,'' she recollects her boasts of Leonard's Jewishness confirming her snobbish tendencies, "How I hated marrying a Jew- What a snob I was, for they have immense vitality." In another letter to her dear friend Ethel Smyth, Virginia gives a scathing denunciation of Christianity, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew has more religion in one toe nail—more human love, in one hair." Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf actually hated and feared 1930s fascism with its anti-semitism knowing they were on Hitler's blacklist. Her 1938 book ''Three Guineas'' was an indictment of fascism.

Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: Woolf is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions.

The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings – often wartime environments – of most of her novels. For example, ''Mrs Dalloway'' (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organise a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars.

''To the Lighthouse'' (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres around the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind. It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.

''Orlando'' (1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without aging much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed in order for it to be mocked.

''The Waves'' (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centered novel.

"Flush: A Biography" (1933) is a part fiction, part biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play, The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by actress Katharine Cornell.

Her last work, ''Between the Acts'' (1941) sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history. This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style, being chiefly written in verse. While Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with Bloomsbury, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism, it is not a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals.

Her works have been translated into over 50 languages, by writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Marguerite Yourcenar.

Death

After completing the manuscript of her last (posthumously published) novel, ''Between the Acts'', Woolf fell into a depression similar to that which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. On 28 March 1941, Woolf put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, and walked into the River Ouse near her home and drowned herself. Woolf's body was not found until 18 April 1941. Her husband buried her cremated remains under an elm in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.

In her last note to her husband she wrote: }}'''

Modern scholarship and interpretations

Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, ''Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings'', edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer. Controversially, Louise A. DeSalvo reads most of Woolf's life and career through the lens of the incestuous sexual abuse Woolf suffered as a young woman in her 1989 book ''Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on her Life and Work''.

Woolf's fiction is also studied for its insight into shell shock, war, class and modern British society. Her best-known nonfiction works, ''A Room of One's Own'' (1929) and ''Three Guineas'' (1938), examine the difficulties female writers and intellectuals face because men hold disproportionate legal and economic power and the future of women in education and society.

Irene Coates's book ''Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf: A Case for the Sanity of Virginia Woolf'' holds that Leonard Woolf's treatment of his wife encouraged her ill health and ultimately was responsible for her death. This is not accepted by Leonard's family but is extensively researched and fills in some of the gaps in the traditional account of Virginia Woolf's life. Victoria Glendinning's book ''Leonard Woolf: A Biography'', which is even more extensively researched and supported by contemporaneous writings, argues that Leonard Woolf was not only supportive of his wife but enabled her to live as long as she did by providing her with the life and atmosphere she needed to live and write. Virginia's own diaries support this view of the Woolfs' marriage.

Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell.

In 1992, Thomas Caramagno published the book ''The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf's Art and Manic-Depressive Illness."

Hermione Lee's 1996 biography ''Virginia Woolf'' provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work.

In 2001 Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited ''The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf''. Julia Briggs's ''Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life'', published in 2005 is the most recent examination of Woolf's life. It focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. Thomas Szasz's book ''My Madness Saved Me: The Madness and Marriage of Virginia Woolf'' (ISBN 0-7658-0321-6) was published in 2006.

Rita Martin’s play ''Flores no me pongan'' (2006) considers Woolf's last minutes of life in order to debate polemical issues such as bisexuality, Jewishness and war. Written in Spanish, the play was performed in Miami under the direction of actress Miriam Bermudez.

Depictions

Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, ''The Hours'', focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel ''Mrs Dalloway''. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf, a role for which she won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Actress. The film also starred Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep and was scored with an also award winning soundtrack by American composer Philip Glass. Susan Sellers' novel ''Vanessa and Virginia'' (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.

Bibliography

Novels

''The Voyage Out'' (1915)

''Night and Day'' (1919)

''Jacob's Room'' (1922)

''Mrs Dalloway'' (1925)

''To the Lighthouse'' (1927)

''Orlando'' (1928)

''The Waves'' (1931)

''The Years'' (1937)

''Between the Acts'' (1941)

Short story collections

''Monday or Tuesday'' (1921)

''A Haunted House and Other Short Stories'' (1944)

''Mrs Dalloway's Party'' (1973)

''The Complete Shorter Fiction'' (1985)

"Biographies"

Virginia Woolf published three books to which she gave the subtitle "A Biography":

''Orlando: A Biography'' (1928, usually characterised ''Novel'', inspired by the life of Vita Sackville-West)

''Flush: A Biography'' (1933, more explicitly cross-genre: ''fiction'' as "stream of consciousness" tale by Flush, a dog; ''non-fiction'' in the sense of telling the story of the owner of the dog, Elizabeth Barrett Browning), reprinted in 2005 by Persephone Books

''Roger Fry: A Biography'' (1940, usually characterised ''non-fiction'', however: "[Woolf's] novelistic skills worked against her talent as a biographer, for her impressionistic observations jostled uncomfortably with the simultaneous need to marshal a multitude of facts.")

Non-fiction books

''Modern Fiction'' (1919)

''The Common Reader'' (1925)

''A Room of One's Own'' (1929)

''On Being Ill'' (1930)

''The London Scene'' (1931)

''The Common Reader: Second Series'' (1932)

''Three Guineas'' (1938)

''The Death of the Moth and Other Essays'' (1942)

''The Moment and Other Essays'' (1947)

''The Captain's Death Bed And Other Essays'' (1950)

''Granite and Rainbow'' (1958)

''Books and Portraits'' (1978)

''Women And Writing'' (1979)

''Collected Essays'' (four volumes)

Drama

''Freshwater: A Comedy'' (performed in 1923, revised in 1935, and published in 1976)

Autobiographical writings and diaries

''A Writer’s Diary'' (1953) – Extracts from the complete diary

''Moments of Being'' (1976)

''A Moment's Liberty: the shorter diary'' (1990)

''The Diary of Virginia Woolf'' (five volumes) – Diary of Virginia Woolf from 1915 to 1941

''Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897–1909'' (1990)

''Travels With Virginia Woolf'' (1993) – Greek travel diary of Virginia Woolf, edited by Jan Morris

''The Platform of Time: Memoirs of Family and Friends'', Expanded Edition, edited by S. P. Rosenbaum (London, Hesperus, 2008)

Letters

''Congenial Spirits: The Selected Letters'' (1993)

''The Letters of Virginia Woolf 1888–1941'' (six volumes, 1975–1980)

''Paper Darts: The Illustrated Letters of Virginia Woolf'' (1991)

Prefaces, contributions

''Selections Autobiographical and Imaginative from the Works of George Gissing'' ed. Alfred C. Gissing, with an introduction by Virginia Woolf (London & New York, 1929)

Biographies

''Virginia Woolf'' by Nigel Nicolson. New York, Penguin Group. 2000

''Virginia Woolf: A Biography'' by Quentin Bell. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972; Revised editions 1990, 1996

"Vanessa and Virginia" by Susan Sellers (Two Ravens, 2008; Harcourt 2009) [Fictional biography of Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell]

''The Unknown Virginia Woolf'' by Roger Poole. Cambridge UP, 1978.

''The Invisible Presence: Virginia Woolf and the Mother-Daughter Relationship'' by Ellen Bayuk Rosenman. Louisiana State University Press, 1986.

''Virginia Woolf and the politics of style'', by Pamela J. Transue. SUNY Press, 1986. ISBN 0887062865.

''The Victorian heritage of Virginia Woolf: the external world in her novels'', by Janis M. Paul. Pilgrim Books, 1987. ISBN 0937664731.

''Virginia Woolf's To the lighthouse'', by Harold Bloom. Chelsea House, 1988. ISBN 1555460348.

''Virginia Woolf: the frames of art and life'', by C. Ruth Miller. Macmillan, 1988. ISBN 0333448804.

''Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work'' by Louise DeSalvo. Boston: Little Brown, 1989

''A Virginia Woolf Chronology'' by Edward Bishop. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1989.

''A Very Close Conspiracy: Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf'' by Jane Dunn. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990

''Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life'' by Lyndall Gordon. New York: Norton, 1984; 1991.

''Virginia Woolf and war'', by Mark Hussey. Syracuse University Press, 1991. ISBN 0815625375.

''The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf's Art and Manic-Depressive Illness'' by Thomas D. Caramago. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1992

''Virginia Woolf'' by James King. NY: W.W. Norton, 1994.

''Art and Affection: A Life of Virginia Woolf'' by Panthea Reid. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.

''Virginia Woolf'' by Hermione Lee. New York: Knopf, 1997.

''Granite and Rainbow: The Hidden Life of Virginia Woolf'' by Mitchell Leaska. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.

''The Feminist Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf'', by Jane Goldman. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521794587.

''Virginia Woolf and the nineteenth-century domestic novel'', by Emily Blair. SUNY Press, 2002. ISBN 0791471195.

''Virginia Woolf: becoming a writer'', by Katherine Dalsimer. Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0300092083.

''Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman'' by Ruth Gruber. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005

''My Madness Saved Me: The Madness and Marriage of Virginia Woolf'' by Thomas Szasz, 2006

''Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life'', by Julia Briggs. Harcourt, 2006. ISBN 0156032295.

''The Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury'' by Sarah M. Hall, Continuum Publishing, 2007

''Virginia Woolf and the Visible World'', by Emily Dalgarno. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 0521033608,.

''A Life of One's Own: A Guide to Better Living through the Work and Wisdom of Virginia Woolf'' by Ilana Simons, New York: Penguin Press, 2007

''Sudden Endings: 13 Profiles in Depth of Famous Suicides'' by M. J. Meaker, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964, pp. 250–269: "The Fatal Game: Virginia Woolf".

Notes

External links

Biography of Virginia Woolf on the Yale Modernism Lab

Listen to Virginia Woolf's BBC Broadcast (29 April 1937) 'Words Fail Me'

Rare recordings of Virginia Woolf, Conan Doyle, and others

Monk's House information at the National Trust

The Virginia Woolf Collection at the Victoria University Library Special Collections

''The Legacy'', full text and audio file

''The Searchlight'', full text and audio file

* Category:1882 births Category:1941 deaths Category:20th-century women writers Category:Alumni of King's College London Category:Bisexual writers Category:Bloomsbury Group Category:English diarists Category:English essayists Category:English novelists Category:English women writers Category:Female suicides Category:Feminist writers Category:LGBT people from England Category:LGBT writers from the United Kingdom Category:Modernist women writers Category:People from Kensington Category:People with bipolar disorder Category:Rhetoricians Category:Suicides by drowning Category:Suicides in England Category:Women diarists Category:Women essayists Category:Women novelists Category:Writers who committed suicide Category:Women of the Victorian era Category:People of the Edwardian era

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Coordinates	39°15′58″N174°21′58″N
Name	Virginia
Fullname	Commonwealth of Virginia
Flag	Flag of Virginia.svg
Flaglink	Flag
Seal	Seal of Virginia.svg
Seallink	Seal
Map	Map of USA VA2.svg
Flagalt	Navy blue flag with the circular Seal of Virginia centered on it.
Sealalt	A circular seal with the words "Virginia" on the top and "Sic Semper Tyrannis" on the bottom. In the center, a woman wearing a blue toga and Athenian helmet stands on the chest of dead man wearing a purple breastplate and skirt. The woman holds a spear and sheathed sword. The man holds a broken chain while his crown lies away from the figures. Orange leaves encircle the seal.
Mapalt	Virginia is located on the Atlantic coast along the line that divides the Northern and Southern halves of the United States. It runs mostly east to west. It includes a small peninsula across a bay which is discontinuous with the rest of the state.
Nickname	Old Dominion; Mother of Presidents
Motto	Sic Semper Tyrannis (Latin)
Mottoenglish	Thus always to tyrants
Former	Colony of Virginia
Capital	Richmond
Largestcity	Virginia Beach
Largestmetro	Northern Virginia
Demonym	Virginian
Governor	Bob McDonnell (R)
Lieutenant governor	Bill Bolling (R)
Legislature	General Assembly
Upperhouse	Senate
Lowerhouse	House of Delegates
Senators	Jim Webb (D)Mark Warner (D)
Representative	8 Republicans, 3 Democrats
Electoralvotes	13
Postalabbreviation	VA
Officiallang	English
Languages	English 94.6%, Spanish 5.9%
Arearank	35th
Totalareaus	42,774.2
Totalarea	110,785.67
Pcwater	7.4
Poprank	12th
2000pop	8,001,024
Densityrank	16th
2000densityus	202.6
2000density	78
Medianhouseholdincome	$61,044
Incomerank	8th
Admittanceorder	10th
Admittancedate	June 25, 1788
Timezone	Eastern: UTC−5/−4
Latitude	36° 32′ N to 39° 28′ N
Longitude	75° 15′ W to 83° 41′ W
Widthus	200
Width	320
Lengthus	430
Length	690
Highestpoint	Mount Rogers
Highestelevus	5,729
Highestelev	1,747
Meanelevus	950
Meanelev	290
Lowestpoint	Atlantic Ocean
Lowestelevus	0
Lowestelev	0
Isocode	US-VA
Website	www.virginia.gov }}

The Commonwealth of Virginia () is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city and Fairfax County the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population is over eight million.

The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was one of the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Confederacy in the American Civil War, during which Richmond was made the Confederate capital and Virginia's northwestern counties separated to form the state of West Virginia. Although the Commonwealth was under conservative single party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia.

The Virginia General Assembly is the oldest legislature in the Americas. The state government has been repeatedly ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States. It is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. Virginia's economy has many sectors: agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley; federal agencies in Northern Virginia, including the headquarters of the Department of Defense and CIA; and military facilities in Hampton Roads, the site of the region's main seaport. Virginia's public schools and many colleges and universities have contributed to growing media and technology sectors. As a result, computer chips have become the state's leading export.

Geography

Virginia has a total area of , including of water, making it the 35th-largest state by area. Virginia is bordered by Maryland and Washington, D.C. to the north and east; by the Atlantic Ocean to the east; by North Carolina and Tennessee to the south; by Kentucky to the west; and by West Virginia to the north and west. Virginia's boundary with Maryland and Washington, D.C. extends to the low-water mark of the south shore of the Potomac River. The southern border is defined as the 36° 30′ parallel north, though surveyor error led to deviations of as much as three arcminutes.

Geology and terrain

The Chesapeake Bay separates the contiguous portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginia's Eastern Shore. The bay was formed following a meteoroid impact crater during the Eocene. Many of Virginia's rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, which create three peninsulas in the bay. Geographically and geologically, Virginia is divided into five regions from east to west: Tidewater, Piedmont, Blue Ridge Mountains, Ridge and Valley, and Cumberland Plateau.

The Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay. The Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic. The region, known for its heavy clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the chain of Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the state, the tallest being Mount Rogers at . The Ridge and Valley region is west of the mountains, and includes the Great Appalachian Valley. The region is carbonate rock based, and includes Massanutten Mountain. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Mountains are in the south-west corner of Virginia, below the Allegheny Plateau. In this region rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin.

The state's carbonate rock is filled with more than 4,000 caves, ten of which are open for tourism. The Virginia seismic zone has not had a history of regular activity. Earthquakes are rarely above 4.5 on the Richter magnitude scale because Virginia is located away from the edges of the North American Plate. The largest earthquake, at an estimated 5.9 magnitude, was in 1897 near Blacksburg. A 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck central Virginia on August 23, 2011, near Mineral. The earthquake was reportedly felt as far away as New York City and Toronto, Canada. Coal mining takes place in the three mountainous regions at 40 distinct coal beds near Mesozoic basins. Other resources such as slate, kyanite, sand, and gravel are mined, with an annual value over $2 billion .

Climate

The climate of Virginia becomes increasingly warmer and more humid farther south and east. Seasonal extremes vary from average lows of in January to average highs of in July. The Atlantic ocean has a strong effect on eastern and southeastern coastal areas of the state. Influenced by the Gulf Stream, coastal weather is subject to hurricanes, most pronouncedly near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

Virginia has an annual average of 35–45 days of thunderstorm activity, particularly in the western part of the state, and an average annual precipitation of . Cold air masses arriving over the mountains in winter can lead to significant snowfalls, such as the Blizzard of 1996 and winter storms of 2009–2010. The interaction of these elements with the state's topography creates distinct microclimates in the Shenandoah Valley, the mountainous southwest, and the coastal plains. Virginia averages seven tornadoes annually, most F2 or lower on the Fujita scale.

In recent years, the expansion of the southern suburbs of Washington, D.C. into Northern Virginia has introduced an urban heat island primarily caused by increased absorption of solar radiation in more densely populated areas. In the American Lung Association's 2011 report, 11 counties received failing grades for air quality, with Fairfax County having the worst in the state, due to automobile pollution. Haze in the mountains is caused in part by coal power plants.

Flora and fauna

Forests cover 65% of the state, primarily with deciduous, broad leaf trees. Lower altitudes are more likely to have small but dense stands of moisture-loving hemlocks and mosses in abundance, with hickory and oak in the Blue Ridge. However since the early 1990s, Gypsy moth infestations have eroded the dominance of oak forests. Other common trees and plants include chestnut, maple, tulip poplar, mountain laurel, milkweed, daisies, and many species of ferns. The largest areas of wilderness are along the Atlantic coast and in the western mountains, where the largest populations of trillium wildflowers in North America are found. The Atlantic coast regions are host to flora commonly associated with the South Atlantic pine forests and lower Southeast Coastal Plain maritime flora, the latter found primarily in southeastern Virginia.

Mammals include White-tailed deer, black bear, beaver, bobcat, coyote, raccoon, skunk, groundhog, Virginia Opossum, gray fox, and eastern cottontail rabbit. Birds include cardinals, barred owls, Carolina chickadees, Red-tailed Hawks, and Wild Turkeys. The Peregrine Falcon was reintroduced into Shenandoah National Park in the mid-1990s. Walleye, brook trout, Roanoke bass, and blue catfish are among the 210 known species of freshwater fish. Running brooks with rocky bottoms are often inhabited by a plentiful amounts of crayfish and salamanders. The Chesapeake Bay is host to many species, including blue crabs, clams, oysters, and rockfish (also known as striped bass).

Virginia has 30 National Park Service units, such as Great Falls Park and the Appalachian Trail, and one national park, the Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah was established in 1935 and encompasses the scenic Skyline Drive. Almost 40% of the park's area (79,579 acres/322 km²) has been designated as wilderness under the National Wilderness Preservation System. Additionally, there are 34 Virginia state parks and 17 state forests, run by the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Department of Forestry. The Chesapeake Bay, while not a national park, is protected by both state and federal legislation, and the jointly run Chesapeake Bay Program which conducts restoration on the bay and its watershed. The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge extends into North Carolina. The Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge marks the beginning of the Outer Banks which also extends into North Carolina.

History

Jamestown 2007 marked Virginia's quadricentennial year, celebrating 400 years since the establishment of the Jamestown Colony. The celebrations highlighted contributions from Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans, each which had a significant part in shaping Virginia's history. Warfare, including among these groups, has also had an important role. Virginia was a focal point in conflicts from the French and Indian War, the American Revolution and the Civil War, to the Cold War and the War on Terrorism. Stories about historic figures, such as those surrounding Pocahontas and John Smith, George Washington's childhood, or the plantation elite in the slave society of the antebellum period, have also created potent myths of state history, and have served as rationales for Virginia's ideology. The legacy of slavery in the state has also continued to affect the society's racial politics.

Colony

The first people are estimated to have arrived in Virginia over 12,000 years ago. By 5,000 years ago more permanent settlements emerged, and farming began by 900 AD. By 1500, the Algonquian peoples had founded towns such as Werowocomoco in the Tidewater region, which they referred to as ''Tsenacommacah''. The other major language groups in the area were the Siouan to the west, and the Iroquoians, who included the Nottoway and Meherrin, to the north and south. After 1570, the Algonquians consolidated under Chief Powhatan in response to threats from these other groups on their trade network. Powhatan controlled more than 30 smaller tribes and over 150 settlements, who shared a common Virginia Algonquian language. In 1607, the native Tidewater population was between 13,000 to 14,000.

In 1583, Queen Elizabeth I of England granted Walter Raleigh a charter to explore and plant a colony north of Spanish Florida. In 1584, Raleigh sent an expedition to the Atlantic coast of North America. The name "Virginia" may have been suggested then by Raleigh or Elizabeth, perhaps noting her status as the "Virgin Queen", and may also be related to a native phrase, "Wingandacoa", or name, "Wingina". Initially the name applied to the entire coastal region from South Carolina to Maine, plus the island of Bermuda. The London Company was incorporated as a joint stock company by the proprietary Charter of 1606, which granted land rights to this area. The Company financed the first permanent English settlement in the "New World", Jamestown. Named for King James I, it was founded in May 1607 by Christopher Newport. In 1619, colonists took greater control with an elected legislature called the House of Burgesses. With the bankruptcy of the London Company in 1624, the settlement was taken into royal authority as a British crown colony.

Life in the colony was perilous, and many died during the "starving time" in 1609 and the Anglo-Powhatan Wars, including the Indian massacre of 1622, which fostered the colonists' negative view of all tribes. By 1624, only 3,400 of the 6,000 early settlers had survived. However, European demand for tobacco fueled the arrival of more settlers and servants. The headright system tried to solve the labor shortage by providing colonists with land for each indentured servant they transported to Virginia. African workers were first imported in 1619, and their slavery was codified after a 1654 lawsuit over the servant John Casor. Tensions between the working and ruling classes led to Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, by when current and former indentured servants made up as much as 80% of the population. Colonists appropriated land from Virginia Indians by force and treaty, including the Treaty of 1677, which made the signatory tribes tributary states. Williamsburg became the colonial capital in 1699, following the founding of The College of William & Mary in 1693.

Statehood

The British Parliament's efforts to levy new taxes following the French and Indian War (1754–1763) were deeply unpopular in the colonies. In the House of Burgesses, opposition to taxation without representation was led by Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, among others. Virginians began to coordinate their actions with other colonies in 1773, and sent delegates to the Continental Congress the following year. After the House of Burgesses was dissolved by the royal governor in 1774, Virginia's revolutionary leaders continued to govern via the Virginia Conventions. On May 15, 1776, the Convention declared Virginia's independence from the British Empire and adopted George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was then included in a new constitution. Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, drew upon Mason's work in drafting the national Declaration of Independence.

When the American Revolutionary War began, George Washington, who had commanded Virginia's forces in the French and Indian War, was selected to head the colonial army. During the war, the capital was moved to Richmond at the urging of Governor Thomas Jefferson, who feared that Williamsburg's location would make it vulnerable to British attack. In 1781, the combined action of Continental and French land and naval forces trapped the British army on the Virginia Peninsula, where troops under George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau defeated British General Cornwallis in the Siege of Yorktown. His surrender on October 19, 1781, led to peace negotiations in Paris and secured the independence of the colonies.

Virginians were instrumental in writing the United States Constitution. James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1789. Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788. The three-fifths compromise ensured that Virginia, with its large number of slaves, initially had the largest bloc in the House of Representatives. Together with the Virginia dynasty of presidents, this gave the Commonwealth national importance. In 1790, both Virginia and Maryland ceded territory to form the new District of Columbia, though the Virginian area was retroceded in 1846. Virginia is sometimes called "Mother of States" because of its role in being carved into states like Kentucky, which became the 15th state in 1792, and for the numbers of American pioneers born in Virginia.

Civil War and aftermath

In addition to agriculture, slave labor was increasingly used in mining, shipbuilding and other industries. Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831 and John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 showed deep social discontent about slavery and its role in the plantation economy. By 1860, almost half a million people, roughly 31% of the total population of Virginia, were enslaved. This division contributed to the start of the American Civil War.

Virginia voted to secede from the United States on April 17, 1861, after the Battle of Fort Sumter and Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers. On April 24, Virginia joined the Confederate States of America, which chose Richmond as its capital. After the 1863 Wheeling Convention, 48 counties in the northwest separated to form a new state of West Virginia, which chose to remain loyal to the Union. During the war, more battles were fought in Virginia than anywhere else, including Bull Run, the Seven Days Battles, Chancellorsville, and the concluding Battle of Appomattox Court House. After the capture of Richmond in 1865, the capital was briefly moved to Danville. Virginia was formally restored to the United States in 1870, due to the work of the Committee of Nine.

During the post-war Reconstruction era, Virginia adopted a constitution which provided for free public schools, and guaranteed political, civil, and voting rights. The populist Readjuster Party ran an inclusive coalition until the conservative white Democratic Party gained power after 1883. It passed segregationist Jim Crow laws and in 1902 rewrote the Constitution of Virginia to include a poll tax and other voter registration measures that effectively disfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites until passage of federal legislation in the 1960s. Though their schools were segregated and underfunded, as were services, due to a lack of political representation, African Americans were able to create their own communities.

Contemporary era

Protests started by Barbara Rose Johns in 1951 in Farmville against segregated schools led to the lawsuit ''Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County''. This case, filed by Richmond natives Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, was decided in 1954 with ''Brown v. Board of Education'', which rejected the segregationist doctrine of "separate but equal". However in 1958, under the policy of "massive resistance" spearheaded by the influential segregationist Senator Harry F. Byrd and his Byrd Organization, the Commonwealth prohibited desegregated local schools from receiving funding.

The Civil Rights Movement gained many participants in the 1960s and achieved the moral force to gain national legislation for protection of suffrage and civil rights for African Americans. In 1964 the United States Supreme Court ordered Prince Edward County and others to integrate schools. In 1967, the Court also struck down the state's ban on interracial marriage. From 1969 to 1971, state legislators under Governor Mills Godwin rewrote the constitution, after goals such as the repeal of Jim Crow laws had been achieved. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected as governor in the United States.

New economic forces also changed the Commonwealth. In 1926, Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, rector of Williamsburg's Bruton Parish Church, began restoration of colonial-era buildings in the historic district with financial backing of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; their work led to the development of Colonial Williamsburg, the state's most popular tourism site. World War II and the Cold War led to massive expansion of national government programs housed in offices in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., and correlative population growth. Among the federal developments was the Pentagon, which was later targeted in the September 11 attacks, during which 189 people died.

Cities and towns

Virginia is divided into 95 counties and 39 independent cities, which both operate the same way since independent cities are considered to be county-equivalent. This method of treating cities and counties equally is unique to Virginia, with only three other independent cities in the United States outside Virginia. Virginia limits the authority of cities and counties to countermand laws expressly allowed by the Virginia General Assembly under what is known as Dillon's Rule. In addition to independent cities, there are also incorporated ''towns'' which operate under their own governments, but are part of a county. Finally there are hundreds of unincorporated communities within the counties. Virginia does not have any further political subdivisions, such as villages or townships.

Virginia has 11 Metropolitan Statistical Areas; Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and Richmond-Petersburg are the three most populous. Richmond is the capital of Virginia, and its metropolitan area has a population of over 1.2 million. , Virginia Beach is the most populous city in the Commonwealth, with Norfolk and Chesapeake second and third, respectively. Norfolk forms the urban core of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, which has a population over 1.6 million people and is the site of the world's largest naval base, Naval Station Norfolk. Suffolk, which includes a portion of the Great Dismal Swamp, is the largest city by area at .

Fairfax County is the most populous locality in Virginia, with over one million residents, although that does not include its county seat Fairfax, which is one of the independent cities. Fairfax County has a major urban business and shopping center in Tysons Corner, Virginia's largest office market. Neighboring Loudoun County, with the county seat at Leesburg, is both the fastest-growing county in Virginia and has the highest median household income ($114,204) in the country . Arlington County, the smallest self-governing county in the United States by land area, is an urban community organized as a county. The Roanoke area, with an estimated population of 300,399, is the largest Metropolitan Statistical Area in western Virginia.

Demographics

{|style="float:right;" |- | |} , Virginia had a population of 8,001,024 which is an increase of 118,434, or about 1.5%, from the prior year's estimate and an increase of 922,509, or 13%, since 2000. This includes an increase from net migration of 314,832 people into the Commonwealth. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 159,627 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 155,205 people. The center of population is located in Goochland County outside of Richmond.

English was passed as the Commonwealth's official language by statutes in 1981 and again in 1996, though the status is not mandated by the Constitution of Virginia. English is the only language spoken by , though it is spoken "very well" by an additional 570,638 (7.9%) for a total of 94.6% of the Commonwealth. Among speakers of other languages, Spanish is the most common with 424,381 (5.9%). Asian and Pacific Islander languages, including Korean, Vietnamese, and Filipino.

Ethnicity

, the five largest reported ancestry groups in Virginia are: African (19.6%), German (11.7%), unspecified American (11.4%), English (11.1%), and Irish (9.8%). People of English heritage settled throughout the Commonwealth during the colonial period, and others of British and Irish heritage have since immigrated. Those who self-identify as having "American" ancestry are predominantly of English descent, but have ancestry that has been in North America for so long that they choose to identify simply as American. Of the English immigrants to Virginia in the 1600s, 75% came as indentured servants. The western mountains have many settlements that were founded by Scotch-Irish immigrants before the American Revolution. There are also sizable numbers of people of German descent in the northwestern mountains and Shenandoah Valley.

Most African American Virginians have been descendants of enslaved Africans who worked on tobacco, cotton, and hemp plantations. These men, women and children were brought from west-central Africa, primarily from Angola and the Bight of Biafra. The Igbo ethnic group of what is now southern Nigeria were the single largest African group among slaves in Virginia. Though the black population was reduced by the Great Migration, since 1965 there has been a reverse migration of blacks returning south.

More recent immigration in the late 20th century and early 21st century has fueled new communities of Hispanics, particularly Central Americans, and Asians. , 7.9% of Virginians are Hispanic, 5.5% are Asian, and 0.9% are American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. The state's Hispanic population rose by 92% from 2000 to 2010, with two-thirds of Hispanics living in Northern Virginia. Hispanics in Virginia have higher median household incomes and educational attainment than the general United States or Virginia population.

Northern Virginia has some of the largest populations nationwide of Vietnamese Americans, whose major wave of immigration followed the Vietnam War, and Korean Americans, whose migration has been more recent and was induced in part by the quality school system. The Filipino American community has about 45,000 in the Hampton Roads area, many of whom have ties to the U.S. Navy and armed forces. Virginia has extended state recognition to eight Native American tribes resident in the state, though all lack federal recognition status. Most Native American groups are located in the Tidewater region.

{|class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto 1em auto" |

! colspan="2" style="background:#ccf;"		Largest Ancestries by County	! colspan="3" style="background:#ccf;"
Non-Hispanic White		rowspan="5" style="text-align:center; width:280px;"|270px|alt=Virginia counties colored either red, blue, yellow, green, or purple based on the populations most common ancestry. The south-east is predominately purple for African American, while the west is mostly red for American. The north has yellow for German, with two small areas green for Irish. Yellow is also found in spots in the west. A strip in the middle is blue for English.U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 special tabulation. American Factfinder provides census data and maps.
Black or African American
Hispanic or Latino (of any race)
Asian
American Indian and Alaska Native

|}

Religion

{|class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left:15px; margin-top:0;" |- ! style="background:#ccf;" colspan="3"|Religion (2008) |- |colspan="2" style="border-bottom:0;"|Christian |align=right|76% |- |rowspan="5" style="border-top:0; border-bottom:0;"| |Baptist |align=right|27% |- |Roman Catholic  |align=right|11% |- |Methodist |align=right|8% |- |Lutheran |align=right|2% |- |Other Christian |align=right|28% |- |colspan="3" style="border-top:0;"| |- |colspan=2|Buddhism |align=right|1% |- |colspan=2|Hinduism |align=right|1% |- |colspan=2|Judaism |align=right|1% |- |colspan=2|Islam |align=right|0.5% |- |colspan=2|Unaffiliated |align=right|18% |}

Virginia is predominantly Christian and Protestant; Baptists are the largest single group with 27% of the population . Baptist denominational groups in Virginia include the Baptist General Association of Virginia, with about 1,400 member churches, which supports both the Southern Baptist Convention and the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; and the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia with more than 500 affiliated churches, which supports the Southern Baptist Convention. Roman Catholics are the second-largest religious group, and the group which grew the most in the 1990s. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington includes most of Northern Virginia's Catholic churches, while the Diocese of Richmond covers the rest.

The Virginia Conference is the regional body of the United Methodist Church and the Virginia Synod is responsible for the congregations of the Lutheran Church. Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians each composed 1–3% of the population . The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Southern Virginia, and Southwestern Virginia support the various Episcopal churches.

In November 2006, 15 conservative Episcopal churches voted to split from the Diocese of Virginia over the ordination of openly gay bishops and clergy in other dioceses of the Episcopal Church; these churches continue to claim affiliation with the larger Anglican Communion through other bodies outside the United States. Though Virginia law allows parishioners to determine their church's affiliation, the diocese claims the secessionist churches' properties. The resulting property law case is a test for Episcopal churches nationwide.

Among other religions, adherents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints constitute 1% of the population, with 190 congregations in Virginia . Fairfax Station is the site of the Ekoji Buddhist Temple, of the Jodo Shinshu school, and the Hindu Durga Temple. While the state's Jewish population is small, organized Jewish sites date to 1789 with Congregation Beth Ahabah. Muslims are a growing religious group throughout the Commonwealth through immigration. Megachurches in the Commonwealth include Thomas Road Baptist Church, Immanuel Bible Church, and McLean Bible Church. Several Christian universities are also based in the state, including Regent University, Liberty University, and Lynchburg College.

Economy

Virginia's economy is balanced, with diverse sources of income, including government and military, farming, and business. Virginia has 4.1 million civilian workers, and one-third of the jobs are in the service sector. The unemployment rate was 6.3% . The Gross Domestic Product of Virginia was $363 billion in 2009. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Virginia had the most counties in the top 100 wealthiest in the United States based upon median income in 2007.

Virginia has the highest concentration of technology workers of any state. Computer chips became the state's highest-grossing export in 2006, surpassing its traditional top exports of coal and tobacco combined. Northern Virginia, once considered the state's dairy capital, now hosts software, communication technology, and consulting companies, particularly in the Dulles Technology Corridor. Northern Virginia's data centers currently carry more than 50% of the nation's internet traffic, and by 2012 Dominion Power expects that 10% of all its electricity in Northern Virginia will be used by data centers. Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Northern Virginia have the highest and second highest median household income, respectively, of all counties in the United States .

Virginia companies received the fourth-highest amount of venture capital funding in the first half of 2011 after California, Massachusetts, and New York. In 2009, ''Forbes Magazine'' named Virginia the best state in the nation for business for the fourth year in a row, while CNBC named it the top state for business in 2007, 2009, and 2011. Virginia has 20 Fortune 500 companies, ranking the state eighth nationwide.

Virginia has the highest defense spending of any state per capita, providing the Commonwealth with around 900,000 jobs, and 10% of all U.S. federal procurement money is spent in Virginia. Virginia has over 800,000 veterans, more than any other state, and is second to California in total Department of Defense employees. Many Virginians work for federal agencies in Northern Virginia, which include the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense, as well as the National Science Foundation, the United States Geological Survey and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Many others work for government contractors, including defense and security firms, which hold more than 15,000 federal contracts. The Hampton Roads area has the largest concentration of military bases and facilities of any metropolitan area in the world. The largest of the bases is Naval Station Norfolk.

Agriculture occupies 24% of the land in Virginia. , about 357,000 Virginian jobs were in agriculture, with over 47,000 farms, averaging , in a total farmland area of 8.1 million acres (12,656 sq mi; 32,780 km²). Though agriculture has declined significantly since 1960 when there were twice as many farms, it remains the largest single industry in Virginia. Tomatoes surpassed soy as the most profitable crop in Virginia in 2006, with peanuts and hay as other agricultural products. Although it is no longer the primary crop, Virginia is still the fifth-largest producer of tobacco nationwide. Eastern oyster harvests are an important part of the Chesapeake Bay economy, but declining oyster populations from disease, pollution, and overfishing have diminished catches. Wineries and vineyards in the Northern Neck and along the Blue Ridge Mountains also have begun to generate income and attract tourists.

Virginia collects personal income tax in five income brackets, ranging from 3.0% to 5.75%. The state sales and use tax rate is 4%, while the tax rate on food is 1.5%. There is an additional 1% local tax, for a total of a 5% combined sales tax on most Virginia purchases and 2.5% on most food. Virginia's property tax is set and collected at the local government level and varies throughout the Commonwealth. Real estate is also taxed at the local level based on 100% of fair market value. Tangible personal property also is taxed at the local level and is based on a percentage or percentages of original cost.

Culture

Virginia's historic culture was popularized and spread across America and the South by figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert E. Lee. Their homes in Virginia represent the birthplace of America and the South. Modern Virginia culture has many sources, and is part of the culture of the Southern United States. The Smithsonian Institution divides Virginia into nine cultural regions. The Piedmont region is one of the most famous for its dialect's strong influence on Southern American English. While a more homogenized American English is found in urban areas, various accents are also used, including the Tidewater accent, the Old Virginia accent, and the anachronistic Elizabethan of Tangier Island.

Literature in Virginia often deals with the state's extensive and sometimes troubled past. The works of Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Glasgow often dealt with social inequalities and the role of women in her culture. Glasgow's peer and close friend James Branch Cabell wrote extensively about the changing position of gentry in the Reconstruction era, and challenged its moral code with ''Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice''. William Styron approached history in works such as ''The Confessions of Nat Turner'' and ''Sophie's Choice''. Tom Wolfe has occasionally dealt with his southern heritage in bestsellers like ''I Am Charlotte Simmons''. Virginia also names a state Poet Laureate, currently Kelly Cherry of Halifax County, who will serve until 2012.

Besides the general cuisine of the Southern United States, Virginia maintains its own particular traditions. Virginia wine is made in many parts of the state. Smithfield ham, sometimes called "Virginia ham", is a type of country ham which is protected by state law, and can only be produced in the town of Smithfield. Virginia furniture and architecture are typical of American colonial architecture. Thomas Jefferson and many of the state's early leaders favored the Neoclassical architecture style, leading to its use for important state buildings. The Pennsylvania Dutch and their style can also be found in parts of the state.

Fine and performing arts

Though rich in cultural heritage, Virginia ranks near the bottom of U.S. states in terms of public spending on the arts, at nearly half of the national average. The state government does fund some institutions, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Science Museum of Virginia. Other museums include the popular Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum and the Chrysler Museum of Art. Besides these sites, many open-air museums are located in the Commonwealth, such as Colonial Williamsburg, the Frontier Culture Museum, and various historic battlefields. The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities works to improve the Commonwealth's civic, cultural, and intellectual life.

Theaters and venues in the Commonwealth are found both in the cities and suburbs. Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts is located in Vienna and is the only national park intended for use as a performing arts center. The Harrison Opera House, in Norfolk, is home of the Virginia Opera. The Virginia Symphony Orchestra operates in and around Hampton Roads. Resident and touring theater troupes operate from the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton. The Barter Theatre in Abingdon won the first ever Regional Theatre Tony Award in 1948, while the Signature Theatre in Arlington won it in 2009. There's also a Children's Theater of Virginia, Theatre IV, which is the second largest touring troupe nationwide. Virginia has launched many award-winning traditional musical artists and internationally successful popular music acts, as well as Hollywood actors. Notable performance venues include The Birchmere, the Landmark Theater, and Jiffy Lube Live.

Festivals

Many counties and localities host county fairs and festivals. The Virginia State Fair is held at the Meadow Event Park every September. Also in September is the Neptune Festival in Virginia Beach, which celebrates the city, the waterfront, and regional artists. Norfolk's Harborfest, in June, features boat racing and air shows. Fairfax County also sponsors Celebrate Fairfax! with popular and traditional music performances. The Virginia Lake Festival is held during the third weekend in July in Clarksville. Wolf Trap hosts the Wolf Trap Opera Company, which produces an opera festival every summer.

On the Eastern Shore island of Chincoteague the annual Pony Swim & Auction of feral Chincoteague ponies at the end of July is a unique local tradition expanded into a week-long carnival. The Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is a six-day festival held annually in Winchester that includes parades and bluegrass concerts. The Old Time Fiddlers' Convention in Galax, begun in 1935, is one of the oldest and largest such events worldwide. Two important film festivals, the Virginia Film Festival and the VCU French Film Festival, are held annually in Charlottesville and Richmond, respectively.

Media

The Hampton Roads area is the 43rd-largest media market in the United States as ranked by Nielsen Media Research, while the Richmond-Petersburg area is 57th and Roanoke-Lynchburg is 66th . Northern Virginia is part of the much larger Washington, D.C. media market.

There are 36 television stations in Virginia, representing each major U.S. network, part of 42 stations which serve Virginia viewers. More than 720 FCC-licensed FM radio stations broadcast in Virginia, with about 300 such AM stations. The nationally available Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is headquartered in Arlington. The Arlington PBS member station WETA-TV produces programs such as the ''PBS NewsHour'' and ''Washington Week''. A wide range of independent PBS affiliates exist throughout Virginia; there is no common state-wide PBS organization, unlike neighboring states (e.g. Maryland, North Carolina).

The most circulated native newspapers in the Commonwealth are Norfolk's ''The Virginian-Pilot'' (156,968 daily subscribers), the ''Richmond Times-Dispatch'' (118,489), ''The Roanoke Times'' (75,740), and Newport News' ''Daily Press'' (63,366), . Several Washington, D.C. papers are based in Northern Virginia, such as ''The Washington Examiner'' and ''Politico''. The paper with the nation's widest circulation, ''USA Today'', with 1.83 million daily subscriptions, is headquartered in McLean. Besides traditional forms of media, Virginia is the home base for telecommunication companies such as Voxant and XO Communications. In Northern Virginia, The Washington Post is the dominant newspaper, since Northern VA is located in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

Education

Virginia's educational system consistently ranks in the top ten states on the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, with Virginia students outperforming the average in all subject areas and grade levels tested. The 2011 ''Quality Counts'' report ranked Virginia's K–12 education fourth best in the country. All school divisions must adhere to educational standards set forth by the Virginia Department of Education, which maintains an assessment and accreditation regime known as the Standards of Learning to ensure accountability. In 2010, 85% of high school students graduated on-time after four years. Between 2000 and 2008, school enrollment increased 5%, the number of teachers 21%.

Public K–12 schools in Virginia are generally operated by the counties and cities, and not by the state. , a total of 1,267,063 students were enrolled in 1,873 local and regional schools in the Commonwealth, including three charter schools, and an additional 109 alternative and special education centers across 132 school divisions. Besides the general public schools in Virginia, there are Governor's Schools and selective magnet schools. The Governor's Schools are a collection of more than 40 regional high schools and summer programs intended for gifted students. The Virginia Council for Private Education oversees the regulation of 320 state accredited and 130 non-accredited private schools. An additional 24,682 students receive homeschooling.

, there are 176 colleges and universities in Virginia. In the ''U.S. News and World Report'' ranking of public colleges, the University of Virginia is second and The College of William & Mary is sixth. Virginia Commonwealth University is ranked the top public graduate school in fine arts, while James Madison University has been recognized as the top regional public master's program in The South since 1993. The Virginia Military Institute is the oldest state military college and a top ranked public liberal arts college. George Mason University is the largest university in Virginia with over 32,000 students. Virginia Tech and Virginia State University are the state's land-grant universities. Virginia also operates 23 community colleges on 40 campuses serving over 260,000 students. There are 129 private institutions, including Washington and Lee University, Hampden–Sydney College, Emory & Henry College, Roanoke College, Stratford University and the University of Richmond.

Health

Virginia has a mixed health record, and is ranked as the 22nd overall healthiest state according to the 2010 United Health Foundation's Health Rankings. Virginia also ranks 21st among the states in the rate of premature deaths, 7,104 per 100,000. In 2008, Virginia reached its lowest ever rate of infant mortality, at 6.7 deaths per 1,000. There are however racial and social health disparities, with African Americans experiencing 27.9% more premature deaths than whites, while 12.7% of Virginians lack any health insurance. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2009 survey, 25.5% of Virginians are obese and another 35.1% are overweight. 78.1% of residents claim to have exercised once in the past three months. About 30% of Virginia's 10- to 17-year-olds are overweight or obese. Virginia banned smoking in bars and restaurants in January 2010. 19% of Virginians smoke tobacco.

There are 89 hospitals in Virginia listed with the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Notable examples include Inova Fairfax Hospital, the largest hospital in the Washington Metropolitan Area, and the VCU Medical Center, located on the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. The University of Virginia Medical Center, part of the University of Virginia Health System, is highly ranked in endocrinology according to ''U.S.News & World Report''. Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, part of the Hampton Roads based Sentara Health System and a teaching institution of Eastern Virginia Medical School, was the site of the first successful in-vitro fertilization birth. Virginia has a ratio of 124 primary care physicians per 10,000 residents, which is the 13th highest nationally. Virginia was one of five states to receive a perfect score in disaster preparedness according to a 2008 report by the Trust for America's Health, based on criteria such as detecting pathogens and distributing vaccines and medical supplies.

Transportation

Because of the 1932 Byrd Road Act, the state government controls most of Virginia's roads, instead of a local county authority as is usual in other states. , the Virginia Department of Transportation owns and operates of the total of roads in the state, making it the third largest state highway system in the United States. Although the Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes Northern Virginia, has the second worst traffic in the nation, Virginia as a whole has the 21st-lowest congestion and the average commute time is 26.9 minutes.

Virginia has Amtrak passenger rail service along several corridors, and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) maintains two commuter lines into Washington, D.C. from Fredericksburg and Manassas. VRE is one of the nation's fastest growing commuter rail services, handling nearly 20,000 passengers a day. The Washington Metro rapid transit system serves Northern Virginia as far west as communities along I-66 in Fairfax County, with expansion plans to reach Tysons Corner by 2013, and Loudoun County by 2017. Major freight railroads in Virginia include Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation. Commuter buses include the Fairfax Connector and the Shenandoah Valley Commuter Bus. The Virginia Department of Transportation operates several free ferries throughout Virginia, the most notable being the Jamestown-Scotland ferry which crosses the James River in Surry County.

Virginia has five major airports: Washington Dulles International handling over 23 million passengers a year, Reagan Washington National, Norfolk International serving the Hampton Roads area, Richmond International, and Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport. Several other airports, for example ''Charlottesville/Albemarle Airport (CHO)'', offer limited commercial passenger service. Sixty-six public airports serve the state's aviation needs. The Virginia Port Authority's main seaports are those in Hampton Roads, which carried of bulk cargo in 2007, the sixth most of United States ports. The Eastern Shore of Virginia is the site of Wallops Flight Facility, a rocket testing center owned by NASA, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a commercial spaceport. Space tourism is also offered through Vienna-based Space Adventures.

Law and government

In colonial Virginia, free men elected the lower house of the legislature, called the House of Burgesses, which together with the Governor's Council, made the "General Assembly". Founded in 1619, the Virginia General Assembly is still in existence as the oldest legislature in the Western Hemisphere. The modern government is ranked by the Pew Center on the States with an A− in terms of its efficiency, effectiveness, and infrastructure. This is the second time Virginia received the highest grade in the nation, which it shares with two others.

Since 1971, the government has functioned under the seventh Constitution of Virginia, which provides for a strong legislature and a unified judicial system. Similar to the federal structure, the government is divided in three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislature is the General Assembly, a bicameral body whose 100-member House of Delegates and 40-member Senate write the laws for the Commonwealth. The Assembly is stronger than the executive, as it selects judges and justices. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor are elected every four years in separate elections. Incumbent governors cannot run for re-election, however the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General can, and governors may serve non-consecutive terms. The judicial system, the oldest in America, consists of a hierarchy from the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court of Appeals of Virginia to the lower general district and circuit courts.

The Code of Virginia is the statutory law, and consists of the codified legislation of the General Assembly. The Virginia State Police is the largest law enforcement agency in Virginia. The Virginia Capitol Police is the oldest police department in the United States. The Virginia National Guard consists of 7,500 soldiers in the Virginia Army National Guard and 1,200 airmen in the Virginia Air National Guard. Since the resumption of capital punishment in Virginia in 1982, 107 people have been executed, the second highest number in the nation. The "total crime risk" is 28% lower than the national average. Since Virginia ended prisoner parole in 1995, the rate of recidivism has fallen to 28.3%, among the lowest nationwide.

Politics

Over the 20th century, Virginia shifted from a largely rural, politically Southern and conservative state to a more urbanized, pluralistic, and politically moderate environment. Up until the 1970s, Virginia was a racially divided single-party state dominated by the Byrd Organization. African Americans were effectively disfranchised until after passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Enfranchisement and immigration of other groups, especially Hispanics, have placed growing importance on minority voting. Regional differences play a large part in Virginia politics. Rural southern and western areas moved to support the Republican Party in response to its "southern strategy", while urban and growing suburban areas, including much of Northern Virginia, form the Democratic Party base. Democratic support also persists in union-influenced parts of Southwest Virginia, college towns such as Charlottesville and Blacksburg, and the southeastern Black Belt Region.

Political party strength in Virginia has likewise been in flux. In the 2007 state elections, Democrats regained control of the State Senate, and narrowed the Republican majority in the House of Delegates to eight seats. Yet elections in 2009 resulted in the election of Republican Robert McDonnell as governor by a 17 point margin, the election of a Republican Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, as well as Republican gains of six seats in the House of Delegates. State election seasons traditionally start with the annual Shad Planking event in Wakefield.

In federal elections since 2006, both parties have seen success. In the 2006 Senate election, Democrat Jim Webb won on a populist platform over the Republican incumbent following a very close race. The party took both U.S. Senate seats with the election of former Governor Mark Warner to replace retiring Republican John Warner. Virginia, which has 13 electoral votes, was won by Democrat Barack Obama in 2008, after being won by Republican candidates in the previous ten presidential elections. In the 2010 elections, Republicans picked up three House seats from Democrats. Of the state's 11 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans hold eight and Democrats hold three. Virginia may be considered a "swing state" in future presidential elections.

Sports

Virginia is the most populous U.S. state without a major professional sports league franchise. The reasons for this include the lack of any dominant city or market within the state and the proximity of teams in Washington, D.C. Virginia has several minor league clubs, especially in baseball and soccer, and the Virginia Destroyers of the United Football League are set to start play in 2011. Additionally, the Washington Redskins have Redskins Park, their headquarters and training facility, in Ashburn and the Washington Capitals train at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Ballston. Virginia has many professional caliber golf courses including the Greg Norman course at Lansdowne Resort and Kingsmill Resort, home of the Michelob ULTRA Open. NASCAR currently schedules Sprint Cup races on two tracks in Virginia: Martinsville Speedway and Richmond International Raceway. Current Virginia drivers in the series include Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, and Elliott Sadler.

The Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles also have followings due to their proximity, and both are broadcast in the state on MASN. When the New York Mets ended their long affiliation with the Norfolk Tides in 2007, the Orioles adopted the minor league club as their top level (AAA) minor league affiliate. The San Francisco Giants' AA team, the Richmond Flying Squirrels, began play at The Diamond in 2010, replacing the AAA Richmond Braves, who relocated after 2008. Additionally, the Nationals, Orioles, Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners, Chicago White Sox, and Atlanta Braves also have Single-A and Rookie-level farm teams in Virginia.

Virginia does not allow state appropriated funds to be used for either operational or capital expenses for intercollegiate athletics. Despite this, both the Virginia Cavaliers and Virginia Tech Hokies have been able to field competitive teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference and maintain modern facilities. Their rivalry is followed statewide. Several other universities compete in NCAA Division I, particularly in the Colonial Athletic Association. Three historically black schools compete in the Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and two others compete in the Division I Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Several smaller schools compete in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and the USA South Athletic Conference of NCAA Division III. The NCAA currently holds its Division III championships in football, men's basketball, volleyball and softball in Salem.

State symbols

The state nickname is its oldest symbol, though it has never been made official by law. Virginia was given the title "Dominion" by King Charles II of England at the time of The Restoration, because it had remained loyal to the crown during the English Civil War, and the present moniker, "Old Dominion" is a reference to that title. The other nickname, "Mother of Presidents", is also historic, as eight Virginians have served as President of the United States, including four of the first five.

The state's motto, ''Sic Semper Tyrannis'', translates from Latin as "Thus Always to Tyrants", and is used on the state seal, which is then used on the flag. While the seal was designed in 1776, and the flag was first used in the 1830s, both were made official in 1930. The majority of the other symbols were made official in the late 20th century. The Virginia reel is among the square dances classified as the state dance. Virginia currently has no state song. In 1940, Virginia made "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" the state song, but it was retired in 1997 and reclassified as the state song emeritus. Various alternatives, including a version of "Oh Shenandoah", have met with resistance in the Virginia House of Delegates. {|border="0" style="margin:auto;" |- |valign="top"|

Mammal: Virginia Big-Eared Bat

Beverage: Milk

Boat: Chesapeake Bay deadrise

Bird: Cardinal

Dance: Square dancing

|valign="top"|

Dog: American Foxhound

Fish: Brook trout, Striped bass

Flower/Tree: Dogwood

Fossil: Chesapecten jeffersonius

Insect: Tiger swallowtail

|valign="top"|

Motto: Sic Semper Tyrannis

Nickname: The Old Dominion

Shell: Eastern oyster

Slogan: Virginia is for Lovers

Tartan: Virginia Quadricentennial

|}

See also

List of National Register of Historic Places in Virginia

U.S. state

References

Bibliography

External links

General

Encyclopedia Virginia

Government

State Government website

Virginia General Assembly

Virginia's Judicial system

Constitution of Virginia

Virginia State and County Government Websites

Tourism and recreation

Virginia Tourism Website

Virginia State Parks

Virginia Main Street Communities Travel

WikiTravel guide

Culture and history

Virginia Historical Society

Virginia's First People

WPA Guide to the Old Dominion

Library of Virginia

Maps and Demographics

USGS geographic resources of Virginia

Virginia State Climatology Office

Virginia State Fact Sheet

==Related information==

Category:Former British colonies Category:States and territories established in 1607 Category:States and territories established in 1788 Category:States of the Confederate States of America Category:States of the Southern United States Category:States of the United States

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Coordinates	39°15′58″N174°21′58″N
name	Patti Smith
background	solo_singer
birth name	Patricia Lee Smith
birth date	December 30, 1946
birth place	Chicago, Illinois
origin	New York City, New York,United States
instrument	Vocals, guitar, clarinet
genre	Protopunk, punk rock, art rock
occupation	Singer-songwriter, poet, artist
years active	1971–present
label	Arista, Columbia
associated acts	Tom Verlaine
website	}}

Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album ''Horses''. Called the "Godmother of Punk", her work was a fusion of rock and poetry. Smith's most widely known song is "Because the Night", which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen and reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978. In 2005, Patti Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and in 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On November 17, 2010, she won the National Book Award for her memoir ''Just Kids.'' Recipient of the 2011 Polar Music Prize.

Early years

Patricia Lee Smith was born in Chicago. Her mother, Beverly, was a waitress, and her father, Grant, worked at the Honeywell plant. She spent her entire childhood in Deptford Township, New Jersey, raised as a Jehovah's Witness. She had a strong religious upbringing and a Bible education, but left organized religion as a teenager because she felt it was too confining; much later, she wrote the line "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" in her cover version of Them's "Gloria" in response to this experience. She has described having an avid interest in Tibetan Buddhism around the age of eleven or twelve, saying "I fell in love with Tibet because their essential mission was to keep a continual stream of prayer", but that as an adult she sees clear parallels between different forms of religion, and has come to the conclusion that religious dogmas are "...man-made laws that you can either decide to abide by or not." At this early age Smith was exposed to her first records, including ''Shrimp Boats'' by Harry Belafonte, Patience and Prudence doing ''The Money Tree'', and ''Another Side of Bob Dylan'', which her mother gave to her. Thurston http://bombsite.com/issues/54/articles/1928 “Patti Smith” in BOMB Magazine Winter, 1996. Retrieved August 9, 2011 Smith graduated from Deptford Township High School in 1964 and went to work in a factory. She gave birth to her first child, a daughter, on April 26, 1967, and chose to place her for adoption.

Career

1967–1973: New York

In 1967, she left Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and moved to New York City. She met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe there while working at a book store with a friend, poet Janet Hamill. She and Mapplethorpe had an intense romantic relationship, which was tumultuous as the pair struggled with times of poverty, and Mapplethorpe with his own sexuality. Smith considers Mapplethorpe to be one of the most important people in her life, and in her book ''Just Kids'' refers to him as "the artist of my life". Mapplethorpe's photographs of her became the covers for the Patti Smith Group LPs, and they remained friends until Mapplethorpe's death in 1989. In 1969 she went to Paris with her sister and started busking and doing performance art. When Smith returned to New York City, she lived in the Hotel Chelsea with Mapplethorpe; they frequented Max's Kansas City and CBGB. Smith provided the spoken word soundtrack for Sandy Daley's art film ''Robert Having His Nipple Pierced'', starring Mapplethorpe. The same year Smith appeared with Wayne County in Jackie Curtis' play ''Femme Fatale''. As a member of the St. Mark's Poetry Project, she spent the early 70's painting, writing, and performing. In 1971 she performed – for one night only – in ''Cowboy Mouth'', a play that she co-wrote with Sam Shepard (The published play's notes call for "a man who looks like a coyote and a woman who looks like a crow".) She wrote several poems, "for sam shepard" and "Sam Shepard: 9 Random Years (7 + 2)" about her relationship with Shepard.

Smith was briefly considered for the lead singer position in Blue Öyster Cult. She contributed lyrics to several of the band's songs, including "Debbie Denise" (inspired by her poem "In Remembrance of Debbie Denise"), "Baby Ice Dog", "Career of Evil", "Fire of Unknown Origin", "The Revenge of Vera Gemini" (on which she performs duet vocals), and "Shooting Shark". She was romantically involved at the time with the band's keyboardist Allen Lanier. During these years, Smith also wrote rock journalism, some of which was published in ''Rolling Stone'' and ''Creem''.

1974–1979: Patti Smith Group

By 1974, Patti Smith was performing rock music herself, initially with guitarist and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later with a full band comprising Kaye, Ivan Kral on bass, Jay Dee Daugherty on drums and Richard Sohl, on piano. Ivan Kral was a refugee from Czechoslovakia, fleeing in 1968 after the fall of Alexander Dubček. Financed by Sam Wagstaff, the band recorded a first single, "Hey Joe / Piss Factory", in 1974. The A-side was a version of the rock standard with the addition of a spoken word piece about fugitive heiress Patty Hearst ("Patty Hearst, you're standing there in front of the Symbionese Liberation Army flag with your legs spread, I was wondering were you gettin' it every night from a black revolutionary man and his women..."). The B-side describes the helpless anger Smith had felt while working on a factory assembly line and the salvation she discovered in the form of a shoplifted book, the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud's ''Illuminations''.

The Patti Smith Group was signed by Clive Davis of Arista Records, and in 1975 recorded their first album, ''Horses'', produced by John Cale amid some tension. The album fused punk rock and spoken poetry and begins with a cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria", and Smith's opening words: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine" (an excerpt from "Oath," one of her early poems). The austere cover photograph by Mapplethorpe has become one of rock's classic images. As the popularity of punk rock grew, Patti Smith Group toured the United States and Europe. The rawer sound of the group's second album, ''Radio Ethiopia'', reflected this. Considerably less accessible than ''Horses'', ''Radio Ethiopia'' initially received poor reviews. However, several of its songs have stood the test of time, and Smith still performs them regularly in concert. She has said that ''Radio Ethiopia'' was influenced by the band Black to Comm.

On January 23, 1977, while touring in support of ''Radio Ethiopia'', Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in Tampa, Florida and fell 15 feet into a concrete orchestra pit, breaking several neck vertebrae. The injury required a period of rest and an intensive round of physical therapy, during which time she was able to reassess, re-energize and reorganize her life. Patti Smith Group produced two further albums before the end of the 1970s. ''Easter'' (1978) was her most commercially successful record, containing the single "Because the Night" co-written with Bruce Springsteen. ''Wave'' (1979) was less successful, although the songs "Frederick" and "Dancing Barefoot" both received commercial airplay.

1980–1995: Marriage

Before the release of ''Wave'', Smith, now separated from long-time partner Allen Lanier, met Fred "Sonic" Smith, former guitar player for Detroit rock band MC5 and his own Sonic's Rendezvous Band, who adored poetry as much as she did. (''Wave'''s "Dancing Barefoot" and "Frederick" were both dedicated to him.) The running joke at the time was that she only married Fred because she would not have to change her name. They had a son, Jackson (b. 1982) who would go on to marry The White Stripes drummer, Meg White in 2009, and a daughter, Jesse (b. 1987). Through most of the 1980s Patti Smith was in semi-retirement from music, living with her family north of Detroit in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. In June 1988, she released the album ''Dream of Life'', which included the song "People Have the Power". Fred Smith died on November 4, 1994 of a myocardial infarction. Shortly afterward, Patti faced the unexpected death of her brother Todd and original keyboard player Richard Sohl. When her son Jackson turned 14, Smith decided to move back to New York. After the impact of these deaths, her friends Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and Allen Ginsberg (whom she had known since her early years in New York) urged her to go back out on the road. She toured briefly with Bob Dylan in December 1995 (chronicled in a book of photographs by Stipe).

1996–2003: Re-emergence

In 1996, Smith worked with her long-time colleagues to record ''Gone Again,'' featuring "About a Boy", a tribute to Kurt Cobain. Smith was a fan of Cobain, but was more angered than saddened by his suicide. That same year she collaborated with Stipe on "E-Bow the Letter", a song on R.E.M.'s ''New Adventures in Hi-Fi,'' which she has also performed live with the band. After release of ''Gone Again,'' Patti Smith had recorded two new albums: ''Peace and Noise'' in 1997 (with the single "1959", about the invasion of Tibet) and ''Gung Ho'' in 2000 (with songs about Ho Chi Minh and Smith's late father). Songs "1959" and "Glitter in Their Eyes" were nominated for Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. A box set of her work up to that time, ''The Patti Smith Masters,'' came out in 1996, and 2002 saw the release of ''Land (1975–2002),'' a two-CD compilation that includes a memorable cover of Prince's "When Doves Cry". Smith's solo art exhibition ''Strange Messenger'' was hosted at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh on September 28, 2002.

2004–present

On April 27, 2004 Patti Smith released ''Trampin''' which included several songs about motherhood, partly in tribute to Smith's mother, who had died two years before. It was her first album on Columbia Records, soon to become a sister label to her previous home Arista Records. Smith curated the Meltdown festival in London on June 25, 2005, the penultimate event being the first live performance of ''Horses'' in its entirety. Guitarist Tom Verlaine took Oliver Ray's place. This live performance was released later in the year as ''Horses/Horses''.

On July 10, 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In addition to her influence on rock music, the Minister also noted Smith's appreciation of Arthur Rimbaud. In August 2005, Smith gave a literary lecture about the poems of Arthur Rimbaud and William Blake. On October 15, 2006, Patti Smith performed at the CBGB nightclub, with a 3½-hour ''tour de force'' to close out Manhattan's music venue. She took the stage at 9:30 p.m. (EDT) and closed for the night (and forever for the venue) at a few minutes after 1:00 a.m., performing her song "Elegie", and finally reading a list of punk rock musicians and advocates who had died in the previous years.

Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007. From November 2006 - January 2007, an exhibition called 'Sur les Traces' at Trolley Gallery, London, featured polaroid prints taken by Patti Smith and donated to Trolley to raise awareness and funds for the publication of Double Blind, a book on the war in Lebanon in 2006, with photographs by Paolo Pellegrin, a member of Magnum Photos. She also participated in the DVD commentary for ''Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters''. From March 28 to June 22, 2008, the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris hosted a major exhibition of the visual artwork of Patti Smith, ''Land 250'', drawn from pieces created between 1967 and 2007. At the 2008 Rowan Commencement ceremony, Smith received an honorary doctorate degree for her contributions to popular culture. Smith is the subject of a 2008 documentary film, ''Patti Smith: Dream of Life''. A live album by Patti Smith and Kevin Shields, ''The Coral Sea'' was released in July 2008. On September 10, 2009, after a week of smaller events and exhibitions in the city, Smith played an open-air concert in Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, commemorating her performance in the same city 30 years earlier. In 2010, Patti Smith's book, ''Just Kids'', a memoir of her time in 1970s Manhattan and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, was published. On April 30, 2010 Patti Smith headlined a benefit concert headed by band-mate Tony Shanahan, for The Court Tavern of New Brunswick. Smith's set included "Gloria", "Because the Night" and "People Have the Power."

On May 17, 2010, Patti Smith received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Pratt Institute, along with architect Daniel Libeskind, MoMA director Glenn Lowry, former NYC Landmarks Commissioner Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, novelist Jonathan Lethem, and director Steven Soderbergh. Following the conferral of her degree, Smith delivered the commencement address and sang/played two songs accompanied by long-time band member Lenny Kaye. In her remarks, Smith explained that in 1967 when she moved to New York City (Brooklyn), she would never have been accepted into Pratt, but most of her friends (including Mapplethorpe) were students at Pratt and she spent countless hours on the Pratt campus. She added that it was through her friends and their Pratt professors that she learned much of her own artistic skills, making the honour from the institute particularly poignant for Smith 43 years later.

Smith is currently working on a crime novel set in London. "I've been working on a detective story that starts at the St Giles in the Fields church in London for the last two years," she told NME adding that she "loved detective stories" having been a fan of Sherlock Holmes and US crime author Mickey Spillane as a girl. Part of the book will be set in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 announced that Patti Smith is one of the winners of the Polar Music Prize: "By devoting her life to art in all its forms, Patti Smith has demonstrated how much rock’n'roll there is in poetry and how much poetry there is in rock’n'roll. Patti Smith is a Rimbaud with Marshall amps. She has transformed the way an entire generation looks, thinks and dreams. With her inimitable soul of an artist, Patti Smith proves over and over again that people have the power."

On June 19, 2011, Patti Smith made her acting debut on the TV series "Law & Order: Criminal Intent", appearing in an episode called "Icarus".

Smith has recorded a cover of Buddy Holly's classic "Words of Love" for the CD ''Rave On Buddy Holly'', a tribute album tied to Holly's seventy-fifth birthday year which was released June 28, 2011.

Influence

Smith has been a great source of inspiration for Michael Stipe of R.E.M. Listening to her album ''Horses'' when he was 15 made a huge impact on him; he said later, "I decided then that I was going to start a band." In 1998, Stipe published a collection of photos called ''Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith.'' Stipe sings backing vocals on Smith's songs "Last Call" and "Glitter in Their Eyes." Patti also sings background vocals on R.E.M.'s songs "E-Bow the Letter" and "Blue".

In 2004, Shirley Manson of Garbage spoke of Smith's influence on her in ''Rolling Stone'''s issue "The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time", in which Patti Smith was counted number 47. The Smiths members Morrissey and Johnny Marr shared an appreciation for Smith's ''Horses,'' and reveal that their song "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is a reworking of one of the album's tracks, "Kimberly". In 2004, Sonic Youth released an album called ''Hidros 3 (to Patti Smith)''. U2 also cites Patti Smith as an influence. In 2005 Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall released the single "Suddenly I See" as a tribute of sorts to Patti Smith. Canadian actress Ellen Page frequently mentions Smith as one of her idols and has done various photo shoots replicating famous Smith photos. In 1978 and 1979, Gilda Radner portrayed a character called Candy Slice on ''Saturday Night Live'' based on Smith.

Activism

In 1993, Smith contributed "Memorial Tribute (Live)" to the AIDS-Benefit Album No Alternative produced by the Red Hot Organization.

Furthermore, Smith has been a supporter of the Green Party and backed Ralph Nader in the 2000 United States presidential election. She led the crowd singing "Over the Rainbow" and "People Have the Power" at the campaign's rallies, and also performed at several of Nader's subsequent "Democracy Rising" events. Smith was a speaker and singer at the first protests against the Iraq War organized by Lou Posner of Voter March on September 12, 2002, as U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly. Smith supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election. Bruce Springsteen continued performing her "People Have the Power" at Vote for Change campaign events. In the winter of 2004/2005, Smith toured again with Nader in a series of rallies against the Iraq War and calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush.

Smith premiered two new protest songs in London in September 2006. Louise Jury, writing in ''The Independent'', characterized them as "an emotional indictment of American and Israeli foreign policy". Song "Qana"^[mp3] was about the Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana. "Without Chains"^[mp3] is about Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany, held at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp for four years. Jury's article quotes Smith as saying:

In an interview, Smith stated that Kurnaz's family has contacted her and that she wrote a short preface for the book that he was writing. Kurnaz's book, "Five Years of My Life," was published in English by Palgrave Macmillan in March 2008, with Patti's introduction.

On March 26, 2003, ten days after Rachel Corrie's death, Smith appeared in Austin, Texas, and performed an anti-war concert. She prefaced her song "Wild Leaves" with the following comments and subsequently wrote a new song "Peaceable Kingdom" which was inspired by and is dedicated to Rachel Corrie.

In 2009, in her Meltdown concert in Festival Hall, she paid homage to the Iranians taking part in post-election protests by saying "Where is My Vote?" in a version of the song "People Have the Power".

Band members

Discography

;Studio albums

''Horses'' (1975)

''Radio Ethiopia'' (1976)

''Easter'' (1978)

''Wave'' (1979)

''Dream of Life'' (1988)

''Gone Again'' (1996)

''Peace and Noise'' (1997)

''Gung Ho'' (2000)

''Trampin''' (2004)

''Twelve'' (2007)

Bibliography

''Seventh Heaven'' (1972)

''Early Morning Dream'' (1972)

''Witt'' (1973)

''Ha! Ha! Houdini!'' (1977)

''Babel'' (1978)

''Woolgathering'' (1992)

''Early Work'' (1994)

''The Coral Sea'' (1996)

''Patti Smith Complete'' (1998)

''Strange Messenger'' (2003)

''Auguries of Innocence'' (2005)

''Poems (Vintage Classics)'' by William Blake. Edited by and with introduction by Patti Smith (2007)

''Land 250'' (2008)

''Trois'' (2008)

''Great Lyricists'' foreword Rick Moody (2008)

''Just Kids'' (2010)

References

Further reading

External links

Patti Smith Wins National Book Award - video report by ''Democracy Now!''

- Patti Smith interview,live and report Land 250 exhibition 2008

Category:1946 births Category:American female guitarists Category:American human rights activists Category:American poets Category:American punk rock singers Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:American spoken word artists Category:Columbia Records artists Category:American rock music groups Category:Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:Female punk rock singers Category:Living people Category:Patti Smith Group members Category:Musicians from Chicago, Illinois Category:People from Gloucester County, New Jersey Category:Protopunk musicians Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees‎ Category:Rowan University alumni Category:Outlaw poets Category:The Minus 5 members Category:Postmodern writers

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Coordinates	39°15′58″N174°21′58″N
name	Elizabeth Taylor
birth name	Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor
birth date	February 27, 1932
birth place	, England
death date	March 23, 2011
death place
death cause	Congestive heart failure
restingplace	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
other names	Liz Taylor
occupation	Actress, social activist
years active	1942–2003
nationality	British-American
religion	}}

| spouse = | children = | parents = | relations = Howard Taylor (older brother) | awards = List }} Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. As one of the world's most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty and distinctive violet eyes.

''National Velvet'' (1944) was Taylor's first success, and she starred in ''Father of the Bride'' (1950), ''A Place in the Sun'' (1951), ''Giant'' (1956), ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' (1958), and ''Suddenly, Last Summer'' (1959). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for ''BUtterfield 8'' (1960), played the title role in ''Cleopatra'' (1963), and married her co-star Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1966), for which Taylor won a second Academy Award. From the mid-1970s, she appeared less frequently in film, and made occasional appearances in television and theatre.

Her much publicized personal life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. From the mid-1980s, Taylor championed HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, who named her seventh on their list of the "Greatest American Screen Legends". Taylor died of congestive heart failure in March 2011 at the age of 79, having suffered many years of ill health.

Early life

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born at Heathwood, her parents' home at 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb, a northwestern suburb of London; the younger of two children of Francis Lenn Taylor (1897–1968) and Sara Viola Warmbrodt (1895–1994), who were Americans residing in England. Taylor's older brother, Howard Taylor, was born in 1929. Her parents were originally from Arkansas City, Kansas. Francis Taylor was an art dealer, and Sara was a former actress whose stage name was "Sara Sothern". Sothern retired from the stage in 1926 when she married Francis in New York City. Taylor's two first names are in honor of her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Mary (Rosemond) Taylor.

Colonel Victor Cazalet, one of their closest friends, had an important influence on the family. He was a rich, well-connected bachelor, a Member of Parliament and close friend of Winston Churchill. Cazalet loved both art and theater and was passionate when encouraging the Taylor family to think of England as their permanent home. Additionally, as a Christian Scientist and lay preacher, his links with the family were spiritual. He also became Elizabeth's godfather. In one instance, when she was suffering with a severe infection as a child, she was kept in her bed for weeks. She "begged" for his company: "Mother, please call Victor and ask him to come and sit with me."

Biographer Alexander Walker suggests that Elizabeth's conversion to Judaism at the age of 27 and her life-long support for Israel, may have been influenced by views she heard at home. Walker notes that Cazalet actively campaigned for a Jewish homeland, and her mother also worked in various charities, which included sponsoring fundraisers for Zionism. Her mother recalls the influence that Cazalet had on Elizabeth: }}

A dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States, she was born British, through her birth on British soil and an American citizen through her parents. She reportedly sought, in 1965, to renounce her United States citizenship, to wit: "Though never accepted by the State Department, Elizabeth renounced in 1965. Attempting to shield much of her European income from U.S. taxes, Elizabeth wished to become solely a British citizen. According to news reports at the time, officials denied her request when she failed to complete the renunciation oath, refusing to say that she renounced "all allegiance to the United States of America."

At the age of three, Taylor began taking ballet lessons. Shortly before the beginning of World War II, her parents decided to return to the United States to avoid hostilities. Her mother took the children first, arriving in New York in April 1939, while her father remained in London to wrap up matters in his art business, arriving in November. They settled in Los Angeles, California, where her father established a new art gallery, which included many paintings he shipped from England. The gallery would soon attract numerous Hollywood celebrities who appreciated its modern European paintings. According to Walker, the gallery "opened many doors for the Taylors, leading them directly into the society of money and prestige" within Hollywood's movie colony.

Acting career

Child actress

Soon after settling in Los Angeles, Taylor's mother discovered that Hollywood people "habitually saw a movie future for every pretty face." Some of her mother's friends, and even total strangers, urged her to have Taylor screen tested for the role of Bonnie Blue, Scarlett's child in ''Gone with the Wind'', then being filmed. Her mother refused the idea, as a child actress in film was alien to her. And in any regard, they would return to England after the war. thumb|left| As a child actress, circa 1942 Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper introduced the Taylors to Andrea Berens, the fiancée of John Cheever Cowdin, chairman and major stockholder of Universal Pictures. Berens insisted that Sara take Taylor to see Cowden who, she assured, would be dazzled by her breathtaking beauty. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer also became interested in Taylor, and MGM head Louis B. Mayer reportedly told his producer, "Sign her up, sign her up! What are you waiting for?" As a result, she soon had both Universal and MGM willing to place her under contract. When Universal learned that MGM was equally interested, however, Cowden telephoned Universal from New York: "Sign her up, he ordered, don't even wait for the screen test." Universal then gave her a seven-year contract.

Taylor appeared in her first motion picture at the age of nine in ''There's One Born Every Minute'' (1942), her only film for Universal. After less than a year, however, the studio fired Taylor for unknown reasons. Some speculate that she did not live up to Cowden's promise. Walker believes that Taylor's intuition told her "she wasn't really welcome at Universal." She learned, for instance, that her casting director complained, "The kid has nothing," after a test. Even her beautiful eyes—they were a deep blue that appeared violet and stunned those who met her in person, with a mutation that gave Taylor double eyelashes—did not impress him: "Her eyes are too old, she doesn't have the face of a child," he said. But Walker admits that "this was not so far off the mark as it may appear now." He explains: }}

Taylor herself remembers that when she was a child in England, adults used to describe her as having an "old soul," because, as she says, "I was totally direct." She also recognized similar traits in her baby daughter:

Taylor's father served as an air raid warden with MGM producer Sam Marx, and learned that the studio was searching for an English actress for a Lassie film. Taylor received the role and was offered a long-term contract at the beginning of 1943. She chose MGM because "the people there had been nicer to her when she went to audition," Taylor recalled. MGM's production chief, Benny Thau, was to remain the "only MGM executive" she fully trusted during subsequent years, because, writes Walker, "he had, out of kindly habit, made the gesture that showed her she was loved." Thau remembered her as a "little dark-haired beauty...[with] those strange and lovely eyes that gave the face its central focus, oddly powerful in someone so young." MGM, in addition, was considered a "glamorous studio," boasting that it had "more stars than there are in heaven." Before Taylor's mother would sign the contract, however, she sought certainty that Taylor had a "God-given talent" to become an actress. Walker describes how they came to a decision: }}

Adolescent star

MGM cast Taylor in ''Lassie Come Home'' (1943) with child star Roddy McDowall, with whom she would share a lifelong friendship. He later recalled regarding her beauty, "who has double eyelashes except a girl who was absolutely born to be on the big screen?" The film received favorable attention for both actors, and MGM signed Taylor to a conventional seven-year contract starting at $100 a week and with regular raises. Her first assignment under her new contract was a loan-out to 20th Century Fox for the character of Helen Burns in a film version of the Charlotte Brontë novel ''Jane Eyre'' (1944). Taylor returned to England to appear in another McDowall picture for MGM, ''The White Cliffs of Dover'' (1944).

Taylor's persistence in seeking the role of Velvet Brown in MGM's ''National Velvet'' made her a star at the age of 12. Her character is a young girl who trains her beloved horse to win the Grand National. ''Velvet'', which costarred fellow young actor Mickey Rooney and English newcomer Angela Lansbury, became a great success upon its release in December 1944. Many years later Taylor called it "the most exciting film" she had ever made, although the film caused many of her later back problems due to her falling off a horse during filming.

Viewers and critics "fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor when they saw her in it." Walker explains why the film was popular: }}

''Velvet'' grossed over US$4 million and MGM signed Taylor to a new long-term contract. Because of the movie's success she was cast in another animal film, ''Courage of Lassie'' (1946), in which Bill the dog outsmarts the Nazis. The film's success led to another contract for Taylor paying her $750 per week. Her roles as Mary Skinner in a loan-out to Warner Brothers' ''Life With Father'' (1947), Cynthia Bishop in ''Cynthia'' (1947), Carol Pringle in ''A Date with Judy'' (1948), and Susan Prackett in ''Julia Misbehaves'' (1948) were all successful. Taylor received a reputation as a consistently successful adolescent actress, with a nickname of "One-Shot Liz" (referring to her ability to shoot a scene in one take) and a promising career. Taylor's portrayal of Amy in the American classic ''Little Women'' (1949) was her last adolescent role.

Transition into adult roles

The teenage Taylor was reluctant to continue making films. Her stage mother forced Taylor to relentlessly practice until she could cry on cue and watched her during filming, signaling to change her delivery or a mistake. Taylor met few others her age on movie sets, and was so poorly educated that she needed to use her fingers to do basic arithmetic. When at age 16 Taylor told her parents that she wanted to quit acting for a normal childhood, however, Sara Taylor told her that she was ungrateful: "You have a responsibility, Elizabeth. Not just to this family, but to the country now, the whole world".

In October 1948, Taylor sailed aboard the to England to begin filming ''Conspirator''. Unlike some other child actors, Taylor made an easy transition to adult roles. Before ''Conspirator'' 1949 release, a ''TIME'' cover article called her "a jewel of great price, a true star sapphire", and the leader among Hollywood's next generation of stars such as Montgomery Clift, Kirk Douglas, and Ava Gardner. The petite Taylor had the figure of a mature woman, with a 19" waist. ''Conspirator'' failed at the box office, but 16-year-old Taylor's portrayal of a 21-year-old debutante who unknowingly marries a communist spy played by 38-year-old Robert Taylor, was praised by critics for her first adult lead in a film. Taylor's first picture under her new salary of $2,000 per week was ''The Big Hangover'' (1950), both a critical and box office failure, that paired her with screen idol Van Johnson. The picture also failed to present Taylor with an opportunity to exhibit her newly realized sensuality.

Her first box office success in an adult role came as Kay Banks in the romantic comedy ''Father of the Bride'' (1950), alongside Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. The film spawned a sequel, ''Father's Little Dividend'' (1951), which Taylor's costar Spencer Tracy summarized with "boring… boring… boring". The film did well at the box office, but it would be Taylor's next picture that would set the course for her career as a dramatic actress.

In late 1949, Taylor had begun filming George Stevens' ''A Place in the Sun''. Upon its release in 1951, Taylor was hailed for her performance as Angela Vickers, a spoiled socialite who comes between George Eastman (Clift) and his poor, pregnant factory-working girlfriend Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters). The film, based on Theodore Dreiser's novel, ''An American Tragedy,'' was an indictment of "the American dream" and its corrupting influences, notes biographer Kitty Kelley.

Although Taylor, then only 17, was unaware of the psychological implications of the story and its powerful nuances, it became the pivotal performance of Taylor's career. Kelley explains that Stevens, its director, knew that with Elizabeth Taylor as the young and beautiful star, the "audience would understand why George Eastman (Clift) would kill for a place in the sun with her." Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, allowed on the set to watch the filming, became "wide-eyed watching the little girl from ''National Velvet'' seduce Montgomery Clift in front of the camera," writes Kelley. When the scene was over, Hopper went to her, "Elizabeth, where on earth did you ever learn how to make love like that?"

Critics acclaimed the film as a classic, a reputation it sustained throughout the next 50 years of cinema history. ''The New York Times'' A.H. Weiler wrote, "Elizabeth's delineation of the rich and beauteous Angela is the top effort of her career", and the ''Boxoffice'' reviewer unequivocally stated "Miss Taylor deserves an Academy Award".

Taylor became increasingly unsatisfied with the roles being offered to her at the time. While she wanted to play the lead roles in ''The Barefoot Contessa'' and ''I'll Cry Tomorrow'', MGM continued to restrict her to mindless and somewhat forgettable films such as: a cameo as herself in ''Callaway Went Thataway'' (1951), ''Love Is Better Than Ever'' (1952), ''Ivanhoe'' (1952), ''The Girl Who Had Everything'' (1953) and ''Beau Brummel'' (1954). She had wanted to play the role of Lady Rowena in ''Ivanhoe'', but the part was given to Joan Fontaine; Taylor was given the role of Rebecca. When Taylor became pregnant with her first child, MGM forced her through ''The Girl Who Had Everything'' (even adding two hours to her daily work schedule) so as to get one more film out of her before she became too heavily pregnant. Taylor lamented that she needed the money, as she had just bought a new house with second husband Michael Wilding and with a child on the way things would be pretty tight. Taylor had been forced by her pregnancy to turn down ''Elephant Walk'' (1954), though the role had been designed for her. Vivien Leigh, almost two decades Taylor's senior, but to whom Taylor bore a striking resemblance, got the part and went to Ceylon to shoot on location. Leigh suffered a nervous breakdown during filming, and Taylor reclaimed the role after the birth of her child, Michael Wilding, Jr., in January 1953.

Taylor's next screen endeavor, ''Rhapsody'' (1954), another tedious romantic drama, proved equally frustrating. Taylor portrayed Louise Durant, a beautiful rich girl in love with a temperamental violinist (Vittorio Gassman) and an earnest young pianist (John Ericson). A film critic for the ''New York Herald Tribune'' wrote: "There is beauty in the picture all right, with Miss Taylor glowing into the camera from every angle… but the dramatic pretenses are weak, despite the lofty sentences and handsome manikin poses."

Taylor's fourth period picture, ''Beau Brummell'', made just after ''Elephant Walk'' and ''Rhapsody'', cast her as the elaborately costumed Lady Patricia, which many felt was only a screen prop—a ravishing beauty whose sole purpose was to lend romantic support to the film's title star, Stewart Granger. ''The Last Time I Saw Paris'' (1954) fared only slightly better than her previous pictures, with Taylor being reunited with ''The Big Hangover'' costar Van Johnson. The role of Helen Ellsworth Willis was based on that of Zelda Fitzgerald and, although pregnant with her second child, Taylor went ahead with the film, her fourth in 12 months. Although proving somewhat successful at the box office, she still yearned for more substantial roles.

1955–79

Following a more substantial role opposite Rock Hudson and James Dean in George Stevens' epic ''Giant'' (1956), Taylor was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress four years in a row for ''Raintree County'' (1957) opposite Montgomery Clift; ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' (1958) opposite Paul Newman; ''Suddenly, Last Summer'' (1959) with Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn and Mercedes McCambridge; and finally winning for ''BUtterfield 8'' (1960). The film co-starred then husband Eddie Fisher and ended her contract, which Taylor said had made her an "MGM chattel" for 18 years.

''Suddenly, Last Summer'''s success made Taylor among the top ten most successful actors at the box office, and she remained in the top ten almost every year for the next decade. In 1960, Taylor became the highest paid actress up to that time when she signed a $1 million dollar contract to play the title role in 20th Century Fox's lavish production of ''Cleopatra'', which was released in 1963. During the filming, she began a romance with her future husband Richard Burton, who played Mark Antony in the film. The romance received much attention from the tabloid press, as both were married to other spouses at the time. Taylor ultimately received $7 million for her role.

Her second Academy Award, also for Best Actress in a Leading Role, was for her performance as Martha in ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1966), playing opposite then husband Richard Burton. Taylor and Burton would appear together in six other films during the decade, among them ''The V.I.P.s'' (1963), ''The Sandpiper'' (1965), and ''The Taming of the Shrew'' (1967). By 1967 their films had earned $200 million at the box office. When Taylor and Burton considered not working for three months, the possibility caused alarm in Hollywood as "nearly half of the U.S. film industry's income" came from movies starring one or both of them. Their next films ''Doctor Faustus'' (1967), ''The Comedians'' (1967) and ''Boom!'' (1968), however, all failed at the box office.

Taylor appeared in John Huston's ''Reflections in a Golden Eye'' (1967) opposite Marlon Brando (replacing Clift, who died before production began) and ''Secret Ceremony'' (1968) opposite Mia Farrow. By the end of the decade her box-office drawing power had considerably diminished, as evidenced by the failure of ''The Only Game in Town'' (1970), with Warren Beatty.

Although limited by a "thin and inflexible voice", Taylor continued to star in numerous theatrical films throughout the 1970s, such as ''Zee and Co.'' (1972) with Michael Caine, ''Ash Wednesday'' (1973), ''The Blue Bird'' (1976) with Jane Fonda and Ava Gardner, and ''A Little Night Music'' (1977). With then-husband Richard Burton, she co-starred in the 1972 films ''Under Milk Wood'' and ''Hammersmith Is Out'', and the 1973 made-for-TV movie ''Divorce His, Divorce Hers''.

1980–2003

Taylor starred in the 1980 mystery film ''The Mirror Crack'd'', based on an Agatha Christie novel. In 1985, she played movie gossip columnist Louella Parsons in the TV film ''Malice in Wonderland'' opposite Jane Alexander, who played Hedda Hopper. Taylor appeared in the miniseries ''North and South''. Her last theatrical film was 1994's ''The Flintstones''.

In February 1996, she appeared on the TV program, ''The Nanny'' as herself, and the star of the show, Fran, identifies her to a friend by using all of her husbands' names, stating that she would be meeting "Elizabeth Taylor-Hilton-Wilding-Todd-Fisher-Burton-Burton-Warner-Fortensky." In 2001, she played an agent in the TV film ''These Old Broads''. She appeared on a number of television series, including the soap operas ''General Hospital'' and ''All My Children'', as well as the animated series ''The Simpsons''—once as herself, and once as the voice of Maggie Simpson, uttering one word, "Daddy".

Taylor also acted on the stage, making her Broadway and West End debuts in 1982 with a revival of Lillian Hellman's ''The Little Foxes''. She was then in a production of Noël Coward's ''Private Lives'' (1983), in which she starred with her former husband, Richard Burton. The student-run Burton Taylor Theatre in Oxford was named for the famous couple after Burton appeared as Doctor Faustus in the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) production of the Marlowe play. Taylor played the ghostly, wordless Helen of Troy, who is entreated by Faustus to "make [him] immortal with a kiss".

In the early 1980s, Taylor moved to Bel Air, Los Angeles, which was her residence until her death. She also owned homes in Palm Springs, London and Hawaii.

2003–11

In March 2003, Taylor declined to attend the 75th Annual Academy Awards, due to her opposition to the Iraq War. She publicly condemned then President George W. Bush for calling on Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq, and said she feared the conflict would lead to "World War III".

The February 2007 issue of ''Interview'' magazine was devoted entirely to Taylor. It celebrated her life, career and her upcoming 75th birthday.

On December 1, 2007, Taylor acted on-stage again, appearing opposite James Earl Jones in a benefit performance of the A. R. Gurney play ''Love Letters''. The event's goal was to raise $1 million for Taylor's AIDS foundation. Tickets for the show were priced at $2,500, and more than 500 people attended. The event happened to coincide with the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike and, rather than cross the picket line, Taylor requested a "one night dispensation." The Writers Guild agreed not to picket the Paramount Pictures lot that night to allow for the performance.

Personal life

Marriages, romances, and children

thumb|Taylor with daughter Liza and husband Mike Todd, 1957Taylor was married eight times to seven husbands. When asked why she married so often, she replied, "I don't know, honey. It sure beats the hell out of me," but also said that, "I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married. I guess I'm very old-fashioned." Taylor's husbands were: Conrad "Nicky" Hilton (May 6, 1950 – January 29, 1951): Taylor believed that she was in love with the young hotel heir, but also wanted to escape her mother. MGM staff designed Taylor's wedding dress and honeymoon outfits. Hilton's "gambling, drinking, and abusive behavior", however, horrified her and her parents, caused a miscarriage, and ended the marriage in divorce after nine months. Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952 – January 26, 1957): The "gentle" Wilding, 20 years older than Taylor, comforted her after leaving Hilton. After their divorce Taylor admitted that "I gave him rather a rough time, sort of henpecked him and probably wasn't mature enough for him." Michael Todd (February 2, 1957 – March 22, 1958): Todd's death ended Taylor's only marriage not to result in divorce. Although their relationship was tumultuous, she later called him one of the three loves of her life, along with Burton and jewelry. Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 – March 6, 1964): Fisher, Todd's best friend, consoled Taylor after Todd's death. They began an affair while Fisher was still married to Debbie Reynolds, causing a scandal; Taylor outraged columnist Hopper by telling her, "Well, Mike is dead and I'm alive...What do you expect me to do? ''Sleep alone''?" Reynolds eventually forgave Taylor; she voted for her when Taylor was nominated for an Oscar for ''BUtterfield 8'', and starred with her in ''These Old Broads''. Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 – June 26, 1974): The Vatican condemned Burton and Taylor's affair, which began when both were married to others, as "erotic vagrancy". The press closely followed their relationship before, during, and after their ten years of marriage, due to great public interest in "the most famous film star in the world and the man many believed to be the finest classical actor of his generation." Taylor wanted to focus on her marriage rather than her career, and gained weight in an unsuccessful attempt to not receive film roles. Richard Burton (October 10, 1975 – July 29, 1976): Sixteen months after divorcing—Burton said, "You can't keep clapping a couple of sticks [of dynamite] together without expecting them to blow up"—they remarried in a private ceremony in Kasane, Botswana, but soon separated and redivorced in 1976. Burton disagreed with others about her famed beauty, acknowledging her "wonderful eyes" but saying that calling her "the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense. She has...a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she's rather short in the leg." He stated, however, that when he first saw Taylor in 1952, "She was unquestionably gorgeous. I can think of no other word to describe a combination of plentitude, frugality, abundance, tightness. She was lavish. She was a dark unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much." John Warner (December 4, 1976 – November 7, 1982): As with Burton, Taylor sought to be known as the wife of her husband, a Republican United States Senator from Virginia. Unhappy with her life in Washington, however, Taylor became depressed and entered the Betty Ford Clinic. Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 – October 31, 1996): Taylor and Fortensky met during another stay at the Betty Ford Clinic and were married at the Neverland Ranch.

Taylor had many romances outside her marriages. Before marrying Hilton she was engaged to both Heisman Trophy winner Glenn Davis—who did not know until the relationship ended that Taylor's mother had encouraged it to build publicity for her daughter—and the son of William D. Pawley, the United States Ambassador to Brazil. Howard Hughes promised Taylor's parents that if they would encourage her to marry him, the enormously wealthy industrialist and film producer would finance a movie studio for her; Sara Taylor agreed, but Taylor refused. After she left Hilton, Hughes returned, proposing to Taylor by suddenly landing a helicopter nearby and sprinkling diamonds on her. Other dates included Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, and Malcolm Forbes. In 2007, Taylor denied rumors of a ninth marriage to her partner Jason Winters, but referred to him as "one of the most wonderful men I've ever known."

Taylor had two sons, Michael Howard (born January 6, 1953) and Christopher Edward (born February 27, 1955), with Michael Wilding. She had a daughter, Elizabeth Frances "Liza" (born August 6, 1957), with Michael Todd. During her marriage to Eddie Fisher, Taylor started proceedings to adopt a two-year-old girl from Germany, Maria (born August 1, 1961); the adoption process was finalized in 1964 following their divorce. Richard Burton later adopted Taylor's daughters Liza and Maria.

In 1971, Taylor became a grandmother at the age of 39. At the time of her death, she was survived by her four children, ten grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Religion and identity

In 1959, at age 27, after nine months of study, Taylor converted from Christian Science to Judaism, taking the Hebrew name Elisheba Rachel. She stated that her conversion was something she had long considered and was not related to her marriages. After Mike Todd's death, Taylor said that she "felt a desperate need for a formalized religion," and explained that neither Catholicism nor Christian Science were able to address many of the "questions she had about life and death."

Biographer Randy Taraborrelli notes that after studying the philosophy of Judaism for nine months, "she felt an immediate connection to the faith." Although Taylor rarely attended synagogue, she stated, "I'm one of those people who think you can be close to God anywhere, not just in a place designed for worship . . . " At the conversion ceremony, with her parents present as witnesses and in full support of her decision, Taylor repeated the words of Ruth:

. . . for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.

Taylor was a follower of Kabbalah and a member of the Kabbalah Centre.

During an interview when she was 55, she describes how her inner sense of identity, when a child actress, kept her from giving in to many of the studio's demands, especially with regard to altering her appearance to fit in:

She adds that she began to recognize her "inner being" during her adulthood:

Jewelry, perfume and fashion

Taylor had a passion for jewelry, stating that "You can't cry on a diamond's shoulder, and diamonds won't keep you warm at night, but they're sure fun when the sun shines". At her death, Taylor's jewelry collection was reportedly worth $150 million. She was a client of jewelry designer Shlomo Moussaieff. Over the years she owned a number of well-known pieces, two of the most famous being the Krupp Diamond, which Taylor wore daily, and the pear-shaped Taylor-Burton Diamond; both were among many gifts from husband Richard Burton. Taylor also owned the La Peregrina Pearl, purchased by Burton as a Valentine's Day present in 1969. The pearl was formerly owned by Mary I of England, and Burton sought a portrait of Queen Mary wearing the pearl. Upon the purchase of such a painting, the Burtons discovered that the British National Portrait Gallery did not have an original painting of Mary, so they donated the painting to the Gallery. Her enduring collection of jewelry has been documented in her book ''My Love Affair with Jewelry'' (2002) with photographs by the New York photographer John Bigelow Taylor.

At her death Taylor left an estate estimated at $600 million to $1 billion; beyond the $150 million in jewelry, she owned $130 million in real estate. Taylor was a pioneer in marketing a celebrity merchandise brand, and despite her years as an actress, most of Taylor's wealth came from her business ventures. She designed fine jewelry for The Elizabeth Collection, and launched three perfumes, "White Diamonds", "Passion", and "Passion for Men", which together had an estimated US$69 million in 2010 sales.

Taylor was a fashion icon during her years as an active film star. In addition to her own purchases, MGM costumers Edith Head and Helen Rose helped Taylor choose clothes that emphasized her face, chest, and waist. Taylor helped popularize Valentino and Halston's designs, and in the 1980s Schering-Plough developed violet contact lenses, citing Taylor's eyes as inspiration.

Activism

HIV/AIDS

Taylor devoted consistent and generous humanitarian time, advocacy efforts, and funding to HIV and AIDS-related projects and charities, helping to raise more than $270 million for the cause. She was one of the first celebrities and public personalities to do so at a time when few acknowledged the disease, organizing and hosting the first AIDS fundraiser in 1984, to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles.

Taylor was cofounder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) with Dr. Michael Gottlieb and Dr. Mathilde Krim in 1985. Her longtime friend and former co-star Rock Hudson had disclosed having AIDS and died of it that year. She also founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF) in 1993, created to provide critically needed support services for people with HIV/AIDS. For example, in 2006 Taylor commissioned a "Care Van" equipped with examination tables and xray equipment, the New Orleans donation made by her Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and Macy's. That year, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, she also donated US$40,000 to the NO/AIDS Task Force, a non-profit organization serving the community of those affected by HIV/AIDS in and around New Orleans.

Taylor was honored with a special Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1992 for her HIV/AIDS humanitarian work. Speaking of that work, former President Bill Clinton said at her death, "Elizabeth's legacy will live on in many people around the world whose lives will be longer and better because of her work and the ongoing efforts of those she inspired."

Jewish causes

After her conversion to Judaism, Taylor worked for Jewish causes throughout her life. In 1959, her large-scale purchase of Israeli Bonds caused Arab boycotts of her films. In 1962, she was barred from entering Egypt to complete ''Cleopatra''; its government announced that "that Miss Taylor will not be allowed to come to Egypt because she has adopted the Jewish faith and 'supports Israeli causes.'" In 1974, Taylor and Richard Burton considered marrying in Israel, but could not because Burton was not Jewish. Taylor helped to raise money for organizations such as the Jewish National Fund; advocated for the right of Soviet Jews to emigate to Israel and canceled a visit to the USSR because of its condemnation of Israel due to the Six-Day War; signed a letter protesting the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 of 1975; and offered herself as a replacement hostage during the 1976 Entebbe skyjacking.

Illnesses and death

Taylor struggled with health problems much of her life; starting with her divorce from Hilton, Taylor experienced serious medical issues whenever she faced problems in her personal life. Taylor was hospitalized more than 70 times and had at least 20 major operations. Many times newspaper headlines erroneously announced that Taylor was close to death; she herself only claimed to have almost died on four occasions.

At 5'4", Taylor constantly gained and lost significant amounts of weight, reaching both 119 pounds and 180 pounds in the 1980s. She smoked cigarettes into her mid-fifties, and feared she had lung cancer in October 1975 after an X-ray showed spots on her lungs, but was later found not to have the disease. Taylor broke her back five times, had both her hips replaced, had a hysterectomy, suffered from dysentery and phlebitis, punctured her esophagus, survived a benign brain tumor operation in 1997 and skin cancer, and faced life-threatening bouts with pneumonia twice, one in 1961 requiring an emergency tracheotomy. In 1983 she admitted to having been addicted to sleeping pills and painkillers for 35 years. Taylor was treated for alcoholism and prescription drug addiction at the Betty Ford Clinic for seven weeks from December 1983 to January 1984, and again from the autumn of 1988 until early 1989.

On May 30, 2006, Taylor appeared on ''Larry King Live'' to refute the claims that she had been ill, and denied the allegations that she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and was close to death. Near the end of her life, however, she was reclusive and sometimes failed to make scheduled appearances due to illness or other personal reasons. She used a wheelchair and when asked about it stated that she had osteoporosis and was born with scoliosis.

The mutation that gave Taylor her striking double eyelashes may also have contributed to her history of heart trouble. In November 2004, Taylor announced a diagnosis of congestive heart failure, a progressive condition in which the heart is too weak to pump sufficient blood throughout the body, particularly to the lower extremities such as the ankles and feet. In 2009 she underwent cardiac surgery to replace a leaky valve. In February 2011, new symptoms related to heart failure caused her to be admitted into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for treatment, where she remained until her death at age 79 on March 23, 2011, surrounded by her four children.

She was buried in a private Jewish ceremony, presided over by Rabbi Jerry Cutler, the day after she died, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Taylor is entombed in the Great Mausoleum, where public access to her tomb is restricted. At her request, the funeral began 15 minutes after it was scheduled to begin; as her representative told the media "She even wanted to be late for her own funeral."

Legacy

Taylor has been called the "greatest movie star of all," writes biographer William J. Mann. A child star at the age of 12, she soon after launched into public awareness by MGM and a string of successful films, many of which are today considered "classics." Her resulting celebrity made her into a Hollywood icon, as she set the "gold standard" for Hollywood fame, and "created the model for stardom," adds Mann.

Other observers, such as social critic Camille Paglia, similarly describe Taylor as "the greatest actress in film history," partly as a result of the "liquid realm of emotion" she expressed on screen. Paglia describes the effect Taylor had in some of her films:

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Taylor had a major role in sparking the sexual revolution of the 1960s, as she pushed the envelope on sexuality: She was one of the first major stars to pose (mostly) nude in ''Playboy,'' and among the first to remove her clothes onscreen. In ''A Place in the Sun'', filmed when she was 17, her surprising maturity shocked Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, who wrote of her precocious sexuality. Film historian Andrew Sarris describes her love scenes in the film with Montgomery Clift as "unnerving—sybaritic—like gorging on chocolate sundaes."

In real life, she was considered "a star without airs," notes Mann. Writer Gloria Steinem likewise described her as a "movie queen with no ego . . . expert at what she does, uncatty in her work relationships with other actresses." Mike Nichols, who directed her in ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1966), said that of all the actors he’s worked with, Taylor had the "most democratic soul." Mann adds that she treated electricians and studio crew the "same way she would a Rothschild at a charity gala." Director George Cukor told Taylor that she possessed "that rarest of virtues—simple kindness."

Awards and honors

Taylor won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her performance in ''BUtterfield 8'' in 1960, and for ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' in 1966. Additionally, she received the Jean Herscholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 1992 for her work fighting AIDS.

In 1997, Taylor was honored by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) with the Life Achievement Award. As Taylor could not be in attendance, Gregory Peck read the following statement on her behalf:

Taylor received the French Legion of Honour in 1987, and in 2000 was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 2001, she received a Presidential Citizens Medal for her humanitarian work, most notably for helping to raise more than $200 million for AIDS research and bringing international attention and resources to addressing the epidemic. Taylor was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2007.

Books

Taylor was the subject of at least 53 books as of 2006; Kitty Kelley wrote the first unauthorized biography of the actress in 1981, which Taylor denounced. She never wrote a comprehensive autobiography due to her desire for privacy, but did publish several books besides ''My Love Affair with Jewelry''. Taylor's first, ''Nibbles and Me'' (1946), discussed the child star's "adventures with her pet chipmunk". Reviewers criticized another, ''Elizabeth Taylor'' (1964), for being uninteresting and lacking in new information. She received a $750,000 advance payment for ''Elizabeth Takes Off: On Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Self-Image and Self-Esteem'' (1988).

Filmography

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF)

"60 Minutes" interview (1970) video, 10 minutes

"Carroll Baker on Elizabeth Taylor", video, 2 minutes

Elizabeth Taylor: Unpublished Pics – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Elizabeth Taylor Resource Extensive biography, separate entries for each film, TV, stage, news archive, photographs, etc.

Elizabeth Taylor photo tribute at Flickr

FBI file on Elizabeth Taylor

American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR)

Kennedy Center bio. for Elizabeth Taylor

Literature on Elizabeth Taylor

Interactive Timeline

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Coordinates	39°15′58″N174°21′58″N
name	Reynolds Price
birth name	Edward Reynolds Price
birth date	February 01, 1933
birth place	Macon, North Carolina
death date	January 20, 2011
death place	Durham, North Carolina
nationality	American
alma mater	Duke University
occupation	Author and Professor }}

Reynolds Price (born Edward Reynolds Price; February 1, 1933 January 20, 2011) was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Life

Price was born in Macon, North Carolina, and, after attending public schools of his native state, went to Duke University, where he graduated ''summa cum laude'' in 1955. Afterward, he went to Merton College, Oxford for three years as a Rhodes Scholar and wrote a book about life at Oxford, called ''The Source of Light''. While at Oxford Price formed important friendships with the poets W.H Auden and Stephen Spender as well as the biographer Lord David Cecil which helped to spur his writing career on. After his return in 1958, he started teaching at Duke University, which he did 'til the end of his life. His first short stories were published in Duke's student literary periodical ''Archive''. Eudora Welty also helped Price get his first couple of books published; she sent one of his early stories, "Michael Egerton" to her own publisher, but Price's first book was not a collection of stories; it was a novel entitled ''A Long and Happy Life.'' His other books include his memoir ''Clear Pictures'', and his novels ''The Tongues of Angels'', ''Blue Calhoun'', ''Kate Vaiden'', ''Roxanna Slade'' and ''The Great Circle.'' ''The Good Priest's Son'', published in 2005, is an account of a 9/11 experience.

In 1984, Price was diagnosed with a malignant spinal tumor. It was treated with radiation therapy, which left him cancer-free but paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. Price employed one beginning writer a year, in a sort of private fellowship: in exchange for tending to his daily needs, the young poet or prose writer received room and board and time to write. He wrote about his experience as a cancer survivor in his memoir ''A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing''.

Price died January 20, 2011, after suffering a heart attack five days earlier.

Career

Price was a Southern writer. All his books are set in the South and more particularly in his native North Carolina. Price once replied when asked why he chose to remain in North Carolina: "It's the place about which I have perfect pitch." Price has cited Southern writer Eudora Welty as one of his early influences. He has also been noted for his sexually frank writing, and the ambiguous nature of his own sexuality; Price did not write publicly about being gay until his third memoir, ''Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back'', published in 2009. He began teaching at Duke shortly after completing his Rhodes Scholarship in the late 1950s. For more than forty years Price taught a class on Milton, and his former students included the writers Josephine Humphreys and Anne Tyler, along with the actress Annabeth Gish.

Price is a favorite author of Bill Clinton, who invited him to dinner at the White House early in his first term. Price wrote the lyrics to two songs by James Taylor: "Copperline" and "New Hymn". Price received numerous literary honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the William Faulkner Foundation Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his memoir ''Clear Pictures'' (1989). He was also a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Price's book, ''Feasting The Heart'' (2000), is a collection of controversial and personal essays, originally broadcast to great acclaim on National Public Radio's ''All Things Considered''.

Books

''A Long and Happy Life'' (1962)

''The Names and Faces of Heroes'' (1963)

''A Generous Man'' (1966)

''Love and Work'' (1968)

''Permanent Errors'' (1970)

''Things Themselves'' (1972)

''The Surface of Earth'' (1975) (part one of the ''A Great Circle'' trilogy of novels aka ''The Mayfield Trilogy'')

''Early Dark'' (1977)

''A Palpable God'' (1978) (translations from the Old and New Testaments, with an essay on the origins and aims of narrative)

''The Source of Light'' (1981) (part two of the ''A Great Circle'' trilogy)

''Vital Provisions'' (poems, 1982)

''Mustian'' (1983)

''Private Contentment'' (a 1984 television play)

''Kate Vaiden'' (1986)

''The Laws of Ice'' (poems, 1986)

''A Common Room'' (1987)

''Good Hearts'' (1988)

''Clear Pictures'' (his 1989 memoir)

''The Tongues of Angels'' (1990)

''The Use of Fire'' (poems, 1990)

''New Music'' (a 1990 trilogy of plays)

''The Foreseeable Future'' (stories, 1991)

''Blue Calhoun'' (1992)

''Full Moon'' (a 1993 play)

''The Collected Stories'' (1993)

''A Whole New Life'' (1994 memoir describing his survival of spinal cancer that started in 1984 and left him a paraplegic)

''The Promise of Rest'' (1995) (part three of the ''A Great Circle'' trilogy)

''Three Gospels'' (1996) (contains Price's translations of the Gospels of Mark and John, with introductory essays)

''The Collected Poems'' (1997)

''Roxanna Slade'' (1998)

''Letter to a Man in the Fire: Does God Exist and Does He Care?'' (an epistolary essay, 1999)

''A Singular Family: Rosacoke and Her Kin (1999)

''Feasting the Heart'' (2000) (52 of the essays he regularly broadcast on National Public Radio's news program ''All Things Considered'' )

''Learning a Trade: A Craftsman's Notebooks, 1955-1997'' (2000)

''A Perfect Friend'' (Price's first children's book, 2000)

''Noble Norfleet'' (2002)

''A Serious Way of Wondering: The Ethics of Jesus Imagined'' (2003)

''The Good Priest's Son'' (2005)

''Letter to a Godchild : Concerning Faith'' (2006)

''Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back'' (2009 memoir about his time at Oxford University and his first three years teaching at Duke University)

References

External links

Price's Duke University page

New York Times reviews of Price's books

Review of Price's ''Collected Poems''

StorySouth review of Price's Collected Stories

'Ralph' magazine review of Price's memoir

Sensual in the South Edmund White on Price from ''The New York Review of Books''

Obituary of Reynolds Price by ''the Rhodes Trust''

Profile on PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly January 21, 2011

Appreciation on Charlie Rose

Interview on 2009 on Charlie Rose Show

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