Elizabeth Taylor laid to rest in private funeral service

By
Tom Leonard
Last updated at 12:02 AM on 25th March 2011

The crowds finally parted for Elizabeth Taylor as the screen legend was buried yesterday in a small private ceremony on a quiet hill outside Los Angeles.

A superstar who had been mobbed for most of her life was sent on her way in a short service attended by no more than a few dozen family and close friends.

Close in life to Michael Jackson, Taylor is now even closer to the singer in death as she was buried in the same mausoleum building where he was laid to rest in 2009.

Sombre: Close family of Elizabeth Taylor arrived at Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks and Mortuaries in California yesterday for Elizabeth Taylor’s private funeral service

Small gathering: Only close family attended the event, with a public memorial service being planned for a later date

Firm friends: Dame Elizabeth Taylor will be laid to rest in the same cemetery as her close friend Michael
Jackson, who died two years ago

As a convoy of five black stretch
limos swept the mourners through the main entrance of the Forest Lawns
Memorial Park cemetery in Glendale, they were watched at a respectful
distance by a phalanx of the world’s media – including circling
helicopters – but only a handful of fans.

The 79-year-old actress only died of
heart failure on Wednesday but a combination of her Jewish faith – which
she adopted in 1959 and which demands speedy burial – and her family’s
evident desire to avoid a media circus for once in her life ensured her
burial took most people by surprise. 

It was not clear who exactly was
inside the blacked out limos but it would have included Taylor’s four
children from three of her seven husbands – Michael and Christopher
Wilding, Liza Todd and Maria Burton – as well as most if not all of her
10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Time to say goodbye: Taylor died on Wednesday of heart failure

There had been speculation that she
would be buried next to her parents – and close to Marilyn Monroe – at a
more centrally-located Los Angeles cemetery at Westwood Village.

It had also been mooted that she
might be laid to rest in Wales in a grave belonging to the family of her
late husband Richard Burton.

Burton’s family had said they were
hoping to honour the agreement the twice-married couple had made to be
be buried together at a cemetery in Pontrhydyfen, near Port Talbot.

Memorial service: Preparations were under way earlier in the day ahead of the ceremony

Media pack: Journalists and cameramen gather at the scene

Last resting place: Taylor’s funeral is taking place at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California

Document: Taylor’s death certificate has been released

Particularly given that Burton is
actually buried in Switzerland – for tax reasons – it seemed a forlorn hope that as glamorous a star as Taylor would
end her days under the grey skies of south Wales.

But, even so, the London-born actress had a sort of homecoming yesterday.

Set in 300 acres of gently wooded
hills, Forest Lawn has a definite English feel – albeit a Hollywood
version – with mock Tudor office buildings, a Scottish chapel called
‘Wee kirk o’ the heather’ and a medieval gothic-style Great Mausoleum
that was hailed by Time magazine as the ‘New World’s Westminster Abbey’.

The mausoleum, was yesterday’s
funeral service was held under tight security, contains a ‘court of
honour’ where the cemetery’s most prestigious residents are inducted as
‘immortals’ by Forest Lawn’s ‘council of regents’.

The cemetery is already packed with
first division Hollywood names including Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn,
Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and Jean Harlow.

Away from home: Richard Burton’s grave in Celigny, Switzerland

Jackson, another superstar who lived
almost his entire life in the public eye, was also buried there with
little pomp and ceremony.

Together again? There had been speculation Taylor, pictured in 1983, would be buried with her ex-husband Richard Burton in Switzerland

The speed of the funeral arrangements
also meant, thankfully, that a threatened picket by the rabid anti-gay
activists of a group calling itself the Westboro Baptist Church never
materialised.

Woody McBreairty, one of the few fans
who had been able to get to the cemetery in time, said it was ‘entirely
appropriate’ she should find privacy at last.

‘This is her ride into the sunset and I think her family wanted her to do it with great dignity,’ he said.

Mr McBreairty, who lives near
Taylor’s home in Los Angeles’s Bel Air neighbourhood, said he used to
see her occasionally and she was always ‘mobbed’. She had often wanted
to go out with her family to local restaurants but was unable to do it,
he said.

He added: ‘I came because I knew this
would be my last chance to pay a tribute to her. The term ‘movie
legend’ is thrown around a lot but she gave genuine meaning to it. And
she was probably the greatest beauty known to man.’

Other fans – and fellow stars – will
get the chance to mourn the actress at a memorial service, whose date
has yet to be announced.

Berta Judt had been waiting for the bus only to find herself one of the few members of the public to see the funeral cortege.

‘They only announced this on the news
two hours ago so nobody would have had time to get here, especially if
they had to get off work,’ said the retired office worker.

‘I’m definitely a fan. I remember
being a 15-year-old girl and reading those old film magazines and seeing
her gorgeous face on the cover. We all aspire to that.’

Goddess of the silver screen: Taylor playing the title role in one of her most famous films, Cleopatra