Liz gets new zest for life

THERE were serious fears for her health last year but Elizabeth Taylor, according to chums, is enjoying a new lease of life and is ­especially “delighted” at the prospect of becoming a great-grandmother for the fifth time.

FRESH START Elizabeth Taylor Wenn com FRESH START: Elizabeth Taylor/ Wenn.com

Recently the legendary Oscar winner hosted a ­dinner party at her Bel Air mansion for 20 close friends to mark her 77th birthday and told guests that the news that her grand­daughter, fashion stylist Naomi Wilding, and actor husband Anthony Cran are expecting their first child has given her an “enormous zest for life”.

A close friend of Taylor says that the impending happy event has given the star of Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf a fresh purpose.

“To Elizabeth life is all about friends and family and she’s terribly excited about meeting the new baby due fairly soon,” he says.

“Naomi is a spirited and warm woman and Anthony is devoted to her and adores Elizabeth – they will make great parents.”

Taylor, made a Dame of the British Empire by the Queen in December 1999, hasn’t been seen out in public much since “hanging out” at the Abbey gay bar in West Hollywood late last year but talks frequently to those close to her by telephone.

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Last year, there were concerns for her health when she was hospitalised for pneumonia and reportedly on a life-support machine but the star rallied and showed she was very much in the land of the living by making TV and award ceremony

appearances, albeit in a wheelchair.

Taylor is fond of Naomi, who along with top photo-grapher Bruce Weber, produced a fashion spread featuring Taylor for French Vogue.

Weber said it was a memorable shoot as ­“granny and granddaughter had such fun fighting over which dress and which of her fabulous jewels would work for each of the three different shoots.”

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