Elizabeth Taylor’s Heartfelt Tribute to America

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, and as we celebrate this historic milestone, we're reminded of the time Elizabeth Taylor celebrated America's birthday. In 1976, she closed the 48th Oscars with a rendition of "America the Beautiful" that brought Hollywood to its feet in honor of the country's 200th.

After being introduced as a two-time Academy Award winner — having won Best Actress in 1961 for BUtterfield 8 and in 1967 for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — Elizabeth stepped on stage, dressed in a stunning custom-designed red Halston chiffon gown, and addressed the crowd.

"Films have helped bring a sense of the American land, the American purpose, and the American dream to people everywhere. Let us recall that original purpose, and reaffirm that necessary dream."

What made those words resonate was the life behind them. Elizabeth was born in Hampstead, London — but she was American by blood, the daughter of two U.S. citizens who had made their home in England during the interwar years. In 1939, her mother Sara boarded the SS Manhattan with seven-year-old Elizabeth and her brother Howard and sailed for the States. During the weeklong crossing, Elizabeth watched The Little Princess, with Shirley Temple’s captivating presence, and fell in love with movies before she'd ever set foot in Hollywood. She arrived in a country that was, by birthright, already hers. She would spend the rest of her life making it home.

All of that was surely on Elizabeth's mind that night in 1976 at the Dorothy Chandler in Los Angeles. Following her brief speech, and backed by the USC Trojan Marching Band, she led the entire room — including stars like Gene Kelly, Jack Nicholson, Audrey Hepburn, and more — in song.

That patriotic spirit carried into the months that followed. Later that very year, at a dinner in Washington, D.C. hosted by Queen Elizabeth at the British Embassy, she met her next husband, Senator John Warner — who was, at the time, heading the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, the federal body overseeing the nation's 200th anniversary celebrations. First public, then personal — the Bicentennial became a part of Elizabeth's life in a big way that year.

Standing on the Oscars stage that night, asking Hollywood to pause, think about the ways they had contributed to defining the country, and join together in song, was entirely in keeping with who Elizabeth was: always bold, notably generous, and never afraid to feel something.