Elizabeth Taylor Files for 8th Divorce

After Elizabeth Taylor and Welsh actor Richard Burton divorced in 1973, she offered a lofty explanation for the breakup: “We have loved each other too much.”

After she filed for divorce Monday from her seventh husband, construction worker Larry Fortensky, her explanation was prosaic: “irreconcilable differences.”

“The whole thing will be worked out amicably between Elizabeth and Larry,” said Taylor’s attorney, Neil Papiano. “They are both very sorry matters didn’t work out, but they still have great respect and love for each other.”

While the situation may appear final to Fortensky, he could take note of events that followed Taylor’s 1973 split from Burton. Sixteen months after the divorce, they remarried and Burton, once her fifth husband, then became her sixth.

They did not, however, stay married long. They re-divorced eight months later. Taylor recuperated quickly from the trauma of two marriages and two divorces with the same man. Six months after the second divorce was final she married her seventh husband, U.S. Sen. John W. Warner. They divorced in 1982, after which Taylor stayed single almost an entire decade.

Taylor, 63, whose last hit movie was 30 years ago, is famous for being famous. And a good part of her celebrity, many believe, are her marriages to rich, talented or powerful men. Larry Fortensky was the departure.

He drove a Caterpillar dirt compactor for a living and was a member of Teamsters Local 420 in Los Angeles. His union classified him as a “construction driver.” Taylor referred to him as an “employee of a large engine equipment company.”

Their storied meeting could be characterized as a match made in a detoxification center. They met at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage in 1988. Taylor was there for drug treatment. Fortensky’s stay at the clinic, reportedly covered under his Teamsters insurance policy, followed a drunk-driving conviction.

In 1991, Taylor announced: “I always said I would get married one more time and with God’s blessings, this is it, forever.” Forever lasted 40 months.

But despite their many differences and the 20-year gap in their ages, Taylor married for the eighth time.

Last August, Taylor and the former construction worker announced their trial separation.

“Larry and I both need our space now,” Taylor said at the time. “We both hope this is only temporary.”

It wasn’t. At least for now.