Hollywood Icons: Elizabeth Taylor & Montgomery Clift

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Two of my all- time favorite Hollywood icons.

These pictures that capture their youth, their beauty and carefree ways were taken at the height of their fame. 

Their halcyon days so to speak. Although they never became an item, each was to become an important figure in each other's life. 

The golden days. The epitome of vintage Hollywood glamour

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE (Feb 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-born American[2] 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 eyes.

-Wikipedia

In her final weeks, Elizabeth Taylor had a lot of friends drop by her room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. 

"We talked about how it's really hell getting older," says Debbie Reynolds, who spoke to PEOPLE about her onetime rival and longtime friend. "We were complaining to each other about that, like two girls would." 

But on the last night of her life, it was only her four children who were by her side as the last true Hollywood goddess passed away from congestive heart failure on March 23. 

"She was comfortable and it was peaceful and she was surrounded by her children," says her close friend Sally Morrison, who also shared her fond remembrances of Taylor, 79, with PEOPLE. 

Taylor, who in her unpredictable eight decades essentially invented the modern celebrity, had survived several brushes with death, including an emergency tracheotomy in 1961 and cardiac surgery in 2006. When she was hospitalized this February, she fully expected to cheat death once again. 

-People Magazine