She despised hypocrisy and was fiercely loyal to her friends, while navigating the pressures and pleasures of being the world’s biggest star. Chris Wilding discusses the legend and legacy of the mother he loved

Chris Wilding is a shy man approaching 70. As a little boy, he was also shy. He used to get embarrassed when his mother turned up at school for parents’ day. Everybody made such a hoo-ha about it. There she would be, in her furs and finery, done up to the nines. She was so famous and infamous, sexy and scandalous, and he would never hear the end of it. And yet to him she was just Mom.

Elizabeth Taylor was the world’s best-known actress, becoming a global celebrity at 12 after starring in National Velvet. By the age of 35, she had won two Oscars, first for playing sex worker Gloria Wandrous in the 1960 film BUtterfield 8, which she described as “a piece of shit”, and then six years later for her brilliantly visceral performance as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?