Elizabeth Taylor’s Pop Music Connections Pre-Date Taylor Swift’s Song About Her: 9 Times the Film Icon Made a Pop Impact

Taylor Swift was just 21 when Elizabeth Taylor died in March 2011, so you might assume that she isn’t all that familiar with the screen legend, whose career peaked in the 1950s and 1960s. You’d be wrong. She’s not only familiar with her, but a big fan.

“Elizabeth Taylor,” the second track on Swift’s new album The Life of a Showgirl, is a valentine to the legendary star, who was in the public eye for nearly 70 years before she died in 2011 at age 79. Swift co-wrote and co-produced the song with Max Martin and Shellback, with whom she created the entire album. The album enters the Billboard 200 at No. 1 this week. “Elizabeth Taylor,” which contains references to Taylor’s violet eyes and her White Diamonds perfume, enters the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 3, behind two other songs from Swift’s album, “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Opalite.”

On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last week, Taylor spoke at length about the film star, making it clear that she relates to her on a deep level.

“I love her so much,” Swift told Jimmy Fallon. “She is, I think, the ultimate sort of icon/role model that I look to when I look at somebody who had immense pressure on them, was extremely scrutinized, everything that she ever did. She kept making more and more daring art. It’s almost like the more polarizing people were about her, the more she just kept doing even more challenging roles, taking bigger risks.”

Swift pointed to another reason she relates to Taylor – the film star’s wicked sense of humor. “She was so funny,” Swift told Fallon. “She used humor as a device against anybody, any of her detractors or whatever. I’ve done that with songs like ‘Blank Space’ when people are like [adopting a whiny, sing-song voice] “Are you a man-eating serial dater?’ I just feel like, ‘let me write a song from that perspective. That’s hilarious.’ I think you have to be able to combat negativity with humor. That’s my favorite thing about her.

“I just wanted to make a song that felt as luxurious and glamorous as she was. We had a harp – we pulled all the stops for her. Everybody should be obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor.”

This is far from the first time that Taylor made a major pop impact. Take a look at nine other ways she influenced the music world.