In 1961, while in Europe for medical treatment, Elizabeth Taylor was introduced to an infant girl by the German actress Maria Schell. The baby was nine months old. She was lying in a laundry basket supported by two old pillows. She was severely malnourished. She had painful abscesses across her body. She had a deformed hip that doctors feared might prevent her from ever walking. She did not cry. She did not make sounds. She lay quietly and watched the room with dark, attentive eyes. Elizabeth Taylor picked her up and did not put her down for three days. She bathed the child. She held her. She cared for her continuously until the infant, slow to respond at first, began to make sounds and reach for her bottle. German adoption officials encouraged Taylor to select a different child — one without the health complications this baby carried. Taylor refused. She later described her position in documented interviews with characteristic directness: the officials wanted her to have a perfect baby, so she had to fight like a tiger to get this one. To her, this child was already perfect. The little girl was named Maria. When Taylor married Richard Burton, Burton legally adopted Maria as well, and she became Maria Burton. The process of healing her hip was long. Taylor took Maria across Germany, Italy, and France, consulting doctors who disagreed about the prognosis. For nearly two years, Maria was placed in a full-body cast as physicians attempted to determine whether she would ever be able to walk. Eventually, a surgeon in Oxford, England, recommended an operation to insert a metal plate into the hip. The surgery succeeded. Maria walked. Then she ran. Then she grew up alongside her siblings — Liza, Christopher, Michael, and Eddie — in one of the most scrutinised families in the world. Taylor has described the moment Maria spoke her first word in documented interviews, saying it was "Mama," and that when it happened she simply fell apart with joy. Richard Burton, a man who kept detailed private diaries throughout his adult life, recorded the texture of family life with Maria in entries from 1966. One evening over lamb stew, he sat down with five-year-old Maria and told her the story of her own life — where she had come from, how she had arrived, what the family had done to bring her home. He noted in his diary how deeply the child listened. Later that same year, he recorded another entry in which Maria told him she loved him and wanted always to be with him. Maria Burton grew up to become a model. She married and had two children of her own, whom she named Eliza and Richard — in honour of her parents. She is now a grandmother. She has worked with children's charities throughout her adult life. The infant who lay in a laundry basket in Germany in 1961, silent and watchful, grew into a woman who passes the same quality of attention to the next generation. Elizabeth Taylor was told to choose a different baby. She chose this one. And this one grew up. Share so the story of Elizabeth Taylor and Maria — one of the quietest and most determined acts of the actress's life — is remembered. Source: Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry, 2002; The Richard Burton Diaries, edited by Chris Williams, 2012; Elizabeth Taylor documented interviews, Life magazine, The Guardian, 1962-2010; Maria Burton documented biographical accounts. This is an educational post from History Nerds HQ archive (Sri Lanka) for global history enthusiasts. #historynerdshq #historyfacts #factsyoudidntknow #ElizabethTaylor - @sunnyskies7777