Eli G: Liz Taylor out-blings rap stars 50 years her junior

There was such a furore that Elizabeth Taylor even felt the need to appear on a U.S. chat show to insist that rumours of her imminent demise had been greatly exaggerated.

But as this picture illustrates, after turning 75 in February the veteran London-born actress has conjured up a whole new vigour for life.

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And if her carefree appearance here is anything to go by, her good humour clearly extends to her choice of clothes.

She stepped off a private jet after a trip to Hawaii looking more like Sacha Baron-Cohen's spoof rapper Ali G than a double-Oscar winning Dame Commander of the British Empire.

With an Ed Hardy cap – a designer favoured by hip hop stars some 50 years younger than she is – tinted sunglasses and enough gold chains and crucifixes to upstage singer 50 Cent, she was hardly recognisable.

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Perhaps the only thing giving her away was the careful walk as she was watched making her way down the jet's steps and on to the Tarmac by the crew and her aides.

In recent years the actress – who has been married eight times, twice to Richard Burton – has struggled with her health, coming close to death on more than one occasion and frequently using a wheelchair.

The star of such classic films as National Velvet, Cleopatra and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof has broken her back at least five times and had three bouts of pneumonia, one of which in 1961 required a tracheotomy and another in 1990 which nearly killed her.

She has been plagued by the bone disease osteoporosis, needing three hip replacement operations, and had surgery to remove a benign brain tumour the size of a golf ball.

She has suffered from anaemia, a crushed spinal disc, meningitis, a broken leg and had two stints at the Betty Ford clinic for her fondness for alcohol.

By all estimates, she has been in hospital at least 30 times during her lifetime.

Yet in the last year – when she has variously been pictured swimming with sharks and celebrating her 75th birthday swathed in white mink, satin and diamonds in Las Vegas – the actress just seems to have gone from strength to strength.

The secret of her recovery, according to those close to her, is that she finally threw away the cocktail of pills she had been taking.

They said the medicines were making her so drowsy and confused that it seemed to onlookers as though she must be nearing the end.

And if that is indeed the case, it certainly seems to be doing the trick.