Taylor celebrates 75th birthday

Dame Elizabeth is a two-time Academy Award winner

Hollywood legend Dame Elizabeth Taylor has celebrated her 75th birthday in Las Vegas with a New Orleans-themed party.

The actress arrived at the Ritz-Carlton Lake hotel escorted by her four grown-up children.

Wearing white fur and diamonds, Dame Elizabeth - who suffers from chronic back pain - arrived at the party in a wheelchair.

She told reporters that her secret to making it to 75 was "just living a very healthy, clean life."

About 70 party guests, including actress Debbie Reynolds, helped Dame Elizabeth celebrate her birthday.

"We've been friends since Elizabeth and I were 17, so that's just two years ago," joked Reynolds, who turns 75 herself in April.

'American star'

"Elizabeth Taylor is a great American star, a great American beauty just like Ava Gardner and Marilyn Monroe," she added.

Guests also included former Las Vegas headliners Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn of the illusionist duo Siegfried and Roy.

But pop singer Michael Jackson - a longtime friend of Dame Elizabeth who is thought to be staying in Las Vegas - did not attend the party.

London-born Dame Elizabeth first achieved stardom aged 12 in National Velvet. She went on to win Oscars for her roles in the 1960 film Butterfield 8, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Her last screen appearance was in the 2001 television movie These Old Broads, co-starring Reynolds.

In recent years Dame Elizabeth has been beset by a variety of health problems, including a hip replacement in 1995 and surgery to remove a brain tumour in 1997.

In a TV interview broadcast last year, Dame Elizabeth denied reports that she was gravely ill or being treated for Alzheimer's disease.

"Oh come on, do I look like I'm dying?," she said during the interview with CNN.