Lindsay Lohan channels Elizabeth Taylor in new biopic

"She was not only an incredible actress but an amazing woman as well. I am very honoured to have been asked to play this role."

The "Mean Girls" actress has been striving to turn around her bad girl image in recent months after being in and out of jail, rehab and court since 2007.

She was released in March from almost five years of formal probation stemming from a 2007 drunk driving and cocaine possession arrest.

She recently returned to TV sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" and landed a guest spot on Fox's hit TV musical comedy "Glee."

Taylor was as famous for her love life as her acting. There were no fewer than eight marriages - though only seven husbands, as she married Burton twice.

Butron and Taylor were first married between 1964 to 1974, after they began an affair while both married to other people.

They married again in 1975, but their second union only lasted a year, and they divorced again in 1976.

She was born Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor on February 27 1932 in London.

Her mother had been an actress before her marriage under the stage name Sara Sothern, while her father, who had been born in Kansas, had come to England as a buyer for his uncle, a successful St Louis art dealer.

Welsh-born actor Burton died of a brain haemorrhage in 1984, aged just 58. Taylor died on March 23 last year aged 79. She had made more than 50 films and won two Oscars.