Arguably the most famous superstar of Hollywood’s golden era, Elizabeth Taylor fascinated a world from the time she was 10 years old with her magnetic beauty and vivid violet eyes.

It wasn’t just her screen siren good looks or her impressive acting chops that made her one of the world’s famous faces, it was the many men that she attracted, ensnared and eventually dumped that made for obsessive tabloid fodder.

“I can choose any man I like,” Elizabeth was reported as boasting to a friend, according to biographer William J. Mann. “I don’t see why everyone is making such a fuss.”

Mann shows what the fuss was all about. He starts with the first man in her life, her father Frances, who was “discreetly homosexual, pursuing a clandestine affair with the art collector Kurt Stempler.”

From there, Mann follows Elizabeth’s soaring career — and equally engaging sex life — in chronological order from the 1950s to the 1980s, from the words of her lovers, close friends and Taylor herself.

First Husband, Hotelier Conrad Hilton

Taylor wedded millionaire Conrad Nicholson Hilton, a.k.a. “Nicky,” the great-uncle of Paris and Nicky Hilton, when she was just 18 years old in 1950.

But the wedding was based more on giving Taylor an image of stability than for love. Taylor would later admit to crossing her fingers during the nuptials. The couple was a match made in heaven on paper, but behind closed doors, things turned nasty really quickly for the Hiltons.

Nicky was cheating, gambling and hitting Taylor. Once, he struck her so hard that she had a miscarriage.

“Nick kind of got sick of beating the s – – – out of me,” Elizabeth admitted years later. One year after they wed, Taylor filed for divorce. “Divorcing Nick was the first grown-up decision I ever made absolutely alone.”

Second Husband, British Actor Michael Wilding

One divorce down, Taylor, only 19, met, and proposed to, the much-older (at 39) Wilding.

Taylor wore the pants in the relationship — a fact that would later lead to their breakup. To make matters worse, the prevailing rumor around the Hollywood world was that Wilding was secretly gay.

Though she bore two children with him, it remained mostly a sexless marriage. Husband and wife, Taylor later revealed, lived more like “brother and sister.”

Taylor would try to incite Wilding with no results. One night, while he was reading the newspaper, she snatched it from him and exclaimed, “So much for you and your stupid games! Go on hit me, why don’t you?” When he refused she groaned, “If only you would. That would prove you are flesh and blood instead of a stuffed dummy.”

The divorced after five years in 1957.

Third Husband, Producer Mike Todd

Taylor finally found the strength she was looking for in the manly and risk-taking Mike Todd, producer of “Around the World in 80 Days.” Though he was twice her age, she found her equal in Todd, according to the book.

“I loved it when he would lose his temper and dominate me,” Elizabeth said about Todd. “I would start to purr because he had won.”

Actress Debbie Reynolds experienced their volatile relationship first hand: “[Mike] really hit her,” Reynolds said. “Elizabeth screamed [and] walloped him right back . . . He dragged her by her hair — while she was kicking and screaming at him.”

Only a little over a year of marriage in 1958 their passionate relationship met a violent end.

Todd’s plane, which he called Liz, crashed in New Mexico. He died on impact.

Taylor was devastated by the loss. For three days she vomited everything she tried to eat. “She grieved for Todd with as much passion as she loved him,” a friend attested.

Fourth Husband, Croner Eddie Fisher

Despite the harrowing loss, it took only a handful of months for Taylor to hit the sack with her new paramour, Fisher, who was married at the time to actress Debbie Reynolds. The world was horrified by the affair and quickly took Reynolds side.

It was pure animal magnetism that drew these two together. “Simply put, Eddie was great in bed,” said one friend of Elizabeth’s friends. “I don’t think the sex with Todd was ever all that fantastic, since he was much older, and then suddenly, wow! Eddie comes along, and she can’t get enough.”

Fisher told Mann that Taylor “loved being sexual” and she had “the face of an angel and the morals of a truck driver.”

Yet, this wasn’t enough for the insatiable Taylor. Three months after her wedding to Fisher, Taylor was reportedly in the arms of two other men, director Joseph Mankiewicz (of “All About Eve” and “Guys and Dolls”) and political columnist Max Lerner. While the tabloids hit Taylor hard for the affair, it was Fisher who took the most heat. He lost jobs and his singing career sank, but he was happy — he was with Elizabeth Taylor. She didn’t share the same sentiment.

Fifth & Sixth Husband, Richard Burton

Burton was unimpressed when he first met Taylor, referring to her as “Miss Tits.” But it didn’t take long for him to fall head over heels for the leading lady. They started an affair while Taylor was married to Fisher and Burton was still wed to Sybil Williams.

When Fisher found out about the affair, he approached Sybil, who forced Burton to put an end to it. Burton broke the news to Taylor, who was inconsolable. On the night of Saturday, Feb. 17, 1961, Taylor swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and was found passed out cold. She was quickly rushed to the hospital and resuscitated — and when she returned home, she started up the affair with Burton again, who became her fifth husband shortly after.

Fisher followed suit in March of the same year, and downed vodka with sleeping pills — echoing his soon-to-be ex-wife’s suicide attempt.

Burton and Taylor did a few feature films together — culminating with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” where it was increasingly evident that there were fractures in the “perfect couple’s relationship.” Burton was abusive when he was drunk — which was often — and Taylor acted like a child. They divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975 and divorced again in 1976.

There are, of course, two more husbands — politician John Warner and construction worker Larry Fortensky — and, who knows? Though Taylor was supposedly on suicide watch after her beloved friend Michael Jackson passed away this summer, there’s still passion left in Cleopatra. Could a ninth wedding be in her future?

How to Be a Movie Star

Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood

by William J. Mann

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt