Sara Sothern, the Arkansas City actress who was Elizabeth Taylor’s mother
Born Sara Warmbrodt in Arkansas City, she acted on Broadway in the 1920s before retiring to raise a family.
By Wade Ellison
Elizabeth Taylor’s mother grew up in Arkansas City.
Sara Viola Warmbrodt was born there in 1895, the only daughter among six children. Four of her brothers died as infants.
As Sara Sothern, she made her film debut in “One of the Flames” in 1914, shot at the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch in northern Oklahoma. She reached Broadway in 1925 in “The Dagger,” followed the same year by “Arabesque” and “Fool’s Bells,” and appeared in “Mama Loves Papa” in 1926.
That year she married art dealer Francis Taylor in New York. She left the stage and never acted again. Their children were Howard Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor. Sothern died in 1994 at 99.