Sara Sothern

Sara Sothern, born Sara Viola Warmbrodt on August 21, 1895, in Arkansas City, Kansas, was an American stage actress and the mother of film star Elizabeth Taylor. She was the third child and only daughter among the six children of Elizabeth Ann (née Wilson) and Samuel Sylvester Warmbrodt, whose own father had emigrated from Switzerland. Of her five brothers — Elmer S., Harold, Wilson Mantor, Harry Vincent, and Calvin S. Warmbrodt — four died in infancy.

Sothern began her screen career with a film appearance in One of the Flames (1914), shot at the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch in northern Oklahoma. She went on to work as a stage actress across the United States, including at theatre venues in downtown Los Angeles, before making her Broadway debut in The Dagger in 1925. That same year she appeared in two additional Broadway productions, Arabesque and Fool's Bells. Her Broadway work continued into 1926 with Mama Loves Papa, and her verified stage credits also include the production The Dear Fool.

In 1926, Sothern married art dealer Francis Lenn Taylor in New York City. Following her marriage, she retired from the stage permanently. The couple lived in England for several years, where their two children were born: son Howard Taylor, born June 27, 1929, who died August 31, 2020, and daughter Elizabeth Taylor, born in 1932, who died in 2011. After returning to the United States and settling in Los Angeles, California, Sothern devoted herself to her family and to supporting Elizabeth Taylor's film career.

Sothern died on September 11, 1994, in Palm Springs, California, less than a month after her 99th birthday. She is interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles.