Elizabeth Taylor’s Ex Larry Fortensky Died In Isolation Amid Nasty Family Feud!
April 14 2017, Updated 1:56 p.m. ET
The family of Elizabeth Taylor’s last husband Larry Fortensky kept his death a secret for a shocking 10 months amid a bitter feud, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal.
The former construction worker, who was married to the screen icon for five years until 1996, lived out his sad last days in isolation with his sister, Donna, at their home in Menifee, California, after battling numerous health problems over the years.
He passed away on July 7 after being diagnosed with skin cancer, and allegedly refused to let her tell his sister Linda Untiet and his daughter Julie with ex-wife Priscilla Torres that he was seriously ill in the hospital.
A distraught Donna has now given an exclusive interview to RadarOnline.com, claiming Larry feared Linda and Julie used him for money and plotted to expose his deathbed photos — which is why he begged his confidante to keep the two far away in his final moments.
“He was in the hospital for two months,” Donna, 63, tearfully told RadarOnline.com. “It was supposed to be a surgery for skin cancer removal on his face, but he had a lot of complications. He didn’t make it.”
“He thought his daughter would try and take over his affairs. He told me to keep my mouth shut and I did. Now I’m the bad guy. They act like I killed him.”
“There’s hurt feelings toward me because they didn’t get to say goodbye, but it had nothing to do with me, it was Larry’s wishes.“
“He didn’t even want them to know he was in the hospital. Even when he got more and more sick I said, ‘Larry, do you want me to call your daughter?’ He said, ‘No, I mean it, I don’t want her here.’ He said he also didn’t want Linda anywhere near him because he was afraid she would get in there and take pictures of him and sell them.”
The onetime fit, handsome star was “deformed” before his shocking death at just 64.
“The surgery that he went through previously left his face deformed. He had several surgeries for skin cancer over the years, he had horrible skin, but he didn’t think he was going to die and neither did I. I thought he was going to come home,” Donna continued.
“This time when he went into hospital he also had respiratory problems, and it just went from there — another complication, another complication.”
“They kept saying there was hope, and then it would go. He had sepsis. It got into his blood and attacked his organs, after that he went pretty fast. Larry was not coherent. He was in a coma toward the end.”
“I miss him terribly, we laughed all the time. He was a good man. Elizabeth Taylor loved him.”
Elizabeth met Larry, her eighth husband, at the Betty Ford Center and they remained close even after their divorce. He was awarded more than $1 million in a divorce settlement, and later sent him more cash to get him through troubled times.
His last phone call with the Hollywood star was the day before she went into the hospital in February 2011. She died a month later, leaving him a huge sum of money in her will.
Larry’s war with Linda and Julie stems back to a 1999 accident which left him unable to work. He tumbled down a flight of stairs at his former home in San Juan Capistrano and ended up in a coma for six weeks.
He suffered short-term memory loss as a result of the incident, but Donna insisted he was capable of taking care of his own affairs.
He moved in with Donna and her live-in boyfriend Gary Miller after losing his house in Temecula, and the pair took care of him for years.
Larry died at a hospital in Fontana, San Bernadino County. The family confirmed he passed away on July 7, and was cremated on July 17.
“I’m not sure if he heard me, but my last words to him where, ‘I’m holding your hand now Larry, but I have to let it go and you have to take God’s hand. Go with God, Larry and see our mama and grandmother, we’re going to be okay,’” Donna said. “And now he’s with Elizabeth."
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