Elizabeth Taylor embarks on a Great White shark expedition

She has been married eight times - so it can safely be assumed she has tangled with her fair share of predators in her time.

With that in mind, Elizabeth Taylor's most recent excursion - despite her years and frail health - might not have proved such a problem for her.

In what appeared to be an extraordinary new bid to prove her vitality after a slew of reports about her ill-health, Miss Taylor booked herself onto a great white shark expedition.

Seemingly oblivious to her ever-deteriorating health, the 74-year-old wheelchair-bound actress enjoyed a two hour, six mile round trip, on a specialist shark-viewing boat off Hawaii.

Never a stickler for convention, the Cleopatra actoress decided not to dress up for the occasion. Instead, she sported a kaftan-style nightdress over navy blue slipper socks.

Evidently going for comfort over style, she also decided against any make-up, instead opting for the bare faced look.

After emerging from her chauffeur-driven car, with the help of two aides - and her pet Maltese dog, Daisy - she made slow and painful progress to her boat for the day, the Kainani.

Winched up and out of her cumbersome black wheelchair, she clambered onto the deck of the 32-foot long chartered vessel. Chatting to friends, she looked happy and relaxed as the boat set sail, heading towards the nearby shark grounds.

Of course being a Dame - and a double Oscar winner - does grant an ageing actress certain privileges.

So, rather than donning the obligatory bikini, mask and snorkel, and plunging into the ocean herself, she left this part of the £52 trip to other members of her crew.

From the comfort of an open-air deck, where various soft drinks and snacks were being served, she watched her companions lower themselves into the 10ft by 6ft Plexiglas cage to view, nose to nose, an array of Galapagos and Sandbar sharks.

Miss Taylor's exciting excursion took place in North Oahu in Hawaii where she is currently holidaying.

It is a rare trip abroad for the Dame. For the past few years she has remained a reclusive figure, plagued with ill health, and largely holed up in her Hollywood mansion.

As well as incurable congestive heart failure, near-fatal viral pneumonia and osteoporosis, she has had three hip replacements and a life-saving operation in 1997 to remove a benign brain tumour. The combination of drugs used to treat the actress has left her bloated and often drowsy and confused, prompting tabloid speculation that was suffering with Alzheimer's and on her deathbed.
But in her first screen appearance for three years, she went on American chat show Larry King Live to dispel the rumours.

"If they want to hear that I'm dead, well sorry folks, I'm not," she declared. "And I don't plan on it either. I don't even think about it. Do I look like I'm dying? Do I look like or sound like I've got Alzheimer's?

"I think they are trying to sell magazines and the only way they can do it is by being dirty. They've never sold those dirty magazines with clean stories.

"They have nothing else dirty to write about anybody else that's all I can think of.

"Some audience out there, and don't ask me who they are, but there are millions, they like scandal, they like filth."