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Unlike other Hollywood screen legends who hole themselves up in their mansions, nibbling on Koo Koo Roo take-out and drawing up lists of things they mean to do before they shuffle off this mortal coil, Elizabeth Taylor actually gets the satisfaction of crossing some of those entries out:

Seemingly oblivious to her ever-deteriorating health, the wheelchair-bound star donned a mask and snorkel, and plunged feet first into the Pacific Ocean [off the coast of Hawaii] for a shark-viewing excursion.

Later describing the experience as the "most exciting thing" she has ever done, Miss Taylor allowed herself to be barricaded into a 10ft by 6ft Plexiglas cage which was lowered below surface level.

The violet-eyed legend has flirted with danger before—who can forget when she accidentally fell in with a cartel of unseemly, poker-playing diamond-smugglers. But with her recent feats of subaquatic daredevilism, Taylor has managed to stare down death in the eye with an audaciousness unseen since that weekend in August of 1993, when she forced Larry Fortensky to bring her to every Wendy's drive-thru in greater LA for a 48-hour, Big Classic-and-Frostie binge from which doctors said she has never fully recovered.