The daughter Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton adopted has stayed out of the spotlight for years. Much of what’s published about her is wrong, so here is what actually checks out.
Maria Burton Carson is the adopted daughter of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and she has stayed almost entirely out of public life. She lives in Idaho, gives no interviews, and rarely appears in public. Even so, plenty has been written about her, and a lot of it does not hold up: the dates of her marriages, the name of her own son, even the day she was born.
Here is what holds up.
Table of Contents
Fact file
| Known for | Adopted daughter of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton |
| Born | 1961, Germany |
| Adoptive parents | Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton |
| Husbands | Steve Carson; Tom McKeown |
| Children | Eliza Carson (1982); Richard McKeown (2001) |
| Home | Idaho, United States |
Who is Maria Burton Carson?
She is the youngest of Elizabeth Taylor’s four children, and the only one Taylor adopted. Taylor began the adoption while married to her fourth husband, the singer Eddie Fisher. After that marriage ended and Taylor wed Welsh actor Richard Burton in 1964, Burton completed it, according to ABC News. Maria was born in Germany in 1961 and was about three when the adoption went through.
Her brothers and sister are Michael Wilding Jr, Christopher Wilding and Liza Todd, from Taylor’s earlier marriages.
Even her birth date is unsettled. Hello! magazine, drawing on the Taylor estate’s own material, gives a January 1961 date, while many websites state 1 August 1961. Only the year is firmly on the record.
A childhood shaped by surgery
Maria was born with a hip defect, and it was part of what drew Taylor to her.
“I want her all the more because she’s ill. Maybe I can do something to help.”
Those were Taylor’s words on first meeting the baby, recounted years later by Wales Online. Putting it right took years and nearly two dozen operations, ABC News and TODAY both report. As a young woman, Maria worked in modelling and fashion design, and she went on to run a talent agency with her first husband, Steve Carson. For a few years in the early 1980s she was a familiar face at New York parties and fashion shows, often photographed alongside her mother.
Her marriages, and where the accounts disagree
This is where most write-ups go wrong. Most say she and Carson were married for close to two decades, splitting around 2000. That does not fit the timeline.
Maria married Daniel “Steve” Carson in 1981, and their daughter, Eliza Carson, was born in 1982. The marriage had ended by the mid-1980s; Carson filed for custody in 1986, saying Maria had taken their young daughter to Taylor’s home in Los Angeles. A marriage lasting until 2000 leaves no room for what came next, since her second child was born in 2001.
That child was Richard McKeown, born in 2001 to Maria’s second husband, Tom McKeown. He is often called “Richard Carson” online, including by TODAY, which is the wrong surname.
The marriage to McKeown ended in 2004. According to a 2004 report in the Welsh newspaper Wales Online, Maria took out a restraining order against him and moved with their son to her mother’s home in California; she alleged verbal abuse, he said she was not “functioning as a mother”, and the court gave her custody. That single report is the source for most of what has circulated about the split since.
The most common errors, set against the record:
| Often repeated | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| A 19-year marriage to Steve Carson, ending in 2000 | The Carson marriage was over by the mid-1980s |
| Her son is “Richard Carson” | Her son is Richard McKeown, from her marriage to Tom McKeown |
| Born on 1 August 1961 | Only the year, 1961, is firmly documented |
| A fortune in the hundreds of millions | That figure is Taylor’s estate; Maria’s finances are private |
Where Maria Burton Carson is today
Maria has lived in Idaho for years, away from the public eye, and has been described as a clothing designer and philanthropist, per the Tampa Bay Times, via TODAY. One of her rare public outings came in March 2013, at the ceremony for her father’s posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Little has been reported about her since.
Her daughter has been easier to find. Eliza Carson, named after her grandmother, studied at New York University and has worked as a social worker in Manhattan. She is also an ambassador for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, which Taylor set up in 1991.
The other Maria Burton
One mix-up is worth clearing up. There is a second Maria Burton, an American film director behind titles such as Manna from Heaven and Good Eggs, who runs Five Sisters Productions with her own sisters. She has no connection to Elizabeth Taylor. If you have seen the name attached to a film career, that is her, not Taylor’s daughter.
Maria herself has stayed out of view, and that is part of why the errors have lasted. With no one to correct them, small mistakes like the wrong surname for her son keep getting repeated from one site to the next.
Common questions
Was Maria Burton Carson adopted?
Yes. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton adopted her as a baby and completed the process after their 1964 marriage.
How many children does she have?
Two: Eliza Carson, born in 1982, and Richard McKeown, born in 2001.
Where does she live now?
In Idaho, out of the public eye.
When did her parents die?
Richard Burton died on 5 August 1984. Elizabeth Taylor died on 23 March 2011.
